Hard pass, I'll take a social contract defined through democracy every time.
Founders and investors, in particular, are uniquely unqualified to evolve the social contract because they have overwhelming financial interests.
Also:
> The rich get really rich, and the poor get poorer by comparison. Unfortunately, this has always been true. It is not an artifact of modern economics.
This is not true as far as I know. There have been times in recent history between the early ~1900 and ~1970 where the income gap decreased and worker protection increased. It was a time of stronger worker movements, unions, emancipation and policy aimed at the larger demographics of the public. The 70's mark a shift towards neo-liberal ideology in the western world.
The article is riddled with dystopian suggestions. There are some things I can agree with. For example I very much agree with the importance of workplace transparency. And there is also an underlying tone of empathy with the unfortunate, but it comes off as patronizing.
I think the biggest fallacy is to think that our societies are becoming more meritocratic almost by default (as assessed in the article). Ignoring whether that is a good thing or not, I doubt this is true at all or if it even can be measured objectively.
A lot of the things you mentioned only developed during the time when there was (or seemed to be) a compelling competing ideology.
Communism/socialism was seen as a potential alternative to capitalism during that time, and I think that the competition of ideas during that time led to more benefits for the lower end of the economic ladder.
Communism/socialism was seen as a potential alternative to capitalism during that time, and I think that the competition of ideas during that time led to more benefits for the lower end of the economic ladder.
Yes. I've made that point before, but it's not a mainstream position.
Many of the problems we have with capitalism come from capitalism being a monopoly, and acting like one.
Here's anti-communism PR from the 1949-1955 on the distribution of wealth. Back then, capitalism had to be sold in a competitive market.[1][2]
That part doesn't even make any logical sense because there is nothing in economics that requires growing inequality. It's usually political power structures that need growing inequality. I would go one step further and say that growing inequality is bad for economic growth and has often ended in a revolution.
When you say democracy, are you referring to democracy the abstract philosophy, or the specific concrete implementation of "democracy" that we currently operate under?
Would you be open to considering a third option: a complete re-implementation of democracy from the ground up?
> Founders and investors, in particular, are uniquely unqualified to evolve the social contract because they have overwhelming financial interests.
Similarly, are are you referring to founders and investors in the abstract sense (a general methodology for organizing and funding the implementing ideas), or the specific types of founders and investors that have risen to the top, under our current implementations of democracy, economics, etc?
Would you be open to considering an alternative approach: a new kind of founding and funding of the implementation of an idea, one that is deliberately designed from day one to avoid the shortcomings we see today, as well as be ever watchful for the emergence of novel new shortcomings that may emerge?
Both. At a philosophical level, democracy is a just (while imperfect) method for long-term decision making of a large system of humans. Nothing else comes close.
Concretely, our democracy has a lot of flaws but hasn't been awful enough to degrade into totalitarianism in many many years, so I'd say it's doing its job. It's even amenable to upgrades, if with difficulty from the enormous consensus required.
> Would you be open to considering a third option: a complete re-implementation of democracy from the ground up?
In the abstract, yes, poking at our poorly-architected democratic machine is one of my favorite hobbies.
In reality, there's significant risk of destabilization that comes with re-architecting a political system, so it's hard to say.
> Similarly, are are you referring to founders and investors in the abstract sense (a general methodology for organizing and funding the implementing ideas), or the specific types of founders and investors that have risen to the top, under our current implementations of democracy, economics, etc?
Specifically founders and funders as they exist in our economy under our current sociopolitical system (hence: they have competing interests in making society better vs owning a company that isn't bankrupt and returns value to shareholders)
> Would you be open to considering an alternative approach: a new kind of founding and funding of the implementation of an idea, one that is deliberately designed from day one to avoid the shortcomings we see today, as well as be ever watchful for the emergence of novel new shortcomings that may emerge?
I'm not sure what that means. Governments have a monopoly on force, so you must have system A or B but not both. Funding/founding is decentralized, so you may have both systems A and B, and the dominant system over time tends to be the one that makes the most money.
So am I open to an alternative founding/funding approach? Sure. Do I think it's going to improve the social contract in a world of ruthless capitalism? No.
At the abstract philosophical level, democracy doesn't dictate specific implementations, does it? And if it does, who enforces these dictates?
> Concretely, our democracy has a lot of flaws but hasn't been awful enough to degrade into totalitarianism in many many years, so I'd say it's doing its job.
If "not degrading into totalitarianism in many many years" is the standard/goal, but I'd rather we aim a bit higher than that.
> It's even amenable to upgrades, if with difficulty from the enormous consensus required.
In abstract theory - whether our concrete implementation is upgradeable in fact is unknown.
> Nothing else comes close.
Nothing else that we've tried, within recorded history up to the present , under a disorganized, poorly understood, multivariate environment. How many things have we tried? How many minds are working on the idea?
There was a time where nothing came close to the horse and buggy, but then something did.
There was a time when broad humanity was not very good at reading, writing, or even thinking in general, but then they became better.
