Discussion
Do Not Research
jauntywundrkind: It's so wild to believe humanity held such a hopeful political mythos, ever.And I see such appeal here. To make efficient, to make a government that functions that builds that runs well. Mechanistic sympathy is a key term that sends the engineers heart aflutter; to work together holds great delight. The idea that there might be some shots for mankind at engineering not just a social, as the article highlights, but government itself has some real appeal, one that today seems doomed by mutual "it will will never work" / "it will never happen" anti-willpower.Reciprocally through, I think many alas agree with this the dark assessment of the political offered by Captain Ibrahim Traoré who today announced an end of Democracy, seemingly appointed himself dictator of Burka Faso:> *"The truth is, politics in Africa – or at least what we've experienced in Burkina - is that a real politician is someone who embodies every vice: a liar, a sycophant, a smooth-talker."https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly0zp1xgz3oI do wish there were a stronger engineering to politics pipeline. Politics being such a money and campaigning game, a game of mass appeal, really ruins so much. Thats both a problem with the electorate, but also a problem with how we've let democracy evolve, how mass media and the courts and our systems themselves have iterated over the years. It would just be so nice to think we could take our living documents & spirit them forward to respond to all that become, and hopefully redeem our collaborative search for a better more orderly well functioning state & world.Maybe we should all fly that Vermillion & Chromium flag (the technocracy's flag), at least a bit, in our hearts!(The Technocracy are also a fantastic somewhat unrelated quasi villain in the White Wolf game Mage, engineers of all manners including social working to end the undue influence of the supernatural on the world, defending and sometimes tyrannizing mankind with science. It's a lovely connection to know both Technocracies bit!)
tovej: Expected to read about past and current connections between technocracy and fascism. Was not disappointed.Musk, Altman, Thiel, Ellison, Zuckerberg, Page, and the like are trying to implement technocracy. And that's something we should be resisting at every opportunity.
rootusrootus: > Musk, Altman, Thiel, Ellison, Zuckerberg, Page, and the like are trying to implement technocracySeveral people (maybe all, I do not know for sure) on that list are pretty hard core right wing populists, correct? Isn't that completely at odds with technocracy? Or are you thinking that they are just taking advantage of a populist movement but are themselves technocrats?
codejake: I lived in Redlands, California, when the last adherents of this movement were still alive. From my conversations with them, it seemed the movement evolved into a semi-new age cult ala Scientology and the Process Church of the Final Judgement[1] (the original cult, not the one borne later, from the time later Skinny Puppy album).There was significant overlap between Scientology's Dianetics and Technocracy. At that time, they didn't seem to be very technology-inclined or tech-positive.Nonetheless, despite being in their 80s or 90s, they were still quite devout and had their clothing and automobiles decorated with Technocracy ephemera.1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_Church_of_the_Final_Ju...
intalentive: Technology did change the world, and technocrats did shape it. This was part of what Burnham called the "managerial revolution". In the 1930s the fascists, communists, and New Dealers all took the reins and governed their societies in new technocratic ways. It has never really changed ever since.The permanent war economy of the United States never ceased, the constant monetary tweaking by the Federal Reserve never ceased, the "nudge units" and public relations firms that manage opinion never ceased. The television was and is a technocratic tool. The birth control pill, and pharmaceuticals generally, were and are technocratic tools. They are technological means by which to manage populations. As Yuval Harari puts it, the answer to "unnecessary people" is "drugs and computer games".The main difference between the original technocracy movement, and what actually played out in history, is that the technicians and engineers operating the machinery of population management were never really in charge. They were merely instruments -- means to an end. Aldous Huxley explained the situation in 1958:"By means of ever more effective methods of mind-manipulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms -- elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts and all the rest -- will remain. The underlying substance will be a new kind of non-violent totalitarianism. All the traditional names, all the hallowed slogans will remain exactly what they were in the good old days. Democracy and freedom will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial -- but democracy and freedom in a strictly Pickwickian sense. Meanwhile the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of soldiers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit."Today the biggest challenges to the Western technocratic oligarchy are 1) loss of narrative control via the internet and 2) external threats from other great (technocratic) powers.
ks2048: This idea seems to come and go all over the world.It reminds me of the "Científicos" [1] in Mexico during the Porfirio Díaz dictatorship (early 1900s).[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cient%C3%ADfico
mindcrime: Huh. I wonder if any of this was at all part of (or all of) the inspiration for C.O.C.'s EP "Technocracy"[1]?[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_(EP)
jauntywundrkind: Lyrics link, to assess by, https://genius.com/Corrosion-of-conformity-technocracy-lyric...
i7l: Why optimize for efficiency though? Why not human flourishing or planetary health, whichever way you wish to define that?Efficiency sounds to me like an absolutely awful way to run any society as it's what turns individuals into disposable cogs of a machine that needs to be operated smoothly because, well, no obvious reason other than a fetish to see the machine run smoothly, no matter the human cost.
peyton: I dunno, Common Sense puts forth the idea that government exists to occupy the space where men are evil. It grows and shrinks accordingly. A larger role for government implies more evil, not less.
akomtu: Technocracy, and the doctrine of materialism, sees humans as machines.
