The world is not an engineering problem

70 点作者 jajag超过 6 年前

13 条评论

TeMPOraL超过 6 年前

Like hell it isn't.At the risk of going "no true scottsman", I hate this kind of anti-intellectual nonsense. The methods of science, engineering and rational reasoning are the best tools we have for solving world problems. They were literally invented for it. They're reified applied reasoning. You eschew them at your own peril.Now of course to solve problems involving humans, you have to factor in the human element - the complexity of our individual emotions, and of the societal interplay. This is where a lot of attempts at solving problems fail, and it's appropriate to criticize that. But that doesn't give you a free pass to go by your gut in contexts our monkey brains have never experienced in the past. This means we need to double-down and carefully, rationally, find out what works and what doesn't.

评论 #18413332 未加载

评论 #18410475 未加载

评论 #18411609 未加载

评论 #18414029 未加载

Nasrudith超过 6 年前

The Brexit rhetoric even though it probably was meant in abstract terms seemed rather romanticist which I see as a danger in itself - dogmatically clinging to abstract ideas because of feelings regardless of outcomes.One thing that I feel is always missed in discussions of consequentialism are second order effects which are what make decisions untenable. While the classic "murder a stranger for organs" might technically save more lives it causes all sorts of nasty ripple effects - people would rightfully become more paranoid or take measures to ensure uselessness of their organs after death for sheer strategic spite. Taking a stand for principles is still possible in that framework - the goal being to make bad actions more expensive or good actions cheaper.Still there are certainly good points about needing to choose how one wants to shape society while setting goals - as well as recognizing that society doesn't go as planned or projected and it changes in response to your actions.

评论 #18410604 未加载

ajuc超过 6 年前

> For my part, I prefer things a little messy because not only are the solutions so often dependent on coercion but they also require that the ordinary citizen's faith and feelings are denied. Maximising utility seems a good thing but it is not the main reason why people do things like set up business, create charities, build village halls, paint, sing, create or innovate. Technocracy treats the world as an engineering problem when it's an unfolding story, explorers in a dense jungle not white-coated scientists in a laboratory.There's a very famous fragment of Polish romantic ballad "Romantyczność" by Adam Mickiewicz:<pre><code> Feeling and faith stronger speaks to me, than the eye and the glass of a wise man. </code></pre> It was written in 1821 in occupied Poland, and (together with other similar literature) was responsible for creating nationalist romantic movement that caused several failed uprisings, countless deaths, and whole generations of educated patriots being forced to migrate abroad escaping repressions.When Poland got independent in 1918 (mostly thanks to a good luck and WW1, just like other countries in the region) - this attitude claimed the success ("if not for failed uprisings we wouldn't be here"), and people believed it. Failed uprisings are celebrated to this day, and a few rational generals who wanted to prevent the useless massacre and were hanged because of that - are still considered traitors.Then it caused governments of interwar Poland to pursue unrealistic and opportunistic strategy that resulted in 1/6th of the population and 1/7th of the territory being lost in WW2 despite supposedly being on the winning side. But it sure felt nice to be brave and be the "first to fight". People are still boasting "Poland - first to fight" like it's a good thing to be stupid and die for no reason.This national romanticism is still very much defining the public debate in Poland together with the only mainstream alternative - positivism and pragmatism. And romanticism is still winning - 200 years later. We've only got +-25 years of pragmatism after 1989, but it's over now.It's why populists can win elections - because people want to ignore reality and stop analyzing it. "Just do what feels right, it will be OK for sure." "Winning trade wars is so easy". Everything is easy if you ignore reality because it's too complex.It's a very harmful attitude. Don't let it take over your culture, it's very hard to get back to the enlightenment once you leave it behind.

chrispeel超过 6 年前

The idea here is something we've lost from our thinking, one of those virtues Deirdre McCloskey writes about, the idea of faith, that there are things we have to take as felt not as demonstrated by science.Even if we don't understand everything scientifically now, even some things that we feel, does not mean that we cannot try to do so in the future. I accept faith only as a step towards scientific understanding.

