Noocracy: The Intelligent as Civil Servants?

[luka]

you see the challenge is to ensure the Poindexters are working for us and NOT to create a world which is optimized for Poindexters. Do you grasp this crucial point?

 

[constant escape]

I think so, and that is why I'm stressing the importance of accountability. It seems like the only way to see over the shoulders of the poindexters is by way of a massive, omnipresent surveillance database. They can't outthink that, but they might be able to evade being held in its spotlight. That is another matter to resolve.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

The public lost its faith in people with the title 'expert' rather than experts as such...those who impart ideas that work, express themselves clearly and are able to make reliable predictions get just as much kudos as ever.

There has been an overproduction of experts, in line with the overproduction of graduates.

 

[constant escape]

The masses have the database/machine as leverage against the poindexters, the poindexters refine the database/machine under the supervision and scrutiny of... the media?

 

[luka]

they are a powerful, invaluable tool but they are an extremely specalised model and a tiny percentage of the population. they need to be under the strictest controls and as you say, survelliance

 

[Mr. Tea]

I've worked in the civil service. I'd characterise it as individually fairly bright people (for the most part) working within a system that's often quite stupid - and bureaucratic, but that goes without saying.

 

[constant escape]

The public lost its faith in people with the title 'expert' rather than experts as such...those who impart ideas that work, express themselves clearly and are able to make reliable predictions get just as much kudos as ever.

There has been an overproduction of experts, in line with the overproduction of graduates.

I like your point. Are you saying that the credentials of expertise have been inflated? While expertise itself remains valuable?

 

[constant escape]

I've worked in the civil service. I'd characterise it as individually fairly bright people (for the most part) working within a system that's often quite stupid - and bureaucratic, but that goes without saying.

I suppose part of this theory revolves around how to implement a smart system that can hold accountable those that work in/on it.

 

[constant escape]

Maybe I'm just excited, but it seems possible.

 

[luka]

don't worry constant escape. youre right to be excited. we will sort the world out. optimise it.

 

[luka]

every tool set to work on the job it's designed for.

 

[luka]

people with muscles lifting rocks, pre-cogs gazing into the future.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

Don't many countries try to do this: find the brightest students and turn them into civil servants and/or politicians eg. France and the Ecole Normale Superieure and China's hyper-competitive exam system?

 

[luka]

yes, China are the past masters at this. they've been doing it for 50,000 years.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

Worked out well for them, then?

 

[constant escape]

What about data as a commodity that everyone has, in a sense, an unlimited capacity to generate? That will grant the masses some kind of pseudo-socialist leverage, in the sense that the database is impartial as to what data it subsumes.

Once we affirm the individual-unto-dividual development, a development that will almost certainly happen regardless of whether or not we affirm it, we claim, perhaps, a new set of rights.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Don't many countries try to do this: find the brightest students and turn them into civil servants and/or politicians eg. France and the Ecole Normale Superieure and China's hyper-competitive exam system?

We have the latter in this country and it's turning our kids into miserable neurotic wrecks.

Finland has the best education in the world and they do hardly any testing at all.

 

[constant escape]

Don't many countries try to do this: find the brightest students and turn them into civil servants and/or politicians eg. France and the Ecole Normale Superieure and China's hyper-competitive exam system?

Perhaps the noocratic model can only really work when there is a means by which the masses can hold the intelligent accountable, but again I'm not sure. I can't even attest to how well any of this stuff has been implemented.

 

[luka]

Finland has the best education in the world and they do hardly any testing at all.

consistently turning out the world's greatest javelin throwers, year after year.

 

[constant escape]

At what point will/can data become an end in itself? Rather than a means for optimizing marketing for products.

I mean, is this transition not already happening?