I think political scientists would agree with you. Competence has a complicated effect. It builds trust slowly, but then one spectacular failure destroys it quickly. Also, what’s tracked by the populace is the perceived competence, not the actual competence. An accusation of corruption can destroy the trust as much as actual corruption.
Martin Sustrik
Karma: 5,332
I am with you, but I think you underestimate how repulsive the elites used to be in the past.
Elites fighting each other has always been the case. Still, there was at least a narrative dimension, eg. labor vs. capital. That one doesn’t seem to be so central nowadays, but I do see a lot of corrupt elites vs. common people talk.
Uh. Thanks! Fixed.
Switzerland is a fun case study of how a country is, in theory, a direct democracy, but in reality, the system is (for a good reason) much more “elitist”. Almost all popular initiatives fail. What really happens is that the system of counterproposals kicks in with negotiation between the initiative committee, the government and other stakeholders. I’ve written about it here: https://www.250bpm.com/p/referendum-mechanics-in-a-marketplace
Correct.
The word sucks at the moment. If the definition of “populist” is “advocate of harmful policies that happen to be popular among voters”, then all your opponents are, almost by definition, populists. (Well, expect for those who hold unpopular views, but shrug, why care about those?)
So how to make the term suck less?
Magoon proposes to stop using the word. But the cat is already out of the bag. Won’t work.
You can make your own, sensible, definition of populism, but good luck force-feeding it to the people.
Finally, you can invent the opposite word. People are slaves of their own ontology. Once they start thinking in terms of populism vs. elitism, as especially once they start forming political alliances based on it, the us vs. them psychology kicks in, along with gather-around-the-flag effect, and suddenly, instead of one vague term, you have two sharply delineated ones.
Let’s Own the Term “Elitism”
Author here: I am not an English speaker. Using AI is a great way to get something that actually sounds English. That being said, my experience so far is that producing something that’s actually interesting with AI is a pain. You must examine, discuss and possibly manually rewrite each and every sentence. As the result, the language sounds better, but the amount of effort to write an article goes up by maybe 2x.
James C. Scott: Seeing Like a State
The Blast Radius Principle
Seconded. When you talk to people you often find out that they are desperate to do something useful. They do not, partly because if they are not paid to do it, they can’t afford it. But even more importantly they are all too often actively prevented from it by random rules (e.g. work safety rules in case of a factory). When there are no barriers people would often even work for free. For example, when personal computers became available in 80s, and rule-makers haven’t yet realized that a new field has opened up, the open source movement emerged and built the entire software infrastructure for free.
I like your thinking, but I believe the entire rationalist subculture stems from global agglomeration effects, as seen in the Bay Area, and cannot really live without them. To give an example, I am currently living in Zurich. There are big Google offices here, many crypto startups, Basel with its big pharma is close enough and so is Geneva with its international organizations and CERN. When people talk about possible “Silicon Valley of Europe” it’s either London or Zurich. That being said, there’s an EA coworking space here. Then there are regular EA and ACX meetups, with 5-15 people attending. And that’s it. Definitely not enough to sustain something like Lighthaven. Elsewhere in Europe, I think, the problems with insufficient agglomeration would be even worse.
Lived experience. I happened to live through the fall of communism. The typical communist/post-communist mindset is: “Don’t oppose the system. Do what you are told to do, but throw a wrench into the machine by pretending to be dumb, sleuthing, stealing and just being generally corrupt.”
It feels tempting, but I don’t see it happening. Imagine the practicalities of having a poly relationship in Bratislava. Everyone’s going to treat you as a madman. And that’s trivial compared to having some kind of rationalist co-living arrangement. And that’s Bratislava, a capital. Italian countryside is going to be much worse. Here’s Lucie Philippon complaining about this kind of problems in Paris, as big a city as it gets: https://aelerinya.substack.com/p/in-paris-i-dream-of-lighthaven I am afraid that only Bay Area with its constant influx and large population of weird/autistic people can really sustain that kind of thing.
Thanks! Fixed.
Generally, TFR collapses first in the cities, then in the countryside. Yet countryside depopulates quicker than the cities. Draw your own conclusions.
I think you are underestimating to what extent the old people are opposed to moving. In Ukraine, when the front approaches, some people choose to stay, even though it means living in a war zone.
Life at the Frontlines of Demographic Collapse
Isn’t joined decision trap the situation where not the best policy is chosen, but rather the one that all stakeholders can agree on?
Also see here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/JBFHzfPkXHB2XfDGj/evolution-of-modularity
“To sum it up: modularity in the system evolves to match modularity in the environment.”