评论 #18410077 未加载

评论 #18409879 未加载

imgabe超过 6 年前

I don't see an alternative offered here. The argument seems to be "don't do things just because you think they'll produce the best result". Which...makes no sense?If this advice is followed, we would have to knowingly choose to do something that we expect to be worse than another option we're considering. What do we hope to gain from that?

pmarreck超过 6 年前

Public policy should only be based on objective truths and not evidenceless beliefs or feelings. It's one thing to be for or against marijuana usage; it's another to still have a law on the books banning its use and sale when a growing plethora of science says it's far safer than substances already legalized and regulated (such as alcohol) and actually therapeutic in some cases (such as cancer). It's one thing to be against pornography being freely available on the Internet personally; it's another when scientific data (hypothetically) indicates that pre-adolescent exposure to pornography incurs long-term and tangible behavioral harms, BUT does not seem to harm adults nor their marriages."Appeal to disgust" is a fallacy for a reason, and laws should be rational.

评论 #18409894 未加载

评论 #18409742 未加载

评论 #18409751 未加载

dagasgasgasg超过 6 年前

Kings have ever considered their own power as an end to itself, even if the small people have to suffer. They probably made arguments very alike to this one to justify the wars fought over another king's acres. And some of the small people bought into it too.I don't want to live in that world, though. I think this as a case for the Brexit position only works if you can demonstrate that the people will in fact be materially better off (not in money but in well-being, which can factor in feelings like the one the author speaks about) after Brexit. That's a hard thing to demonstrate scientifically, since you can't run an experiment, but that's argumentative stance you'd need to take to convince me.

smacktoward超过 6 年前

I wrote something similar from the opposite end of the ideological spectrum a few years back: <a href="https://jasonlefkowitz.net/2014/01/against-line-chart-liberalism/" rel="nofollow">https://jasonlefkowitz.net/2014/01/against-line-chart-libera...</a>One reason why I disagree with [technocracy] is because of a core assumption that is embedded deep within it, namely that public policy is at root a values-neutral project. In this worldview, there is an objective Good that we all strive towards, and our progress as a society can be measured by the velocity towards which we approach that objective Good. We can determine this velocity by taking measurements — by gathering Data. These data will then tell us if we are on or off course, in much the same way that star sightings can do for a mariner lost at sea.This works for the mariner, because the stars are objective. It is not a matter of opinion where in the sky the North Star is. But “good,” in terms of public policy, is most definitely not objective. My definition of what is Good is informed by my background, my experiences, my ideology; my values. And your definition of what is Good is informed by yours. Your North Star, in other words, is in a different place than mine is — which makes trying to navigate by taking sightings of it a perilous proposition.

评论 #18409901 未加载

cousin_it超过 6 年前

Cause that's where the truth comes from ladies and gentlemen, the gut.

afpx超过 6 年前

This word soup reads like it was generated by the Postmodernism Paper Generator [1]. What am I supposed to take away from this? Is there a TL;DR version?[1]: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism_Generator" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism_Generator</a>

评论 #18416343 未加载

vectorEQ超过 6 年前

to engineers it is. how the hell are they going to make a living otherwise? something being a problem of any type is just an opinion anyway... :D

wazoox超过 6 年前

Yeah, democracy isn't "rule by those who know". That's our problem, nowadays, and why people by the millions go vote for Trump, Brexit, Bolsonaro, etc. Because of the smug "know-it-all".

hcg超过 6 年前

I was hoping this would be much a critique of the tendency of people to place too much faith in technology, to ignore the human element of solutions, and (among SV types especially) to prize their own goals above all else. To try and come up with purely technical solutions to the problems of society, but to do so by trying to create an environment which lets their own capitalist goals succeed while tossing scraps to the rest.Cause even when it's well meaning, I still can't stand it. Their (our I suppose) own conviction they they are right fuels a randian like commitment to individualism. But then they want to appear woke and smart and so they start talking about basic income and how it's fine to have half the population just sort of subsisting. Or we'll fix democracy with smartphones and blockchain.Also the tendency towards not just being temporarily embarrassed millionaires, but temporarily embarrassed tech billionaires.