Comment by zaphar
7 months ago
The seeming trend that worries me the most these days is the lack of competence at multiple levels of society. Our leaders, their supposed subject matter experts, the people doing "the science" all seem to be demonstrably incompetent at their jobs. I don't know if this is an actual trend or just the perception of one but it's concerning either way.
Why do you call them "leaders"? They are "people in positions of power".
I don't understand where this desire to be led comes from. Other people do not have your best interest in mind. I want others to get out of my way, unless we have a conflict of interest and then we _might_ need a third party to resolve it. But I certainly don't need or want to be led.
Because I fundamentally disagree with the whole "power" is everything dynamic that seems to crop up here. They are leaders because people follow them. The only power they have is the power that others give them. Leaders captures that better than "people in positions of power".
Almost all power is like that. Power comes from the ability to do violence (or threaten/imply it) and there's only so much guns and ammo you can carry. Not to mention the attacker has the advantage here and full-body ballistic protection would be too cumbersome and still wouldn't stop an IED. I mean, the IRA mortared Downing Street and that was 1990s tech.
To amass enough violence to control large numbers of people, you need to incentivize other people to apply violence for you. Dictatorships are more honest in this regard - they reward such subservients with the opportunity to abuse others for pleasure and material benefit.
Democracies OTOH tell people that we're all better off if the system works and anyone upsetting it hurts everyone so it's everyone's best interest to "pacify" them.
You're right that many people are very submissive though and just do what they are told even it it harms them long term. Usually the forcing mechanism is other people would punish you if you didn't punish the person you are supposed to. I mean, most of the cops who hunted down Luigi benefited from the CEOs death, yet they still did it. Because the benefit is too indirect and delayed and the punishment for getting caught not doing your job on purpose is immediate and direct.
I still object to the term leader because they don't lead, they tell people what to do. Not all leadership has to be be example but it implies some participation in the activity, its benefits and its dangers. Modern politicians are too well-shielded from the reality of working people.
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"the science" I don't agree with this part, and I think it's quite dangerous to rope that in.
Science is not one way of thinking, it's a methodology, it's seeking truth. There might be bad actors and idiots, there is likely lots wrong, but the beautiful thing about science is that facts matter. If someone publishes bullshit you can repeat the study and proof them wrong.
That science is (wrongfully) taken as justification for stupid things, is not on "the science" as a whole.
If anything makes me hopeful, it is science and the remarkable developments happening.
Here's the problem though. Scientific studies that are one off, not replicated, and standing on dubious ground are getting used to justify numerous societal and policy changes. So while "Science" the practice of studying and understanding the world is laudable, the masqerading of the intermediate artifacts of research to support dubious conclusions is not. Which is why I put quotes around "the science" because the problem is that what people keep claiming is science is in fact not.
you think it's bad now
wait until they start all using "AI", that'll agree with everything they say
You're absolutely right. Competency has lost its value.
When was the last time you heard someone praise someone else's competency?
>Competency has lost its value.
Sycophancy, however, will always gain.