Should pro-science world citizens form their own independent nation?

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by cosmictotem, Mar 13, 2015.

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Should pro-science citizens from around the world form a pro-science nation?

  1. Yes

    7.7%
  2. No

    61.5%
  3. Depends

    38.5%
Multiple votes are allowed.
  1. Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,133
    You think science isn't based on truth?

    Truth is the ultimate goal of science. To learn the truth about how Reality and the Universe works.
     
    cosmictotem likes this.
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  3. river

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    True , science has as the ultimate goal , truth

    But politics and money and ego get in the way
     
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  5. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    Each profession, if running the country, would bring it own tools of the trade to the job. Lawyers will lead differently than businessmen, while businessmen would lead differently than scientists, while scientists would lead differently from clergy, who would lead differently from doctors, etc. The reason is each, has a different tool set needed to do their particular job. Also, each person, as a student, when choosing a profession, will choose a profession that also matches their innate deposition and skills.

    Science, for example, is not about emotions, so their leadership model might not go over well with people who are driven by emotional issues. For example, race baiting is driven by emotions and not all the facts. Emotions are much better served with lawyers in charge, where emotional spin can be added to limited facts. A good defense lawyer needs to make a guilty client look innocent, even when the preponderance of facts don't allow this. Lawyer skill can allow bad policy to look good, via the emotional spin of rhetoric and theatre; shift the jury. The scientists are not trained to do this. They can't make the world flat via spin and entertaining the audience, since emotion cannot be part of any equation. Policy would have to stand on logic and hard data.

    Business people think in terms of making a good product, at a cheap price, to get market share, so they can compete in the free market and turn a large profit. This method would be their angle in leadership. They would have the instinct to cut fat, waste and red tape/bottlenecks, since this is consistent with needs of their profession. It is not about emotions, rather the corporation needs to be optimized to maximize its utility.

    The Clergy would choose a path where government is more honest and moral, while allowing emotions as part of the decision process. It will not be entirely logical, like science, but it would remove the spin cycle of lawyers. It may not be as efficient as business, since it would accept waste that helps the unfortunate.

    I would welcome science giving it a try ,since it would align itself the most with business, since business also is not about emotions but applied optimization that makes use of math and science. If you look at the computer industry, this is an example of science and business, not only creating jobs, but making better and better products, that are become cheaper and cheaper, so all can benefit. This is a model for government that turns a profit. Each time the prices go down the consumer gets a tax break because government is turning a profit for them.

    The medical industry, although science and business does not work as efficiently because this industry is really science, business and lawyers with regulations and litigation creating an efficiency that benefits lawyers. This ends up costing more and becomes a tax increase. Obama Care did not address this, blood letting, but left this alone, because he is a lawyer and this helps his profession.
     
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  7. cosmictotem Registered Senior Member

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    748
    Let's say we grant your premise. Why are only scientist unqualified for governing? It seems some people in this thread are making the case that scientists are unqualified to govern societies because they are scientists. What about everyone else? Are they not also past thinkers? People who base their beliefs and devise legislation based upon their religion are not even more egregious past thinkers than scientists?

    It seems to me, given the choices we have, scientists are the most qualified out of the lot to make social and political decisions.
     
  8. cosmictotem Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    748
    Do they? Look at the climate change debate. Thousands of climatologists and other scientists could easily just get paid to be liars for the fossil fuel industry but the majority of them stand with the truth.
     
  9. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    Science cannot allow emotions to be part of the equation, but rather science has to remain rational and needs to stick to the hard data and logic. This approach would eliminate the appeal to emotions that drives so much of current politics. The fear is from liberalism, since most of liberals ideas are not logical or scientific, but only work if emotions can be used to cloud the data and interpretation. Liberalism works better with lawyers, not scientists.

    For example, the quota system is not logical, but needs emotions to work. For example, there is nobody alive today in America, who owned a slave or was a slave.

    There is no logical to way to rationalize a quota system, without appeal to emotions. Science assumes time and space do not overlap like multi-universes, where I can be transposed to the past, through the present, so I can be in two times at once. One cannot prove this with science. It is a magic trick with emotions. I am required to assume I can be connected to the past because of skin color, as though this alone, allows time travel. This assumptions allow all to be subject to the quota; all can time travel.

    Morality is not relative, since some choices add extra social costs to the equation. Relative implies both sides of the equation should add the same, not add more or less. This magic trick needs emotions. There is fear that all magic tricks would be exposed because science would need to be objective. The result would be a movement backward to the logical choices that had been inferred by the past.
     
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2015
  10. cosmictotem Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    748
    I'm glad you're willing to let scientists give it a try but I'm not sure how aligned with the business world they would ultimately be. Capitalism, after all, does have its faults. I suspect scientists would be curious to figure out what kind of economy would work best. They might discover a "gift" economy reduces conflict better than a capitalistic economy.

    I mean, if I have more money or resources than I could possibly use for myself in a lifetime, what do I gain by fighting with others over those extra resources I possess? it seems to me it would be easier on everyone and the environment if the rich (and everyone for that matter) satisfied themselves with a comfortable standard of resources instead of an extravagant one and shared their good fortune with the rest of the group free of charge. It would reduce conflict and mistrust, decrease stress on the environment and eco-systems and generally probably be a lot more efficient.
     
  11. cosmictotem Registered Senior Member

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    748
    I think you should know that I couldn't be anymore in the Liberal camp and I am the one proposing that scientists chair the governing bodies of nations.

    It seems your thinking on this matter might be clouded by a pre-disposition to conclude the capitalist model is the default economic model under which to consider my proposal. And that's not necessarily true.

