What is your understanding on whether decision makers and the general public are more in favour of a political system which implies certain nice values (democracy implies all should have a political voice and can meaningfully contribute to policy discussions) versus being open to one that might limit participation in favour of efficacy?
I’m particularly curious as to whether you believe people are becoming more open to the latter in the context of technological developments and increasing complexity of prominent public policy issues which means that the layperson (myself include) is becoming less able to deeply understand and contribute to a wide variety of policy debates
My favorite book on human nature is The Elephant in the Brain by Simler and Hanson. I think they provide overwhelming evidence that people are mostly motivated by ignoble, self-centered motives. This explains why institutions are so dysfunctional or inefficient: Politics is not about policy, charity is not about helping, medicine is not about healing, education is not about learning. Once you read their book and see their evidence, you realize that people will generally do what sounds nice rather than what works. And this stuff is independent of, say, the political irrationality literature which says voters reason badly because politics is a commons.
The odd thing I find is that people are democratic but technocratic, while I am epistocratic but anti-technocratic. Like they want equal voting rights, but then concentrate power in the hands of bureaucrats with perverse incentives, while I want enlightened preference voting but unconcentrated power.
What is your understanding on whether decision makers and the general public are more in favour of a political system which implies certain nice values (democracy implies all should have a political voice and can meaningfully contribute to policy discussions) versus being open to one that might limit participation in favour of efficacy?
I’m particularly curious as to whether you believe people are becoming more open to the latter in the context of technological developments and increasing complexity of prominent public policy issues which means that the layperson (myself include) is becoming less able to deeply understand and contribute to a wide variety of policy debates
My favorite book on human nature is The Elephant in the Brain by Simler and Hanson. I think they provide overwhelming evidence that people are mostly motivated by ignoble, self-centered motives. This explains why institutions are so dysfunctional or inefficient: Politics is not about policy, charity is not about helping, medicine is not about healing, education is not about learning. Once you read their book and see their evidence, you realize that people will generally do what sounds nice rather than what works. And this stuff is independent of, say, the political irrationality literature which says voters reason badly because politics is a commons.
The odd thing I find is that people are democratic but technocratic, while I am epistocratic but anti-technocratic. Like they want equal voting rights, but then concentrate power in the hands of bureaucrats with perverse incentives, while I want enlightened preference voting but unconcentrated power.