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Are Engineers Natural Libertarians Or Technocrats?
uctpjac writes "This openDemocracy article uses Scott Adams' presidential bid to argue that however much engineers — especially Silicon Valley types — like to think that they're libertarians, they are in fact much more likely to be control-freak technocrats. Quoting: 'Sensibly if uncharismatically, Adams has pledged if elected to delegate most of his decisions to people who know more than him, and flip-flop on any issue where new evidence causes him to modify his position. His worldview has its limitations – he underestimates the value of ways of thinking other than the engineer's, and it's naïve of him to claim his approach to policy is purely pragmatic and non-ideological.' Is this a fair account? Has the author wrongly read Dilbert, or wrongly interpreted the relationship between the engineering mindset and Adams' representation of it in the cartoon strip?"
... for a fee.
It seems that most people have a hard time when life isn't left down to 2 choices. No wonder we have such a hard time coming together on a common ground and working out our problems.
China's government is probably the most engineer-dominated government in the world, in contrast to the lawyer-dominated Western governments, and it has definite technocratic tendencies. I'd say a lot of western engineers who otherwise dislike the government (e.g. its position on free speech) do admire some of its technocratic infrastructure achievements, like its rapid deployment of high-speed rail.
More generally it's kind of the natural outcome of a certain engineering mindset which looks for optimized supply chains, economies of scale, evidence/data-based decision making, etc. There's an alternate, more messy/decentralized engineering mindset though, perhaps better labeled "hacker mindset" than "engineering mindset", which is more about DIY, free-form experimentation, etc., and less technocratic in its orientation (though not necessarily libertarian in the American sense either; plenty are more lefty-anarchist leaning).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Once you understand the basics of politics, learning a new ideology is trivial really.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Since when is Silicon Valley the heart of engineering?? Maybe if you're an electrical or computer engineer. Engineering has been around a lot longer than Silicon Valley or the 1980s. Why not also pretend San Francisco is the heart of engineering?
Libertarians are more likely to be self-starters and doers, which is more consistent with the engineering mentality.
Scientists, on the other hand, are more likely to be welfare-staters, because their science funding and grantsmanship culture is ever more dependent on the state.
You assume that libertarians do not also hate corporations. Since corporations only exist due to special protections granted to them by the government, many (most?) libertarians (myself included) do not consider them to be actors in, nor an accurate representation of, a true free market.
Some may consider that a small nitpick, but I personally find it to be an important one. When I engage people in discussions about free market principles, I make sure to let people know that I am just as disgusted with our corporately-owned government as the next guy.
Decisions based merely on results, divorced from ethics and morality can bring disastrous results. Think how quickly we could advance medicine if we started experimenting on humans unchecked, or how "safe" we could be if we lived in a police state. I put safe in quotes because we might be safe from terrorists and other boogeymen, but we wouldn't be safe from the police state.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
...so taking what he says 100% seriously is probably a mistake. Even if Dilbert does often appear to be a thinly-veiled documentary.
I promise, that if elected, to suspend the Constitution and become a benevolent despot to straighten everything out.
I further promise to leave voluntarily after a 10 year term and restore the Constitution. I swear.
Engineers are the same in politics as they are elsewhere. They'll fix any well-defined problem, but the solution can only meet two of three criteria: fast, cheap, and high-quality. But voters (like customers) will want all three, and won't define the problem well.
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
Its all in the perspective:
1) La de da, I'm building a bridge. My favorite welder on his days off likes to stick tab A into slot B of a member of the same sex. I understand the meaning of an independent variable and file this as such; don't much care. I guess that makes me an engineer-libertarian.
2) La de da, I'm a building a bridge. I sweat over a keyboard for 850 hours of computer simulation to prove that bolt #374904 must be a size 10-24 NC because if some idiot installs a 8-32 NC or smaller the bridge will collapse when loaded with precisely 17 pickup trucks plus one housefly. Cheap businessman wants to install a smaller 8-32 bolt because live and let live, man, my right to tell him what to do ends at the tip of his screwdriver, or some psuedo-libertarian stuff like that. No, F you businessman, I'm going full on technocrat control freak on you and 10-24 NC bolts are getting installed there or its off to the camps with you.
Want to run a country instead of building a bridge? Sounds to me like it don't much matter if tab A gets inserted into slot B no matter what sex A or B is, or what hole they're using, as long as they're both consenting adults blah blah. That's the libertarian answer. The control freak comes out when you say no, you are not F-ing setting up a concentration camp for brown people, because unlike two dudes in a closet, that does destroy a country.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
No. We think they should have applied themselves while in school and gotten themselves a half decent trade or profession. Also we think that they would do well to escape from the general anti-intellectual attitude in the US especially when it comes to math.