    I don't think a quota system has to be illogical. There is plenty of scientific evidence that a more equitable sharing of resources (in whatever manner you devise) is more beneficial to the mutual survival of both parties than it would be to fight over them. That's because members of a species that fight over resources very often get hurt or killed. Plus fighting is an expenditure of energy that could be used for other, more productive activities.

    Look at the French and Russian Revolutions. At the heart, weren't they about resources? Maybe if the rich in those nations had considered sharing their resources with the peasantry they would not have been overthrown and executed. That would have been a very logical choice from a survival standpoint, no?
     
  12. cosmictotem Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    748
    I just want to return to this comment of yours.

    "…loses the ability to wage war…" stands out to me.

    Think about it. If only all nations lost the ability to wage war. Think of the destruction war has done to this planet, not only in terms of lives and resources but in time.

    We are wasting our valuable time with this addiction of ours. We are like children in nursery school who haven't learned to share yet.
     
  13. sculptor Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    8,466
    War sux the life out of those who fight, and the life out of the economies that support it.........
    nothing new there
    SO
    Why do we keep doing it?
    Are we no more than the epitome of the evolution of the killer ape?
    Or, are we on a path that will eventually lead to something better?
    The question obtains:
    Whither hence?
     
  14. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    33,264

    We keep doing"it" because of a few reasons. The arms dealers need to make money so they enjoy starting problems and have many times paid others to make problems to get a war or uprising started to make more money. Then you have those in power who get the kick backs from the arms dealers so they both make money and neither lose, nice way to get money without getting killed in any wars.
     
  15. sculptor Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    8,466
    If politicians led the troops from in front, I speculate that we'd "send in the troops" a tad less often.

    ................however
    what I was thinking was that there might be a species wide psychological predisposition for conflict................
     
  16. cosmictotem Registered Senior Member

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    748
    And there you have an example of capitalism and a monetary system economy feeding the world more problems.
     
  17. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    33,264
    And the other communistic countries as well. It works both ways, countries selling weapons to make problems so that they can sell more weapons. It has been going on for decades and all countries that sell weapons like Russia and China just to name a few others want to stir the hornets nest all of the time.
     
  18. Yazata Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,902
    My own view is that scientists probably aren't any better qualified to govern societies than anyone else. How would knowing a lot about silicate petrogenesis, gas chromotography or Higgs bosons make one a better ruler? In my experience, scientists know a lot about their own narrow areas of expertise, but when called upon to form opinions about matters unrelated to those research subjects, are no wiser than other laypeople.

    There seems to be an assumption in this (and similar) threads that scientists are demigods, in possession of a wonderful mythical "method" that makes them polymaths, renaissance men who are good at everything and never at a loss. I don't believe it.

    I think that everyone should have as much much freedom as is possible to govern his or her own personal life, consistent with public order and the right of everyone else to do the same. An implication of this principle is small government that intrudes as little as possible into the private affairs of individuals.

    For whom? Just for themselves or for everyone (whether they welcome it or not)? And why should we believe that scientists possess the governing qualifications that you seemingly believe they have?

    If some small group of scientists is just going self-segregate itself from supposed inferiors on some artificial island, I fail to see the point. What would it accomplish? What would motivate a scientist currently employed at Genentech, UCSF, Stanford or Google to want to give it all up and go live on a distant sandbar? What's the attraction?
     
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2015
  19. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,635
    Then everyone would live happily ever after.

    However, if all but one nation lost the ability to wage war, the entire planet will eventually come under control of that one nation. I am sure the process would be described in terms of "being in everyone's best interest."
    Most of us eventually learn to share. We also eventually learn to fight. The best of us share when we can, and fight only when there is no other choice.
     
  20. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    33,264
    Russia has two main exports, oil and weapons.
     
  21. kx000 Valued Senior Member

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    5,134
    Skepticism is not empirical. Almost the very same as believing but reverse. You need to remain neutral.
     
    Last edited: Mar 16, 2015
  22. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    5,160
    This scenario might be close to reality, since scientists are typically middlemen, who work for others, such as government, business and universities. They are not usually self sufficient, when it comes to resources; generate their own with money from inventions. As such, they might decide to use this template out of familiarity, also seeing the citizens as middlemen, just like them. They might allocate resources in a less competitive way.

    Lawyers make their money from the government; prosecutors, with access to other resources. Defense lawyers make their money selling goods and services in a free market setting that can touch even the lawless. Drug companies can't touch the lawless, legally. This area is exclusive to lawyers. The lawyers will think in terms of their own familiarity seeing citizens, as middlemen of the state and/or themselves as lobbyists in a free market that can include the lawless; defend those who break law; IRS and other scandals.

    Business people are used to making their own money, from scratch. They pay the lions share of taxes that funds the government and pay the salary of most of science; jobs in the private sector, endowments to the universities, and tax payer funded science. They would see a certain level of efficiency in a science controlled government, where lawyers are secondary. The government, controlled by science, would have business visionaries and science inventors, working with government resources to make life better for all, while turning a profit. The computer industry is a marriage of business and science that provides good jobs, billionaires, and all citizens having access to cheaper and cheaper high tech. This model is an ideal and would make the government a provider and not a parasite.
     
    Last edited: Mar 16, 2015
    cosmictotem likes this.
  23. river

    Messages:
    17,307
    The problem with this perspective ( I can understand what your saying here ) , where do you find empathy ?

    " Science " is a very broad spectrum of the sciences , life sciences too sub-atomic physical sciences

    Mainstream scientist are not the problem , they just have very good memories , they just regurgitate what they have been taught

    Its the geniuses that you are talking about here

    But they are for the most part disconnected from their own Being , Humanity its self

    My question then becomes , are we to follow science , based on geniuses without question ?
     

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