Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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.
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
" 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?
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.
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.
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!
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.
We are all dictators inside and that's the exact reason why government power must be limited in a way that satisfies libertarian principles
I'm endlessly amused by this sentence, as it so beautifully sums up everything that's wrong with libertarians. On the one hand, they understand that people are the problem with government: anyone at the top of a power pyramid will be sorely tempted to abuse that power for personal reasons. Many more will actually abuse that power, even if it is well-intentioned. At the same time, they utterly fail to see that when the government is removed from society, the government power structure will be replaced with any of the other power structures that predate the invention of any formal government: personal connections, money, raw strength, military might, etc. Remove government, and you'll find your life governed by those other power structures.
Just like Karl Marx, they correctly identify today's issue with society. Just like Karl Marx, they utterly fail at incorporating human nature into their solution.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
It's not our fault you've allowed pharm companies to rape you up the ass.
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!