The mud throwing is not a consequence of incompetence primary, but of ruling-party/opposition-party dynamics. They see parlement as an arena wherein they fight for the favour of the crowd... and election cycles and the principle of democracy gives them the incentive to see it that way. And so I think if you don't change that incentive, that dynamic won't really go away. — ChatteringMonkey
A politician is no isolated island that relies solely on his or her abilities. Usually they have a personal staff of various experts they can rely on, and more importantly they are part of parties that certainly have teams of experts in every domain. — ChatteringMonkey
and what happens then in parliament is not a matter of dialectics anymore, but of rethorics. — ChatteringMonkey
What is the difference between a parliamentary politician in representative democracies today and someone in an epistemic democracy? — Christoffer
Which is the change to parliament I also propose here. The debates taking place is there to reach a voting conclusion. So increasing their quality would increase the quality of those votes.
Essentially I want to move away from experts who give their expertise to amateurs who then debate and decide. I want to have experts who give expertise to dialectic experts who decide closer to facts than popularity. — Christoffer
If you change the praxis of debate, if you demand unbiased arguments without fallacies and factual errors, there's no need for mud throws. You can argue for the people who voted on you, but in a much higher quality than just populistic rants. — Christoffer
I think that you are making a fallacy with the idea that "because epistemic doesn't make experts of politicians it is not better than the status quo." — Christoffer
But that's not the differentiation I made. I'm on board with elected officials being educated, and I'm on board with philosophy forming part of that (indeed everyone's) education. But even in debate, I'd still prefer the woman arguing economic policy to understand economics first and foremost. A two-two in philosophy just doesn't cut it. — Kenosha Kid
It is your belief that there's a simple equation: a philosophy graduate = a better political thinker. I don't even think this is true. Some philosophy graduates will be superior thinkers. But some will be solipsists, a great many are theologians, some deny the material world, some deny causality, some will argue for an ethics of self-advancement. I don't want any of those people running the country. — Kenosha Kid
I'd actually make a stronger argument for physics being a better option: it at least grounds you in some understanding of reality; physicists are overwhelmingly atheists which will guarantee a separation of church and state; they have an average IQ well above politicians; they tend not to be partisan (at least here); they are equipped with the mathematical knowledge to understand economic theory; they are used to modelling complex systems like a society; they're used to thinking big picture (cosmology) so are unlikely to be vulnerable to malicious lobbies; they also understand that the smallest of things are important. Okay, their empathy skills are low, but there's the argument that you actually need your leaders to be a little psychopathic. Overall, physics is clearly the superior choice of universal political education... according to a physicist! — Kenosha Kid
I don't think you fully understood the ramifications of what I'm saying. It's not the representatives who decide. Or they decide only 'technically', the decisions are determined beforehand. So what gets decided beforehand determines the quality of the votes, not the parliamentary proces. — ChatteringMonkey
if they would punish representatives electorally for poor rethoric. And maybe you could accomplish that by educating or informing the people... not necessarily the politicians. — ChatteringMonkey
How do you decide the requirements for being a politician without being yourself political? You cannot create an impartial course on these topics. — Judaka
If you had explained the license differently then my comments would be different. If it was a specialised course that prepared you for the practical elements of the job you're intending to take then it could be compared to medicine. As it stands, it's more of a bachelor of arts. — Judaka
I've repeatedly said that I think it will make absolutely no improvement on the status quo. When it was just facts, I was okay with it, now it's also biases and fallacies and I think it's too dangerous. — Judaka
I certainly don't trust anyone to moderate my posts, the moderators on this forum are legit the worst posters here. — Judaka
The idea is asinine and that's my position, now I can assume the role of fact-checker and do not respond to my criticism, just go back and rewrite your argument, I will let you know if it's logical or not and if it isn't then you can rewrite it again. You didn't lose this debate but I've determined that your position is illogical therefore you must rewrite it so we can get to the truth beyond your biases and fallacies. — Judaka
I think you view philosophy in another way than I do within the context of epistemic democracy. I focus on the practice of dialectical scrutiny, the focus on strong premised, unbiased arguments together with an understanding of moral theories, deeper ideological understanding as well as how the praxis of philosophical debate erases all populistic behaviors in parliament. — Christoffer
It might be the case that lobbyist and politics behind the curtains make some of the representatives decide before being in parliament pressing the buttons, but it's still happening there and there are many cases where party members go against their own members if they think their own party has it wrong. The debates taking place in parliament is there in order to discuss proposals, to recruit votes within the parliament. So if those debates had a much higher level of quality, the expert input from the staff of each party can be debated at a higher level of quality. — Christoffer
I still think that raising the bar for debate quality and having a fact-checker present who can stop politicians with bad arguments, demanding them to improve them before continuing, would lead to that and be easier to accomplish than educating the entire people.
