Overrated
Anonymous said:
"Societies should be made of different individuals, different cultures and different points of view, not a bunch of mind controled robots."
what's wrong with being a bunch of mind controlled robots?
i used to think that the ideal state would be one where the People do not need to divest authority and responsibility of governing to a centralised entity, nor do they need the police to enforce laws because everyone is willing to do the right thing because it is right. but human beings are bastards.
so let's consider the alternatives: the Philosopher Kings of Plato's Republic and/or the Alpha Plus of Huxley's Brave New World. what's wrong with those societies? particularly Huxley's Brave New World? so what if the rest of us have to be reduced to controlled entities controlled by a group of 'enlightened dictators' if that is what it takes to stop us from blowing ourselves to kingdom come?
i say that we should be like ants. each ant born knowing exactly what to do and performing their task with precision. what's wrong with that? it ensures that the species survives. ants have being around far longer than we have and will probably be around far longer after we have killed ourselves. by the measure of fitness as a species, they definitely surpass us.
so i say, all the qualities that we pride ourselves as human beings: intelligence, 'free-will', etc are all over-rated. we as a species are over-rated.
but, i am a human being. so being human, i have to make the most of it, and live a good life by the silly values that other human beings have set, i.e. be successful, be rich, be "compassionate", be "humanisitic", etc. whatever they all mean.
posted by rench00 at 1:31 PM
5 Comments:
"so what if the rest of us have to be reduced to controlled entities controlled by a group of 'enlightened dictators' if that is what it takes to stop us from blowing ourselves to kingdom come?"
'Enlightened dictators' is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms, like 'military intelligence'. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Nuclear weapons (I suppose you were referring to it) was never more dangerous in the hands of dictators. If we ever do blow ourselves into dust it'll quite surely be the work of an individual dictator (remember the Cuban missile crisis).
11:32 PM
why is "enlightened dictators" and oxymoron? even if history has shown that there aren't any enlightened dictators does not mean that there can never be.
besides, there are enlightened dictators throughout history. China has loads of them. usually followed by really crap leaders after that. and the Cuban missle crisis was brought about in part by America, which is a democracy.
and i do know some fairly intelligent people in the military.
12:08 AM
To be sure there were enlightened kings, but not many, and not frequently enough in succession. A dictator/king who is really enlightened will institute reforms to remove his seat of power eventually (e.g. the Siamese monarchs King Chulalongkorn and his father Mongkut). Maybe dictatorship is only viable/desirable in cases of emergency (witness the riots in France) and in the short term? But then the danger, as I've said, is that power corrupts. We can (but not always do) learn from history about human nature because it has not changed at all.
The lesson from the Cuban missile crisis is that despite the democratic tripartite sharing of power by the President, Supreme Court, and Congress we were so close to nuclear holocaust because it was possible for individuals to act rashly. Since then (as ever) I think nuclear weapons are still within the possibility of being activated by an individual's single rash act (say a disgruntled army general or trigger-happy moronic soldier).
When decision-making is collective/communal it is slower, but also more sensible and considered. When so much is at stake (blowing ourselves to kingdom come) , when something irreversible is in the offings, a slow decision is better. The hard-to-stop, irreversible nuclear war machine controls are in the hands of a few select (and questionable?) individuals. This augurs for more (not less) democratic sharing of executive power over the military in addition to power in constitutional reform.
The military behemoth exhibits collective stupidity via its top-down hierarchy one-man dictatorship. Of course it's possible to have great talent and intelligence as an individual soldier, but going alone has never been the military credo.
12:22 PM
i disagree that collective decision-making necessarily results in making better decisions. groups can fall prey to groupthink where people who are perfectly sensible individuals come together to hatch the most harebrained ideas (e.g. my GESL group). so it all depends on the situation.
and as i've said, not having precedence does not mean it will not happen. i believe that the state described by Huxley's "Brave New World" is theoretcially possible, even though there is no precedence for it. and hence an Enlightened Dictorship by the Philosopher Kings (Plato) is theoretically possible.
and the "Enlightened Dictators" of the past were as enlightened as they could have been given what was available to them. i feel that it is unfair to say that they were not truly enlightened because they have not done x,y and z which we think should have been done because we have been given the benefit of hindsight.
i agree with the problem of trigger happy generals (and President) controlling that much firepower. i believe that the solution is not in power sharing but in disarmament.
12:41 PM
I never said that there should be no police and I never said that people will do the right thing given the chance. My point is that a diverse society is a rich society. And I am talking about a richness which is far more valuable than a good GPD. and dont give me that crap about nothing wrong with being a robot, if you truly believed that you would not be writing this blog page. You have a brain and you are allowed to use it (and not only the you you but every you).
5:50 PM
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