Pseudo-Technocratic Demagoguery
~ ignore Musk; listen to the Engineers ~
TL;DR — Demagogues use flowery words to hide the absence of results, and then they tell you who to attack and exclude. We risk losing what is valuable in evidence-based policy to the demagogues who use ‘rationality’ and a new ‘technocracy’ as their shield. The demagogues have followers, instead of successful prototypes and models. And they seek to blacklist you, if you threaten to topple their pedestal. I reserve exclusion for those who practice it.
Purger-King
Elon Musk is the most recognizable example — a charismatic who is busy making promises, with a loyal following… who persecute and harass the ‘opposition’ their dear leader has fabricated. If he happens to favor our side, Musk flying his American Broomstick, then there is a sigh of relief; though he may just as soon be against you for some trivial slight tomorrow!
Contrast that with a model of ‘Deliberative Democracy’, where each law must include its stated purpose, to prevent hidden agendas. “This law is passed in order to lower the rate of violent crime.” Well… did it actually do that? Then, the government is accountable to measure if that law achieves this purpose in reality; if it does not do so, it is removed from the books. Would Senators have had years to swindle us with their deregulation of banks, which created the Financial Crisis in 2008, if we had practiced such a transparent, evidence-based policy? I have trouble seeing how they would have gotten away with it for long.
That second example, an incarnation of Deliberative Democracy, is just one path toward the precious accountability that we desperately need in governance. Even approaching the problem this way is so foreign that discussions frequently neglect it as an option! Musk, meanwhile, tweets about his pet peeves and millions of fans listen. That charismatic bullying is NOT technocratic or rational; it’s demagoguery. The ‘candy-store politician’ who promises sweets for every meal, if you execute their purge of the membership.
And, moving to a less over-played example than Musk, we have the demagogues within institutions. They act as gate-keepers, and their power over others is the focus of their time and attention. To justify their whims and partiality, they concoct excuses — the charm is more real, as they tell it, than those pesky results. “Don’t look at the data when my actions are being assessed; I have a good excuse.” The most important activity for the institutional demagogue is to gossip and flatter, currying favors and keeping secrets. If a major institution’s upper membership secretly agreed to blacklist lower-ranking members, for example. Who, specifically, initiated and supported that blacklist?
I’ve only listened to that happening from others, in some very ‘rationalist’ circles which voiced adherence to ‘transparency’; if someone was directly affected by such exclusion, you would want to talk to them for specifics. And I champion those who are treated this way being able to speak-up and find support. I am with you; I stand for transparent reasoning, measuring results, accountability, and the elimination of secret purges. The demagogues, if kept, will poison and destroy — yet, the only members remaining will all agree they are perfect and right while they fail. No sense doing it that way. :/