> In reality, there's significant risk of destabilization that comes with re-architecting a political system
Only if you choose to physically roll out the new design (well, it may be a bit more complex)...but even if you do, there is a wide variety of options for how you might roll it out. It seems within the range of possibilities that if a clearly superior design/implementation existed (or was even under serious discussion), and the public had adequate knowledge of the details/philosophy of it, it would exert a kind of psychological force on the current system...kind of like when a business ups its game in response to a new rival showing up on the scene, as well as the effect that has on consumer perceptions, preferences, and demands.
> so it's hard to say
It is indeed...but with the internet, we can (well, we have the technical ability to at least) start a broad discussion on the topic, which may start shedding some light on the question (depending on the quality, format, etc of that discussion). Perhaps the new system itself could even be used to facilitate a high quality discussion, which would also provide some beta testing feedback.
> Specifically founders and funders as they exist in our economy under our current sociopolitical system (hence: they have competing interests in making society better vs owning a company that isn't bankrupt and returns value to shareholders)
> I'm not sure what that means.
Perhaps some innovation is needed here as well (with respect to this project at least).
> Governments have a monopoly on force
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_ownership
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/transformation/how-did-gand...
> so you must have system A or B but not both.
Maybe, maybe not, I've heard many such predictions over the years during system refactoring. If it is not an immutable physical law of nature, and we are discussing what is possible in the future, I am skeptical of claims that things cannot be done.
> Funding/founding is decentralized, so you may have both systems A and B, and the dominant system over time tends to be the one that makes the most money.
Key word: tends.
Implicit: under the current system (for a given, fairly arbitrary set of variables).
> So am I open to an alternative founding/funding approach? Sure. Do I think it's going to improve the social contract in a world of ruthless capitalism? No.
If only there was a way to change the world. What does history have to say on that?
They are the least competent group to be given power to shape any societal rules and contracts or to define how the humanity should look like.
So a purely random selection would seem like an improvement at this point.
Just as politicians may not be experts in the specific areas that they legislate on, the members of this second chamber would have the right to ask for input from specialists. This could be seen as an extension of the right that juries have in some states to ask questions of expert witnesses.
Even if, in practice, the second chamber end up mostly listening to advisers (or lobbyists) provided by the existing political parties, they would at least have to hear a variety of opinions, let's say in proportion to the partisan leanings of that chamber. This would eliminate gerrymandering and other problems like campaign financing.
The deliberative structure used is based on research into group decision-making, and is usually some form of system where people split into small discussion groups that engage in structured discussion, then present something to the broader group, then discuss again, then shuffle into different groups and repeat the process.
The fact that people are self-interested also doesn't pose a problem, so long as the sample is large enough. You probably want at least 100 for good measure, depending on the population being represented. Because it's a representative random sample (ideally it's not fully random, but weighted to represent population demographics), you get a broad slice of the population and therefore many competing interests. An individual may wish to further their own interests, but this would conflict with the interests of everyone else. Overall, the group's incentive is to do a good job, because they live in society and their decisions will affect them.
This argument is being taken as a Gospel. Seems to be a work of people who gave us the Stanford Torture Experiment. Given 50% of the so called psych studies are not reproducible. Basing foundational changes on this kind, fast-food pop psy is not a great idea.
We have wisdom of thousands of years in the classics and religious texts, I would rely on them.
There may be some people that misunderstand science, or who try to apply it outside of the regime where it is appropriate, and that is an issue (science can never answer the question: is an action moral, for instance).
But the institution of science is as far from religion as it can get. Religion asks you to believe things because an individual or a book tells you that it is so, and rewards those who take those statements on faith. Science, on the other hand, asks you to test a statement, to use the scientific method to attempt to falsify hypotheses, and through an interactive and iterative process improve your understanding of the phenomena in question.
That difference is why science has taught us more about the world in the last 400 years than religion has in 4000. Hell, science taught us more about the world in the last year than religion has since cavemen were drawing the sun on cave walls.
That’s not to say religion is useless or necessarily negative. It can be, just like any other institution. And frankly, there is just not that much overlap between the realms of religion and science. Science does not attempt to answer questions about the existence of god, or the morality of actions.
The issue is when religious people or organizations attempt to use their religion to answer questions about the physical world. That’s when science is needed.
> "Classics and Religious texts ... I will take my chances with imperfect science"
In fact, you directly disagree with one of the reasons you gave for "believing" in science:
> "science can never answer the question: is an action moral, for instance"
> "[religion said] stoning is an appropriate punishment for premarital sex"
Learn the distinction between knowledge and wisdom before lecturing about science.
Most important emotion the OP has to contend with jealousy. I myself am a bowl of mediocrity but I do not label every other success or successful person as a sociopath using garbage science.
Makes me think of Gwyneth Paltrow doing the food stamp challenge but ending up buying shit no person on food stamps would purchase.
You can't have a functioning democracy when you have militant organizations suppressing candidates who dare challenge the status quo.