A Million Save Two Utils-Ten Thousand Lose A Hundred
I think in such a circumstance pure utilitarianism breaks down. You shouldn't just multiply and thus come to the conclusion that the first option is better. Not once the downside to one group is very high versus very low to the other. The problem of course arises if the decision is arrived at via people's votes. Once the downside to those harmed reaches a certain point, adding more people who will very slightly benefit from that downside should not swing the decision. The problem, of course is that if the decision depends on people's votes, the wrong side will win unless half of the people who stand to gain a little, vote against their "interests". They often do do that, either because they evaluated the situation incorrectly, they were lied to by experts who persuaded them that the other side was better for them, they already had more than enough utils so it was no big deal to be magnanimous (eg celebrities) or they simply wanted to be nice.
But often less than half vote this way, especially if the small group who are hurt are people they don't like. Yet another problem with "democracy". "One person, one vote" sounds nice. But is it really a good thing if a voter who very slightly prefers x completely negates a voter (or someone who can't vote) who desperately needs NOT x?
If you don't want to be influential you are self selecting yourself out of politics like people who choose not to have children, good riddance and if you are someone who doesn't think politics are relevant why the hell would I ask you about your political opinion or even worse give it any weight in our decision making?
You can try to manipulate smart people and if you succeed that's even more relevant (they on turn pick the fishes)
Right now we ask everyone their political opinion. I'm merely saying we should weight that by how good we expect it to be. Not a huge spread, like 1-10 or something. If you're capable of influencing and willing to influence 100s or 1000s of people, you will still be able to influence those people. And if you influence quality people, their votes will also count for more, so influencing 1,000 smart people might have the the same net effect as influencing 5,000 donkeys.
So you're concerned with someone's ability to form a logical train of thought but not their ability to empathize? Not looking to pass your own value judgements on people who are only in it for themselves and would use their intelligence to rob others blind?
Correct. By the way, that's the system we have now. I'm proposing to tweak it so that Playbig doesn't get the same say as Einstein, that is all.
JFC. Not the rainmen, no. Even if an individual rainman vote counts for 10, they are like 0.0001% of the population. Way to strawman my position.
Use the normal curve to get a better idea of what I'm suggesting. Average person's vote counts for 5. As you go towards the left tail, your vote gradually drops to 1. As you go towards the right tail, to 10. The number of 1s and 10s will be minuscule. The vast majority of people will be within 1 SD so around the 3-7 range.
Because the goal is to mitigate the influence of the stupid people, not anything else. The people who have crackpot ideas about how the world works, so their say in how it's run should be taken with a large pinch of salt.
Your problem is that you think playbig is the worst.
You fail to acknowledge how disastrous even intelligent people can be in their assessment of everything that goes just a little outside of their field of competence.
I fear the "PhDs" which backed the COVID horrors more than I could ever fear the playbigs.
Or the "men can get pregnant" crowd with college degrees for that matter.
Anyway D2, did the country that tried the test -for-political-power experiment and failed disastrously after that come to your mind?
Your problem is that you think playbig is the worst.
You fail to acknowledge how disastrous even intelligent people can be in their assessment of everything that goes just a little outside of their field of competence.
I fear the "PhDs" which backed the COVID horrors more than I could ever fear the playbigs
Well, I guess part of the problem is that nobody will ever agree on the test. You obviously have a special place in hell for Covid stuff, not going to relitigate that with you in every single discussion on every single topic.
Well, I guess part of the problem is that nobody will ever agree on the test. You obviously have a special place in hell for Covid stuff, not going to relitigate that with you in every single discussion on every single topic.
Nothing playbig wrote came close in actual political dangerousness to say, defending taxing unrealized capital gains or defending rent control could, if you want other examples.
Or defending a 3% wealth tax
Would you agree that if you had a generic test for analytic reasoning ability, something like an IQ test, and those that scored higher tended to also hold opinion y and those who scored lower tended to also hold opinion x, and x and y are mutually exclusive, that y is more likely to be correct?
If you don't agree with that statement, then this discussion is pointless, since my whole proposal is predicated on that being true.