The basic question I'm asking is why politicians who can make decisions of life and death for the people, aren't demanded to have a license, just like any other job with such risks? The first thing to counter-argue would be to ask why not having such licenses is better than having them. — Christoffer
You can have morally sound politicians, great economists, great debaters, great diplomats, great lawyers, the works, and that melting point of experience and achievement would far outdo an identikit political education. — Kenosha Kid
Overall, I'm not opposed to a general grounding in salient fields as a requisite. But I think a broader meritocracy covers that. You can have morally sound politicians, great economists, great debaters, great diplomats, great lawyers, the works, and that melting point of experience and achievement would far outdo an identikit political education. — Kenosha Kid
Sure, I'm not saying it wouldn't matter at all, I'm just saying there might be better ways of achieving the goal. Things like diminishing power of political parties, better accountability through review of representatives, better press reporting through regulation of the media, etc etc... might be more effective. — ChatteringMonkey
It's hard as it is now to get into politics as an average Joe, and then you are only making it harder. — ChatteringMonkey
Licensing through education also typically favours those with the means to finance the education, so there is also the risk you skew political representation in favour of certain classes. — ChatteringMonkey
That's basically what i'd propose instead, because it seems to jive better with the principle of democracy and you also avoid some of the risks that come with licenses. — ChatteringMonkey
Epistemic Democracy is in its simplest form a request for better parliamentary praxis and educational baseline for all at those power positions. To represent the people shouldn't be to represent stupidity, it should be to represent by interpreting the will of the people through rational thought rather than populism. — Christoffer
No solution is a final solution to all problems. I'm behind those ideas as well, but still thinks a baseline knowledge for the praxis of parliamentary politicians would help get rid of much of the post-truth populism we see today. — Christoffer
The average joes can't all become doctors either, even if they want to. I think the idea basically has to do with how we view the work of politicians. I see it as having a tremendous responsibility over the people and therefore I see it as equally important to have a license in order to practice it without harm towards the people. — Christoffer
Not if it's free. — Christoffer
An intuitively moral person who could make a difference in a vote but lacks the academic skill to get a degree will be disqualified, while an academically gifted villain will not. — Kenosha Kid
I doubt it, post-truth populism is a much wider phenomenon than parliament, then politics even. — ChatteringMonkey
There's a big difference though, doctors aren't supposed to be elected democratically, and there are more tangible ways to objectively evaluate the skills of a doctor than those of a politician. — ChatteringMonkey
It's never totally "free", in the sense that even if you don't have to pay for the education itself, there are costs of living and the opportunity cost of not having an income while you get the education. I live in a country with free education and there is still a class divide in those that get an education and those that do not. Poor people need to earn money to pay for the costs of living. And even aside from the money issues, there would be class differences just because of the values and skills one gets from their parents. — ChatteringMonkey
But with the education system, we get an educated villain, but also an intuitively moral person with even better perspective on their moral intuition. — Christoffer
For me, philosophy is probably the least corruptable within academia. The reason being that one primary goal of it is to be skeptical of the knowledge you learn within it. While scientific educations may look unbiased, they can be corrupted. So philosophy is a great way to force people to see past their biases and if the praxis within the job they have educated towards feature a focus on philosophical unbiased rationality, it's even harder to maintain a bias. — Christoffer
Yes, they differ, but the key point of the politician is unbiased praxis. What I'm aiming at is that even though politicians come from different ideologies, they need to rationally argue their proposals in parliament without biases. Right now we have no actual fact-checking and no actual focus on quality of arguments in any parliament. We could argue that media has the role of fact-checking, but since media tends to focus on drama rather than the quality of truth, their role has somewhat diminished as a "reviewer" of power. All while people's apathy towards both politics and truth in media makes room for populism to grow easier. — Christoffer
In Sweden, you get paid to go to higher education. If you need more than the base sum, you take a low-interest loan specifically aimed at education that is paid back through the job you get later on. There are ways to battle the problems with enabling this education for anyone, but since it is a fundamental part of the democracy where it is applied, it might need to have special rules of funding in order to maintain that equality. You should be able to get this education even if you come from absolutely nothing (of course normal education is needed as a foundation, but that is true even for how politics is today).
