sound familiar?A political system that cannot enforce consequences on a government is broken. Not broken enough, according to Cummings. ‘In a well-run entity what would have happened here is essentially, in my opinion, you would have had a kind of dictator in charge of this,’ he told the committee. ‘He has as close to kingly authority as the state has legally to do stuff, and pushing the barriers of legality.’ The constraints against which Cummings is pushing here are multiple: distribution of power across the cabinet, competing Whitehall fiefdoms, political scrutiny. His defence might be that he is merely seeking efficiency in response to emergency, and only within the law, even if pushing at it. But the fantasy of the philosopher-king – or in this case, the scientist-king – is the oldest expression of oligarchical resentment at democracy there is; Parliament has already accorded to the government extensive powers to regulate all social life during the pandemic with minimal scrutiny, powers which are even then often exceeded and unequally applied by the police.
The dream of soft decisionism, of a great scientific mind untrammelled by democratic mediocrities, is a frequent theme of many of the ‘rationalist’ blogs that Cummings frequents, and has its disciples in recesses of the Conservative Party and among his Vote Leave fellow travellers. It remains a marginal element in British politics, but the most disturbing possibility raised by Cummings’s testimony is that in a broken system, where Westminster retains its vanity and pomp, but none of its ability to govern effectively or restrain an increasingly decadent executive, the idea of ‘a kind of dictator’ has some serious allure.
Benevolent technocratic dictatorship is the ideal form of govt.
We accept it in wartime without quibble.
The problem is people who think they're technocratic geniuses are usually just delusional humanities graduates.
We accept it in wartime without quibble.
The problem is people who think they're technocratic geniuses are usually just delusional humanities graduates.
Fuck Israel
except a 'benevolent technocratic dictatorship' based on science and engineering has been tried already in history. it was called the soviet union.
What's your idea of what a benevolent technocratic dictatorship is, dilbs?
uziq wrote:
except a 'benevolent technocratic dictatorship' based on science and engineering has been tried already in history. it was called the soviet union.
Dilbert_X wrote:
The problem is people who think they're technocratic geniuses are usually just delusional humanities graduates.
Fuck Israel
unnamednewbie13 wrote:
What's your idea of what a benevolent technocratic dictatorship is, dilbs?
Fuck Israel
The UFP is a representative republic, you casual. Post-scarcity blah blah blah.
Also those are Starfleet officers.
Also those are Starfleet officers.
I was thinking more the Starfleet universe.
Fuck Israel
Are you talking about the mirror universe? Mirror Spock didn't come from a benevolent technocracy. The Terran Empire was warmongering and despotic. Mirror Spock also had a goatee, so you could know he's evil.
I can't even make sense of your Star Trek references and it's like your whole foundation for desiring a benevolent technocratic dictatorship. Phew.
No, I'm talking about the Starfleet universe
This is what I wrote
This is what I wrote
Dilbert_X wrote:
I was thinking more the Starfleet universe.
Fuck Israel
Operation of each starship is a benevolent technocratic dictatorship.unnamednewbie13 wrote:
I can't even make sense of your Star Trek references and it's like your whole foundation for desiring a benevolent technocratic dictatorship. Phew.
Fuck Israel
wtf is the "Starfleet unverse?" Starfleet is under the Umbrella of the UFP. Is this some kind of a troll fallback? Your technocracy argument is completely off the rails.
I thought you liked comic book stuff.
I thought you liked comic book stuff.
lmao at making out the leaders and technicians of the soviet union were 'humanities graduates'.
almost all middle-class bourgeois russians with 'elitist' backgrounds left russia. they were called white russians.
sovietism was scientific and 'rational'. planned agriculture. massive forced industrialization and urbanization. a planned economy. it was literally the type of leader you are advocating for.
almost all middle-class bourgeois russians with 'elitist' backgrounds left russia. they were called white russians.
sovietism was scientific and 'rational'. planned agriculture. massive forced industrialization and urbanization. a planned economy. it was literally the type of leader you are advocating for.
This Star Trek stuff is blowing my mind right now.
A Starfleet ship full of 300 people out in deep space, with a militaristic hierarchy, operates under its own rules, regs, conduct, but under the umbrella of Federation laws and governance. It's not a good model for governing a planet full of billions of people, unless you like the idea of a block captain sending neighbors to the brig for insubordination. "The Starfleet Universe" sounds like a bad fanfiction.
A Starfleet ship full of 300 people out in deep space, with a militaristic hierarchy, operates under its own rules, regs, conduct, but under the umbrella of Federation laws and governance. It's not a good model for governing a planet full of billions of people, unless you like the idea of a block captain sending neighbors to the brig for insubordination. "The Starfleet Universe" sounds like a bad fanfiction.
Except it was mostly thick street-thugs who clawed their way to the top of that pyramid who ruled through fear, not rational geniuses who governed in the interest of everyone.uziq wrote:
lmao at making out the leaders and technicians of the soviet union were 'humanities graduates'.
almost all middle-class bourgeois russians with 'elitist' backgrounds left russia. they were called white russians.
sovietism was scientific and 'rational'. planned agriculture. massive forced industrialization and urbanization. a planned economy. it was literally the type of leader you are advocating for.
Fuck Israel
Most of the soviet bureaucrats were engineers just so you know. They usually ended up treating people like numbers on a spreadsheet.
Bureaucrats tend to be numbers people. Amazing.
Fuck Israel
no, it really wasn't. most of the politburo were engineers or physics people. it was an explicitly technocratic society.Dilbert_X wrote:
Except it was mostly thick street-thugs who clawed their way to the top of that pyramid who ruled through fear, not rational geniuses who governed in the interest of everyone.uziq wrote:
lmao at making out the leaders and technicians of the soviet union were 'humanities graduates'.
almost all middle-class bourgeois russians with 'elitist' backgrounds left russia. they were called white russians.
sovietism was scientific and 'rational'. planned agriculture. massive forced industrialization and urbanization. a planned economy. it was literally the type of leader you are advocating for.
stalin clawing his way to the top is by-the-by. he was a bandit btw. street thugs were 1990s, post-sovietism, when oligarchs and mafia took over.
the soviet union had two major civil prizes, the stalin prize and the lenin prize. most of the recipients were engineers. engineers, scientists (and cosmonauts) were the heroes of the soviet union. they built entire new cities with names like 'magnetogorsk' ffs. it was literally a fresh-slate, society-as-experiment.
you need to read a fucking history book.
Mostly it worked out pretty well though, unburdened by decadence.
Fuck Israel
Unburdened by decadence, the country that raped its way across Germany.
- SuperJail Warden
- Gone Forever
- +642|3972
Stalin was attending seminary school on a scholarship before getting introduced to communism.
Well the Germans raped their way across Russia first.unnamednewbie13 wrote:
Unburdened by decadence, the country that raped its way across Germany.
Fuck Israel
You were talking about Soviet purity, unburdened by decadence or whatever.
- SuperJail Warden
- Gone Forever
- +642|3972
I am an antimasker now. I went a year without pimples but now have a big one that won't go away. We must get rid of the mask.