In China, mandarins had de facto absolute power for centuries.
And it was a position which you got for life by passing a very hard test.
I don't know anything about it. If there is some parallels you see there with what I'm proposing, feel free to bring them up. So far the only parallel I see is that there is a test involved.
Because the goal is to mitigate the influence of the stupid people, not anything else. The people who have crackpot ideas about how the world works, so their say in how it's run should be taken with a large pinch of salt.
I get that but fail to understand why you wouldn't take it a step further and look to reduce the influence of people that don't have others' best interests at heart.
Nothing playbig wrote came close in actual political dangerousness to say, defending taxing unrealized capital gains or defending rent control could, if you want other examples.
Or defending a 3% wealth tax
Oh, you think if you put Playbig in an actual position of political power, he wouldn't be dangerous with all those crackpot ideas? He'd be safer than someone who wants to tax unrealised capital gains or defend rent control? Lolums.
I don't know anything about it. If there is some parallels you see there with what I'm proposing, feel free to bring them up. So far the only parallel I see is that there is a test involved.
A test that gave you political power, and a rank in power from 1 to 9 lol
Oh, you think if you put Playbig in an actual position of political power, he wouldn't be dangerous with all those crackpot ideas? Lol.
We are at the phase "how much damage does weighting his opinion does to society".
And btw no he wouldn't because he would have no skill to execute.
That's why you have to fear intelligent people with bad ideas exceptionally more
I get that but fail to understand why you wouldn't take it a step further and look to reduce the influence of people that don't have others' best interests at heart.
Because I don't accept that people should have others' best interests at heart as a moral imperative for a start? And even if I did, that would be me applying my own value judgements, not what I'm seeking to do here.
Because I don't accept that people should have others' best interests at heart as a moral imperative for a start? And even if I did, that would be me applying my own value judgements, not what I'm seeking to do here.
It is, every time you talk about politics, including meta politics.
You want the test and so on because you think decision taken by society if your system is implemented would better align with your preferences.
Sane as we all do, just acknowledge it
A test that gave you political power, and a rank in power from 1 to 9 lol
I mean, just from skim reading it, doesn't really seem like much of an IQ test, and also applied to officials themselves, not to voters. I'll read up a bit more about it later.
It is, every time you talk about politics, including meta politics.
You want the test and so on because you think decision taken by society if your system is implemented would better align with your preferences.
Sane as we all do, just acknowledge it
Well, I think it's a better idea to have smarter people making the decisions. They might align with my preferences if I'm also smart, if I'm not then they might not.
I don't think I could do the same job as the CEO of my company. I also acknowledge that he makes better decisions than I would in that role. So when it comes to making decisions about which investments to make, I'm happy to defer to his judgement even though it might affect me directly. The same as when it comes, to, you know, which cleaning products are best to use for stubborn bathroom stains, he defers to mine.
Because I don't accept that people should have others' best interests at heart as a moral imperative for a start? And even if I did, that would be me applying my own value judgements, not what I'm seeking to do here.
You're already applying a value judgement by saying that highly intelligent people should get more of a vote.
I mean, just from skim reading it, doesn't really seem like much of an IQ test, and also applied to officials themselves, not to voters. I'll read up a bit more about it later.
It applied to who calls the shot it's essentially the same. There were no voters but that doesn't change it.
You select power with a skill test you get a stagnant society, that's the lesson from China.
And it was a knowledge+IQ test
You're already applying a value judgement by saying that highly intelligent people should get more of a vote.
I'm saying that people who are better at thinking should have their thoughts count for more. I don't know if I'd call that a "value judgement" per se, seems a pretty obvious statement to me, like "if we're picking someone to represent our country in the 100m in the Olympics, we should choose someone who can run really fast".
It applied to who calls the shot it's essentially the same. There were no voters but that doesn't change it.
You select power with a skill test you get a stagnant society, that's the lesson from China.
And it was a knowledge+IQ test
Taking everything you've told me as given, I don't see where the conclusion "you select power with a skill test, you get a stagnant society" comes from. You've shown correlation, not causation.