Not understanding numbers is as harmful as not being able to read.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
" and flip-flop on any issue where new evidence causes him to modify his position"
If there's one aspect of the political system that mystifies me, it's this. One of the very definitions of intelligence is the ability to take information and make conclusions. Obviously new information can lead to new conclusions. Yet in politics, even a hint of a politician displaying intelligence by changing his stance after new information and it's the political kiss of death. So instead we get politicians who will stick to their beliefs despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. So why are we pushing so hard to support political figures who don't demonstrate intelligence and tossing aside the ones that do?
Well said. Libertarians would be the first to end corporate welfare, as well as corporate "personhood".
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Over the years of arguments, people have tried to pigeon hole and label me a Conservative, a Liberal, an NDP supporter, a Libertarian, a Socialist, a Communist, and pretty much every other label you can think of.
Anyone who tries to simplify my stance with a buzzword is trying to appease their own desire to label me so they can dismiss my arguments out of hand as "he's just a XXX". Labeling stances and assuming that support of a party means blind support of their theoretical ideologies is an insult to any citizen who actually THINKS about social issues and politics.
The idea of taking that a step further and assuming that my career choice pre-labels me as having some particular viewpoint is so far out to lunch it's unreal.
What the hell was the article writer smoking? I want some!
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Obama is right of center
Only if center is the Communist party.
By most of the worlds standards Obama is indeed right of centre, there are few if any American politicians who aren't. Ask anyone with a basic knowledge of Politics, from Europe, South America or Asia, hell even Canada and they'll give you the same answer. A lot of us also think your medical system is a complete disgrace.
I reject your reality and substitute my own.
> Many libertarians believe individuals retain their rights when they join groups
Weasel words alert. Nobody is claiming you should loose your individual rights when you join a corporation, its just that you shouldn't gain additional rights by virtue of controlling an organisation.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
And then the unicorns and fairies come in and make the world a perfect place?
I'm afraid I simply don't believe that any more than I believe that tax cuts for the rich makes all of our lives better. All it does is give tax cuts to the rich.
Libertarians have a fantasy model of how economics works, which has absolutely no bearing on reality. The free market doesn't solve problems, human nature means it basically devolves to brute force. There is no spoon.
Not suggesting Communism works either ... but having two polar opposite views doesn't make either of them right. The Libertarian Utopia is a falsehood, just like the Communist Utopia.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
We are all dictators inside and that's the exact reason why government power must be limited in a way that satisfies libertarian principles - no one person or a group of people can be trusted when given power over others, that's why individual liberties and private property are paramount and government power must immediately be considered intrinsically evil by the very design and it must be treated as such. Only with the understanding that government is evil by design and will destroy everything it touches, we will come to a balance (if we want to), of keeping the government at its smallest and individual liberties at maximum.
Any time that the balance of power shifts from individual liberties towards growth of government power, it must immediately be suspect, be considered evil and be opposed by all.
You can't handle the truth.
An economic socialist and a social conservative? So you'll take all our money and refuse to let us have porn or drugs? Ugh.
Scientists, on the other hand, are more likely to be welfare-staters, because their science funding and grantsmanship culture is ever more dependent on the state.
This doesn't follow at all. You might as well say prison inmates will always vote for big government, for the same reason.
In my own experience, political thought in all professions runs the gamut, depending more upon an individual's upbringing, values, and experience than anything else. The idea that engineers or scientists went into a certain field because of some hard-wired biological characteristic that also controls their emotions, morals, and values just sounds like a modern-day spin on phrenology to me.
But since I might as well use this comment to throw out an inflammatory opinion of my own, scientists are more likely to be left-leaning because they're intelligent.
Breakfast served all day!
Engineers often like to think of themselves as libertarians.
But I've met enough that when you even begin to scratch the surface, they tend to be very technocratic... believing there must be a better way to organize something if only *they* could be trusted to run something.
This is more and more true in places with a higher emphasis on academia.
Academics suffer from what I like to call systems thinking. Having spent enough time there, they almost always try and solve every problem by modelling and then playing with it numerically.
This results in the idea that we should trust in such models above and beyond people's choices. To use an engineers mentality, they tend to like centralized big computers instead of distributed systems :P Kinda odd isn't it.
There is nothing 'scientific' about it. Science can't tell you what values or policies you should follow, but they tend to like to frame it that way.
I personally credit this kind of systems thinking for the recent financial collapse. At no point in history has there been so much sophistication and modelling in the financial system. Yet of course people are still in the system for their own self-interest, their own biases, still gaming it, models were incorrect or imperfect. And of course who gets to be in charge and make decisions based on the models...
When Greenspan made his point about the 'market failing' it was a classic systems thinking mistake.
The banks have a vested interest to enhance share holder value, so they would be in the best position to regulate themselves... as their institution's purpose is to enhance share holder value... which means keeping the bank in good shape.