This might even be an incentive to poor people to get out of poor conditions and wouldn't that be an interesting way to increase diversity in politics and get other voices than the privileged in power? I mean, even if you aren't directly working within parliament, getting the education and a license has a weight towards working in other parts of a party constellation. — Christoffer
I don't feel you're even trying to make a compelling argument for the education you've suggested and instead you're just saying that some form of education would be preferable for you. — Judaka
Just look at universities today, they are far from politically impartial, many are famous for their political leanings. Who teaches the licence, what kind of thinker does it produce and does it restrict the types of politicians that can be elected. — Judaka
As I've said a few times now, I just don't have any confidence in your proposals to be implemented fairly. — Judaka
I haven't been sold on why the fact-checker is necessary and I am concerned that politicians can be silenced or forced to reword their arguments based on the fact-checkers opinions about biases or fallacies. — Judaka
Just as you accused me of using a fallacy, who's right on that? It's dangerous because if the fact-checker is being uncharitable with people or parties he doesn't like or if he's just incompetent then that's going to be a huge problem. — Judaka
Yes, this is the philosophy degree -> better politician determinism I asked about before. You've obviously derived this ab initio from the superiority of philosophy that you perceive, and I don't deny that philosophy teaches good things like scepticism. I do deny that the output of that is good sceptics or good politicians, in the same way that a medical degree is not a thing that generally yields good gynaecologists. — Kenosha Kid
For the education part of the argument, I'd add the psychological Dual Process Theory to the mix. Popularized by Daniel Kahneman it speaks of the two systems our brain is using to make decisions, where system 1 acts on impulse and system 2 acts through reflectability. Why I bring up these is because studies have shown that through experience and training you can improve the speed of system 2 which is slower and often overlooked when making decisions. The act of doing philosophy, training in philosophy can in itself improve the use and speed of system 2, reducing the biases you have when making decisions and forming conclusions.
So with education in, primarily, philosophy, you will not only give knowledge in deductive and inductive methods of dialectics, but you will also improve the use of system 2 compared to without education the overuse of system 1. — Christoffer
For this objection to be valid you need to prove that universities today produce biased educated people and that they are in fact acting with those imprinted biases after education is over. The objection that universities are politically impartial is often used in a fallacious way to argue that education is broken and nothing good can come out of it or at least nothing that fits your biases about the world is taught within them. So this objection is pretty weak for arguing against the need for politics based-education of politicians. — Christoffer
Is this system fairer than how regular representative democracy system is now in most parts of the world? — Christoffer
In what way would a fact-checker be biased or have fallacies? — Christoffer
Universities don't try to ensure equal representation in their courses or of their lecturers in political persuasions, why wouldn't there be an imbalance? Universities have always been involved in politics and university students have always been interested in politics. Especially in the arts where people are encouraged to think about these kinds of ideas. I don't want to respond to your obsession with fallacies that have nothing to do with what I said. — Judaka
It's barely different, barely addresses any of the problems and you don't take any of the potential problems it could cause seriously. Populism works not because of politicians but because of voters, I don't know how much of an issue populism is. Populism comes about because people feel disenfranchised and failed by democracy in the first place. — Judaka
Disregarding the fact that people don't get a politician license after learning a political ideology, but instead, already have a foundational ideology. The education isn't there to reprogram and even if there was a political imbalance at the university, that doesn't change the education taught in these areas of knowledge — Christoffer
Students can today absolutely call out if the knowledge taught has a political bias instead of neutrality and if they have a specific political ideology, the education won't interfere with that. — Christoffer
By saying it's barley different you effectively straw man the entire idea or ignore portions of my argument, like the Dual Process effect on parliamentary members. And the problems you raise are still too weak and closer to slippery slope ideas of the consequences. — Christoffer
You bring up fallacy arguments so much lol. Most of your responses are really just you theorising about the ways in which you think my arguments might go without actually finding that out first. — Judaka
Was this my argument? That fact is only important to you, why should I care? — Judaka
It's not even just about the "knowledge taught", even if the classes were totally apolitical. When you say political candidates must spend 3-6 years at a university and universities aren't apolitical places, it has an impact on the candidates. — Judaka
The spread of communism and its relationship with universities is extensive, that's half of the story of the 20th-century spread of communism. Look at Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, Lenin and many others. The point here isn't to say "US will become communist if political licence" but that you cannot treat universities as being apolitical. — Judaka
STRAW MAN? I've written like 2k words on your thread, you know what I think about the individual components which have all been addressed. I haven't made any slippery slope arguments. — Judaka
I am done, please stop replying to me. — Judaka
But you are very specific about what type of change we are talking about so you need to prove that with much better scrutiny. — Christoffer
. Really, that's my "line of logic"? But I never said anything like that. Isn't that what we call a strawman?The old rise of communism was because communism in universities] > [Universities are not good for learning] — Christoffer
Still, you sum up my premise about education to be bad because it produces indoctrinated politicians because communism started in universities — Christoffer
You say you want proof but I'm not sure that exists, it's a nearly impossible thing to prove. We don't record what your political positions were before and after taking a course at a university. We can only note that universities are not apolitical. — Judaka
You ask "what evidence do you have that it can produce ideological shifts" but within communism you have clear examples of world-famous communist leaders who picked up their ideological leanings at university. — Judaka
if you forced future leaders to go to universities which debate political theories such as communism then it increases the likelihood of them being influenced by those theories. — Judaka
It is not the nail in the coffin for your suggestions and honestly I am not really trying to prove anything. — Judaka
Really, that's my "line of logic"? But I never said anything like that. Isn't that what we call a strawman? — Judaka
It's an outrageous interpretation of my argument. I'm not fearmongering communism and I even went out of my way to specify as such. — Judaka
You choose instead to put words in my mouth and interpret my arguments in ways that undermine them, so I will not respond to whatever you may comment further. — Judaka
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