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Comment by whatshisface | Hacker News Reader

One major theme running through this article is the idea that smart people should know what's good for us, and organize society so that we get it. I've never understood how they are expected to actually do this: wouldn't they always prefer to figure out what's good for themselves and then organize society so that they get that?

Try as we might to find a good crowbar to pry democracy off of our representative governments, we can't forget that the "will of the people," however misguided it might be, is the only thing that reliably includes not ruining them as a priority!

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The more educated the populace in general, the more they can recognize being hoodwinked into supporting things that are detrimental to their interests instead of being lead around by emotional pandering. Education is not a monolith, though. Such insight requires a specific form of education that challenges, inspires original thought, and isn't just a fancy vocational school or daycare with busy work.

Even education has its dangers. It can be co-opted into the process of hoodwinking: something that actually works better when it's not focused on job training. (A true vocational education wouldn't help people become more sophisticated, but it wouldn't twist them around either.)

I don't think you're arguing against education, but it kind of sounds like you are, which explains the downvotes.

I think your general point is correct though. We should be careful who we let set our curriculums and try to ride a reasonable line between ideology and hard data.

I don't see how anybody could argue for or against education, at least when you zoom out far enough that you're also considering "education" in oppressive countries. Education isn't a commodity like baked beans or pipe, and you can't just order up more or less.

That's why I mentioned a specific form that is needed. Education is treated like a commodity currently (speaking about the U.S.) even if that doesn't make a lot of sense. Teachers are paid to pour facts into kids' heads, which they promptly regurgitate for tests. Perhaps some of the accelerated classes will approach exercises in independent thought, but it's really not the focus of primary education. College has traditionally been a place where broader "learning how to learn" and critical, methodical inquiry was taught, but that has become less so because of the focus on preparing for careers, overemphasis on STEM but not the philosophies that created it, and of course the massive financial burden. People complain a lot about useless degrees, but one of the original purposes of a liberal Western education was to provide a lot of context, examine the "shoulders of giants" that current knowledge rests upon, and learn about all of the big questions that have already been asked instead of re-asking them and inventing the same new fads and tragedies each generation. Basically, we emphasize the "what" and "how" and neglect the "why". The "why" is dangerous to existing power structures. So, even college educated people often neglect to ask "why" at their own assumptions (after all, they went to college and know better!), or they're too busy drowning in debt to care . Public education has been largely based on an industrial model, like a factory. An assembly line stamping correct facts and behavior into minds. It's become dysfunctional even in doing that due to a number of factors.

>the "will of the people," however misguided it might be, is the only thing that reliably includes not ruining them as a priority!

What about a Tragedy of the Commons scenario?

The will of a person is different from the will of all the people averaged together. Even in a society of completely amoral people, each person will think that nobody else should ruin the commons. If you put littering to a vote, you'd have one yes and three hundred million "no"s - everybody would want to stop other people's crimes, and that would be enough. The situation only gets better if anybody is principled.

Tinpot dictators ravage their land in pursuit of resources to sell to richer nations all the time. The elites aren't going to be more principled than the proles - if you're nasty and educated that just makes you better at being nasty.

> One major theme running through this article is the idea that smart people should know what's good for us, and organize society so that we get it. I've never understood how they are expected to actually do this: wouldn't they always prefer to figure out what's good for themselves and then organize society so that they get that?

Being smart is necessary, but not sufficient. A sense of duty is also needed.

Even that isn't enough. The fatal problem of central planning is always that nobody has enough information to make it actually work. Even very honest, very smart people only can know what they think would be best for either some crude average of people, or some small sample of specific people.

And we don't have any angels to do the job. All we have are human beings. They are sometimes selfish, and sometimes foolish. Sometimes they find it easy to take "what's good for me" and think it's "what's good for everybody" - even if they have the best of intentions. And sometimes they don't have the best of intentions, but use "good for everybody" as a smokescreen for their own selfish desires.

My perception is that unlike in the past, a huge percentage of the population in modern Western democracies believe things that most everyone used to consider matters of opinion, are now considered matters of fact and should not even be subject to a public debate.

Canada is currently going through this on the topic of immigration - we are starting to experience significant issues with housing costs and economic inequality (both are directly affected my immigration to a degree), but many people considering any opinion not consistent with the status quo to be literally racist. And unsurprisingly, you rarely can find one that will defend their beliefs, at best you will just get general dishonesty and never ending changing of the subject.

I think this new culture is going to have some very serious negative long term effects.

EDIT: Out of curiosity, which part are people disagreeing with here? That political views are more polarized? The inflationary housing prices claim? Inflationary housing prices not being reflected at all in CPI? Whether immigration has an effect at all on wages or real estate prices? That the word racist is commonly used to quash dissent (heck, even our mayor is on record doing it)? That people won't defend these racist charges? That any of this has changed? That these changes, assuming it is true, will have an effect?

I didn't downvote you, but maybe those who did think it's not relevant to the conversation, and/or that it may provoke a flamewar.

I thought it was off-topic to my statement, but not completely irrelevant to the topic of "intellectual decline". And, while it might provoke a flamewar, it was not stated in a flame-bait fashion.

I wonder if this isn't just downvote-to-disagree by people who won't "defend their beliefs". (And thereby proving mistermann's point - ironic, that.)

downvote-to-disagree is (or was) explicitly ok according to HN guidelines, so that's why I asked WHY the downvoters disagree. Are the things I wrote not factual (interestingly, this is the inverse of my above complaint...former matters of opinion are now considered matter of fact, but also things that were previously objectively factual are now "considered" matters of opinion)? I've been scolded for not being agreeable, should people who downvote facts not also get a talking to?

As for whether it might start a flame war....well, that is my ongoing concern, that free speech, or more specifically certain opinions are no longer tolerated, or even more specifically, you can say something (unacceptable) once, but if someone disagrees with you, any reply is considered "argumentative" or "not appropriate behavior".

Perhaps I'm completely wrong on some of my beliefs. Personally, I enthusiastically encourage people to disagree with me or challenge my ideas, it wasn't so long ago that this was considered admirable for a variety of very good reasons. When people start believing their ideas are beyond challenge, to me that seems like the sort of thing that's dangerous.

I was with you on that first paragraph, then you had to bring in the "will of the people."

Democracy simply replaces "smart people" with "a majority of voters," which is almost always a minority of the population. So instead of the ruling elites determining what's best for everyone, now you have a larger group of people -- still a minority -- determining what's good for themselves and foisting it upon everyone else.

That's not fair. Everyone had the option of voting so nothing is forced on anyone. If you don't like what the people who actually voted picked, then try voting next time.

Everyone had the option of voting so nothing is forced on anyone

I don't follow. Forcing things on a set of people who wanted something else is exactly how it works, and will still work that way with 100% participation in the vote. When two wolves vote to eat the lamb for dinner, the lamb having voted not to be dinner doesn't make it any less forced on the lamb.

Surely a larger group of people (even if still a minority) is still better than a smaller group of people?

(The above assumes that there are only those two options, of course. Are there any other options?)

>Plato's Socrates compares the population at large to a strong but nearsighted shipowner whose knowledge of seafaring is lacking. The quarreling sailors are demagogues and politicians, and the ship's navigator, a stargazer, is the philosopher. The sailors flatter themselves with claims to knowledge of sailing, though they know nothing of navigation, and are constantly vying with one another for the approval of the shipowner so to captain the ship, going so far as to stupefy the shipowner with drugs and wine. Meanwhile, they dismiss the navigator as a useless stargazer, though he is the only one with adequate knowledge to direct the ship's course.

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