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Comment by georgewsinger | Hacker News Reader

This reminds me of Peter Thiel's point that the engineering proposals of the past were more frequently ambitious (and also taken more seriously) than they are today.

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That's just what I was thinking. I was reminded that when watching a commercial for a company that solved the earth shattering problem of getting contact lenses. So many companies doing such trivial (well maybe not trivial but not hugely consequential) things. We've experienced a communications revolution but we are missing some of the cool things we thought we'd see back in the 50s. I think that's why Musk and company are so beloved. We are dying for someone to do something big!

We can't get any major engineering projects done in the West anymore because any idea will be held up indefinitely by the need to deliver thousands of pages of environmental assessments, archaeological reports, traffic impact reports, fish habitat studies, soil and erosion studies, pollution and economic impact reports. Plus the hundreds of permits required, mandatory consulting with native tribes, town hall meetings and public comment periods. And then you'll be sued by everyone, so you can't so much as pick up a shovel until each of the lawsuits and appeals have run their course...

Meanwhile, if China wants a city in that spot right there, they go and build a city right there.

So we should all be more like China with regards to our consideration of environmental issues, the rights of indigenous people, pollution, etc etc?

And also with regards to the democratic nature of our decision making?

The problem (if you want to call it that) with democracy is that it reflects societal problems at the government level.

I think that's actually a feature, not a problem. A representative government will be, well, representative, of the people who elected it into power. The various social currents in beliefs and morals will find an expression in the persons of elected leaders.

What is really a problem, I think, is the lack of responsible and well-informed citizens as well as competent and altruistic leaders. This seems to be the case in modern, western-type democracies: we vote incompetent idiots in power, because there's no good alternatives and we wouldn't know one if it hit us in the head with a bundle of fasces.

The idea that you can replace responsible citizens and competent leaders with a ruling elite of (more or less) enlightened individuals given catholic powers for life is an idea at least as long as democracy itself (possibly discoursed over even earlier than Plato's The Republic). Personally, I'm not sympathetic to it.

There are other altneratives. Many of my friends and some intellectuals I love to listen to facour anarchy, but I dont' think that sort of thing really works for any length of time.

And, if we could solve the big problem of how to govern ourselves, we would probably soon afterwards find solutions to the bigger problems that confront us as a species: climate change, nuclear proliferation, poverty etc.

I think what you said is actually an excellent argument against a major feature of modern liberalism: namely, seeking to fix society’s problems (and not problems caused by government’s failure to do it’s own job) with government-based solutions.

If the government will necessarily reflect societal problems, how can it hope to be the solution to them? To think it could do so without ceasing to be a true democracy invokes a paradox of sorts.

In other words, your vote can only go so far. If you want to make an even bigger difference, go love your neighbor as yourself also.

> The idea that you can replace responsible citizens and competent leaders with a ruling elite of (more or less) enlightened individuals given catholic powers for life is an idea at least as long as democracy itself (possibly discoursed over even earlier than Plato's The Republic). Personally, I'm not sympathetic to it.

Isn't this just royalty, and the concept of noblesse oblige? One of the very things that the United States was formed as an antithesis to?

Only if you conveniently ignore the word "enlightened," which also happens to be the most important word there.

More like a meritocratic oligarchy?

You think the monarchs and nobility didn't think they were enlightened?

Or do you just mean enlightened by your standards?

I did say "a ruling elite of (more or less) enlightened individuals" :)

> mandatory consulting with native tribes, town hall meetings and public comment periods

Isn't that a good thing? Don't we want to consult with local people before starting a huge project that'll impact their lives?

You are missing the forest for the trees. You've described <i>how</i> such a project would be held up, not <i>why</i>. As a society, we here in the United States (and very broadly speaking, The West) have made the decision that such mega projects are seldom, if ever, worth doing.

You may agree or not (I'm conflicted myself), but at least see clearly. The situation isn't going to change unless society's mind changes.

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