TECHNOCRATIC DEMOCRACY

Today I wanted to expand on the idea of mine for a new political system. I want to emphasize the ruling power this time.

I believe that knowledgeable, problem-solving people should rule a country. The minister of health should have studied medicine. The minister of economics should have a master's degree in the economic field, at least. The minister of foreign affairs might be a doctor in history, having studied international relations. Politicians don't have to be good at talking, but at solving problems. That's something the Romans got wrong, but we're still using a system heavily based on theirs. My system reduces the focus on eloquence because political parties are not directly selected. We need to select for good ideas, not good one-liners.

To recapitulate previous political posts, in my system, people first select 10 statements they find actual and important, from a list of statements provided by the parties that want to participate in the elections. Those 10 that are deemed most important by the public are used in the actual elections, where people choose 'AGREE', 'DISAGREE', or 'INDIFFERENT' for each of the 10 statements. The political parties officially list their opinions on those statements beforehand (also agree/disagree/indifferent), and the people's result is compared with the results of the political parties, resulting in many votes for parties that share the opinion of the public, and a small amount of votes for the parties with fringe views.

Each political party is supposed to provide experts for the political positions they have won during the elections. They can choose anyone that has the right qualifications. Experts from different parties, but in the same department can have valuable discussions on matters within their expertise. This ensures that the government is not only democratic, but also wise. Discussions between wise people are valuable. Discussions between ignorant people often miss the point. Uninformed people tend to be much stronger attached to a certain (simplistic) political ideal, and tend to be very chauvinistic. They want to win, or to make the other lose, instead of realizing that it's not about winning or losing, but about improving the nation, or even the world.

For example, many (ignorant) environmentalist politicians are against nuclear energy. Sure, nuclear reactors produce dangerous waste that 'decays' very slowly. But we can store this safely underground, with no ill effects whatsoever. With proper maintenance, nuclear reactors are also very safe. Burning fossil fuels is causing big problems, and needs to be stopped as soon as possible. We can replace coal plants by solar panels and wind turbines, but to get a stable and reliable supply, we also need something like nuclear power plants. So environmentalists should actually be in favor of nuclear energy, not against it. They aren't because they are fundamentally opposed to nuclear power, instead of determining what is best for the environment.

Another example is foreign aid. Many (ignorant) socialists are very much in favor of sending as much resources to foreign countries to help people in need. The foundation of my morality is that suffering is bad. So trying to reduce the suffering of humans anywhere is a good thing. In general. But specific aid projects might actually increase suffering. Consider the following example calculation. 

There's a tribe with 1000 people. These people can only produce food for 1000 people. After reproduction there are 2000 people, so 1000 people will die of food shortage. If you give these people food for 1000 more people, the people will first experience a complete reduction of starvation. The 2000 people can now all reproduce, resulting in 4000 people. However, after the aid they still only produce food for 1000 people, causing 3000 people to die of starvation. So you spent a lot of money on food, and the end result is 3 times more suffering.

The problem with such an aid project is that the politicians did not see the underlying problem. The tribe did not have a food shortage. It has a problem scaling up the food production methods. Or perhaps there are too many criminals stealing from farmers. And obviously there's also problem in birth control. Those problems need to be dealt with. The same thing is sending aid to people in Syria. By sending such aid you prolong the war, and prolong suffering. Blocking weapons trade to that country (whether the dictatorial government or the terrorist rebellions) should be the first thing on the list. But no. Stopping arms trade does not make them fuzzy inside as giving food and medical supplies does.

Such decisions are made by either short-sighted and ignorant people, or people that do not care about how the money is being spent, because they are not held responsible for their actions. Both areas should improve. We should have more experts in the governments, and we should always hold the individual members of a government responsible for their own actions. It should always be very clear who signed what.

Why can't we just select the best experts for the positions available? Why go through the trouble of selecting parties first? Let me answer that question with a question: who selects the experts? Those selectors need also be selected. You can't just appoint one random person to select the experts. That puts far too much power in the hands of that person. Or even if it's one office or agency. But by allowing the different parties to select the experts themselves, you get a democratic, mixed set of experts.

We do need some rules to make sure that the parties don't hire idiots or laymen. We do need experts. So we might require them to possess doctor degrees, and relevant working experience. Perhaps the candidate has authored a number of scientific papers. If this selection procedure is both standardized and transparent not much corruption is possible in this step. Because each party selects its own experts, the effect of altering the selection procedure in favor of some private benefit is severely reduced.

Past achievements are great, but a scientific job is not the same as a political job. So the executive politicians should be checked by each other, which is possible because they are from different parties. Motions of no confidence can be used to remove politicians that are not doing their job correctly. But the people can also be involved. If you make the decision making process as transparent as possible, and organize a platform where people can comment on those decisions, it would make the system even more democratic. Governments should have their own internet forum, and people should log on using their digital ID (so it's not anonymous). This prevents trolling and spamming, and makes it possible to use people's input to assist in policy-making (even if only slightly).

Such a platform could be great not only for criticizing current policy, but also for people to feel more connected to the government, to learn more about important political matters, and perhaps to generate new ideas. On the idea section of the government forum people could 'like' / '+' good ideas and comment on them to make them better. The endorsement will have to be publicly viewable, so that people are less inclined to randomly endorse things.

Less performers, and more brains. Politicians that talk and talk and talk and talk are not valuable. Politicians that throw shoes are not valuable. Instead of insulting each other when there's a problem, or having endless yes-no arguments, they should acquire evidence to prove their point. They should work like scientists. Not like actors. They should work together to solve apparent problems. Not to prove their points or to forward some impossible utopia. We should build ourselves a technocratic democracy.