The Information Problem
We have the most powerful, wealthy, and influential nation in the world, run as a republic in which the citizens get to vote. All that power and money is up for grabs to whoever is the best at swaying that vote. As a result, the most talented deceivers in the world are here. This power center hones the art of manipulation for use in service of the two major factions.
This is why the information system is broken. Science and academic research are contaminated by politics when they enter the channels that bring them to the common person. Most of us are either apathetic or we're blindly swallowing a Republican or Democratic party line.
Yet the issues that are pressing today are often the most uncertain ones, and the ones requiring the most expertise. When I argue politics, I stick to values, such as civil rights. Anyone can have values. Rights are not practical matters of outcomes or prediction.
Economics and science, by contrast, concern practical matters of prediction. If you do this, you get this outcome, and if you do that, you get that outcome. They concern global systems of unprecedented complexity and subtlety.
When I talk about-- let's say for instance-- economics, I get my ass handed to me on a platter. Then I repeat those exact same facts which were used as that platter, and the person on the other side of the debate wipes the floor with me with their facts. I could go back and forth in an infinite cycle, buried under tidal wave after tidal wave of competing facts. The facts are contradictory and misleading. Let's face it. It requires an expert.
I don't want to just toe a party line, blind to the lack of credibility. Or I could spend the amount of time comparable to a part-time job becoming an expert pundit. But then I would just end up a fanatic, ideologically blinded to the legitimacy of the other set of facts. That's not really a career that I want anyway. In the modern world of ever-increasing global complexity and subtlety, is a part-time career in economics and science expected of every citizen as a matter of civic duty? If so, then we couldn't do much with our freedom. That kind of life would be worth very little to me.
There may be solutions to the information problem. More to come on this topic.
Comments
rachelann1977 on Oct. 18, 2008 4:56 PM
Well, I agree with you on one point, I also am currently going to vote based on civil rights, because that is the only issue on which these two candidates differ significantly enough for me. On most other issues I think they both suck. Actually, even on civil rights, neither one is wonderful, but one is better than the other to me, which I really can't say about most of the other issues.
zifferent on Oct. 19, 2008 12:55 PM
It's a game you can't win.
Stay informed, i.e. read some form of news every day and listen and ponder much more than you talk and you shouldn't have your ass handed to you.
dbvanhorn on Oct. 19, 2008 2:03 PM
Realistically, what has changed since the middle ages?
We're still owned serfs of the kingdom. We had some rights for a while, but they're largely imaginary now.
The only major difference that I see, is that the tax collector can't barge in, take what they want, and rape your wife.
We sort of have freedom of speech, if you don't say anything TOO controversial, or too loudly.
We sort of have freedom of religion.
Economics is something our leaders apparently understand at least as well as they understand string theory.
Elections are a popularity contest with people trying to guess who will win, so they can vote for the winner.
(can you tell I'm in a crabby mood today?)
uplinktruck on Oct. 22, 2008 7:32 PM
So you sat down, composed these words and typed: "Then I repeat those exact same facts which were used as that platter, and the person on the other side of the debate wipes the floor with me with their facts."
That hasn't happened to anyone here on this blog...
matt-arnold on Oct. 23, 2008 12:55 AM
I learned to stop that before I ever had this blog. Mostly on messageboards.
uplinktruck on Oct. 23, 2008 12:58 AM
Right...
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