It's like saying car drivers have a natural interest to prevent accidents. Therefore, they should be allowed to regular themselves.
I won't get into saying whether we need more/better/less regulation. But I will say this. We as a society have decided we like to have stable banking. The government backs and insures banks. It then has a duty to regulate them. Just like your car insurance company regulates you by charging you more for more risk, denying you coverage if you're too risky...
I see the same thing all the time on so many policies.
When it comes to education policy or health policy, many think we can generate expert panels on all of these to deliver excellent healthcare and education.
Meanwhile, the centralization of power that comes with unions and medical associations and payment and politics and facing parents with different beliefs and facing people who are facing death or illness... basically anything human is something they choose to ignore.
Which is very common for technocrats... and hence engineers. Just like the Euro. These big systems designed by technocrats and engineers and scientists will eventually fail because they're ignorant for anything related to humanity.
It's like they try and solve a complex equation... but they ignore the biggest variable... humanity.
So in a truly free market, the one makes the rules who is able to hire the most and the evilst thugs?
Philosophy is of little importance when the policies libertarians support would have the opposite effect. Libertarians are always pushing for smaller government and fewer regulations, which would have the effect of making large, wealthy businesses even more powerful.
And a lot of that tape prevents fraud, tax cheats, skirting labor laws, and your screwy idea from polluting the environment, excluding people by race color creed and national origin (and perhaps a few more characteristics, depending on juridiction).
Fie on the weasel words of "red tape" as an impediment to business. If you wanna be a scofflaw, head to the third world, where it's wild and wooly and quite profitable-- but with vasts amount of bribery, decay, pollution, and exclusion.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
It could be that Scott Adams is just a dickhead who's coasting along on the singular achievement of pointing out what everyone already knows, but doing it with a dog wearing glasses.
It's not our fault you've allowed pharm companies to rape you up the ass.
Nobody is claiming you should loose your individual rights when you join a corporation, its just that you shouldn't gain additional rights by virtue of controlling an organisation.
He's talking about responsibility, not gaining extra rights.
People who go to work for a corporation shouldn't become immune to the bad acts they commit there. In theory they do retain some responsibility, but in practice they really don't.
Show me the Wall Street tycoons who went to prison for the 2008 crash or the people at Sony who went to jail for their little rootkit adventure. Maybe the corporation pays some big fine, but the individuals usually get off scot-free.
So they have incentive to misbehave.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Prison inmates are held agains their will and demonstrably do not come out being welfare-statst.
Say instead that anyone in the military will obviously be welfare-statist, then, because all of the military's funding also comes from the government.
My point is that I highly doubt that anyone who's had to write a grant has done so while thinking, "glory, glory to the blessed state, praise that your scraps may fall unto my unworthy plate." If they could get funded another way without compromising the integrity of their research, they would.
Also, the claim that government funding for scientific research evidence of a "welfare state" is facile. Just for starters, who would you rather have split the atom first? Nazi Germany? There are valid purposes for government, and just as military defense is one of them, so is scientific research with the aim of the betterment of society. Being in favor of science in no way predisposes you to socialism.
Breakfast served all day!
Familiar with both, don't put faith in either. One claims it has a better way of describing what is happening than the other, they're both ideologies, but not facts.
Nice false dichotomy there, though. You're giving me two options of your own choice (both of which support your position), and asserting that either I must believe in one wrong one or another. My point is that I don't.
I believe the government are idiots, that the system is corrupt, and most things which claim to describe how it all works is, by definition, woefully incomplete and likely to be filled with its own biases about how it all works. In some cases, those can be very dangerous as people blindly believe their system is infallible. You know, beliefs like the notion that everyone is acting with full and complete information, that people aren't gaming the system, that an unregulated economy will end up with results any different than melamine in baby formula.
If my choice comes down to this:
then my answer is "neither". As a matter of fact, I'll go one step further and say that if the choice is free banking or anarcho capitalism, well, that's what got us into the recent financial mess, and that neither works. I think the whole thing is flawed.
And, really, all you're saying is that by disagreeing with Ron Paul I'm disagreeing with the principles of Libertarian economics ... which I've already quite explicitly said. I think in general economists know far less than they're willing to admit. They just think they've wrapped it up in some grand unifying theory that appeals to them, and then they wrap themselves up in it like it's religion. And then it's all dogma from there.
Hell, Alan Greenspan used to suggest that people should borrow all of the equity they have in their home, because it was basically free money. That alone forces me to conclude he was an advocate of something which didn't work. Hell, he eventually even admitted that "something" was wrong about his view of economics, he's just not sure of what.
I'm simply no longer willing to believe the people who claim to know how to run the economy ... they're clearly unqualified. And, for the record, I don't claim to have a better solution ... but I can tell the ones that are failing horribly.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.