Comment by ChrisNorstrom | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ChrisNorstrom | Hacker News Reader

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And so we have come to realize that soon, very soon, we will have to pioneer another form of government. We humans have had kings and queens, dictatorships, anarchy, communism, socialism, republics, democracies, and now it's time to move on to the next one.

A few years ago when I was a young teenager who believed in the good of the world and the wisdom of people I would have thought the next government would naturally be more democratic than the last, taking more power away from individuals (who's human flaw is greed and control) and giving it to the masses (who's human flaw is stupidity and not knowing what to do with power in the first place). But after a few years of studying history, voting, reading, I've changed my mind. Democracy will never work because it can only work if EVERYONE is educated enough and by default humans are notoriously stupid and unaware of their own stupidity. We are also delusional greedy and evil by nature so dictatorships also do not work out for us.

I can't help but feel that the problem is us. Our human way of thinking is just too primitive. We have to constantly look for ways to prevent "us" from fucking everything up. This is why I await the zombie apocalypse with a smile. At least the zombies can work together to reach a common goal and the world will be a much more peaceful place after their rise to power.

Democracy can only work if EVERYONE is educated enough and by default humans are notoriously stupid and unaware of their own stupidity.

The human brain cannot decide on multiple complex issue, each requiring a PhD to understand, at once. This is not possible, not until we can begin enhancing human cognition.

Instead, we work around that limitation by specialization. This is how we advance our civilization anyway. We do not depend on one scientist, one genius. Rather, we build our civilization on the back of many genius and many supporting roles. Human beings doesn't have to know everything about making cars, making computers, etc. Somebody make the computer, I write a very specific application for it. Somebody else wrote the code so that I don't have to, etc.

Democracy doesn't take advantage of humans' knowledge specialties. Instead, we decide everything by popularity, tribalism, and other nonsense that doesn't predict expertise and wise decision-making.

Democracy will never work because it can only work if EVERYONE is educated enough and by default humans are notoriously stupid and unaware of their own stupidity.

In this case, I would not call it stupidity - I would call it inherent, (very human) instinctual biases and tendencies in dealing with contradictory thoughts in your mind.

Or what most of us understand as cognitive dissonance.

I would imagine this tendency probably arose from as a result of natural selection ranking flight or fight instincts very highly. Those who were not able to ignore or rationalize away what made them feel uncomfortable [which cognitive dissonance invokes in us] probably ended up dead very quickly out on the savanna while hunting or gathering.

However, on a personal note, I am actually very optimistic as more and more people become aware of our inherent human limitations, we can grow and become better individuals and create better social constructs to overcome our group tendencies.

Unfortunately, it would probably take a long time. Probably not in our generation.

Democracy will never work because it can only work if EVERYONE is educated enough and by default humans are notoriously stupid and unaware of their own stupidity.

And here is what thinking like that gets us:

http://www.archive.org/details/nazi_concentration_camps

Democracy will never work because it can only work if EVERYONE is educated enough and by default humans are notoriously stupid and unaware of their own stupidity. We are also delusional greedy and evil by nature so dictatorships also do not work out for us.

See, for most people, this is a surrender. "Give up!" they say, "The world can never get better!"

To me, though, it's a challenge. I'm a hacker and an entrepreneur and "impossible" means "interesting".

I'm confident that we'll implement "brain uploading" in the next 200 years, and this greatly opens up the upper limits of knowledge. Humans are very I/O bound, but a few of my friends have been trying out a thing where we both talk at once, since we can talk and listen at the same time. Other interesting ideas to hacking communication: add "metadata" by using hand signals during verbal communication, combine the most efficient aspects of different languages to "compress" conversation, etc.

I'm a hacker and an entrepreneur...

Exactly. Our inability to accurately evaluate people extends to ourselves.

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