[FoRK] And then it dawned on me...

[Jeff Bone]

I'm not a libertarian / anarchist / whatever anymore.  At least, in  
principle.  Observation:  people are in general chronically and  
irreparably stupid, and we're doomed by mean regression.  There's  
simply no way to aggregate stupidity that results in anything better  
than stupidity --- market magic, wikinomics and the like  
notwithstanding.  Those mechanisms aren't additive;  they merely  
nullify the subtractive effects of the baseline stupidity.  The  
result of even those mechanisms isn't merely the best that we've  
achieved so far, it's the best that *can be* achieved by any form of  
non-coercive preference aggregation.

I'm a technocrat!  We'd be better off under the benevolent  
dictatorship of an enlightened, principled, motivated, selfless few,  
or one.  In fact, if Eli's whole "friendliness" concept wasn't an  
almost-impenetrably dense (by design!) self-referential piece of  
brain damage --- if it was actually something that made sense and  
could be achieved --- I'd be all for it.  Machines of loving grace  
and all that.

Practically, though, little changes.  It appears that under all known  
mechanisms of allocating authority, those who get it shouldn't have  
it, and those who should have it do not get it.  So given this, less  
government's inherently better.  So pragmatically, status quo.

But damn, people are stupid.  Damn.

jb