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One of Estonia's first "e-residents" explains what it means

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Re: One of Estonia's first "e-residents" explains what it means

#51

Post by prawn »

lwhalen wrote: post #3
njarboe wrote: post #2

"Estonia wants to be a role model and leader for a different way of seeing the world: a world that is more open, meritocratic and reflective of the demands—and opportunities—of the 21st century." Meritocratic seems highly promoted in many circles (seems like on first glace a good idea as opposed to say, despotic), but in a meritocratic world, what happens to the dumb and/or lazy (unmeritable?) people.

Is it bad if they just fall by the wayside? If one puts forth zero effort, they should get zero reward.

How do you feel about China's forays into social scoring that limits the choices available to those with indiscretions (unpaid fines, etc). They can't fly, access particular services, etc.

If the limitations/rewards vary based on who is in power, I can see that becoming quickly challenging. Internet access could be deemed a reward, for example.

Re: One of Estonia's first "e-residents" explains what it means

#52

Post by prawn »

lwhalen wrote: post #12
njarboe wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"fall by the wayside" is a bit hand wavy. Do you mean they become poor, broke, with nothing to loose, ripe for a revolution? Or that they are killed by automated drones when they come over the fence of your/my/our/their gated community?

if they were prone to revolution, you'd think "get a danged job" would be the path of least resistance (pun fully intended).

I suspect there is a not insignificant subset of males especially that would find the idea of anarchy more exciting than the humdrum of job-seeking and (worse) job-doing.

Re: One of Estonia's first "e-residents" explains what it means

#53

Post by fineline »

stonogo wrote: post #17
mpweiher wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in a meritocratic world, what happens to the dumb and/or lazy? They don't get to run things? Put another way: assuming you're going to have some sort of hierarchy, and you will, how would you want to organize that hierarchy? Merit seems like the least bad way to do so.

"Merit" is not a quantifiable characteristic. All your plan would do is give the power to the people who define "merit." It's like you're advocating for correctpersonocracy. Put another way, literally every government that has ever existed would call itself a meritocracy. The actual word 'meritocracy' comes from a book that warned about the dangers of creating easily-gamed draconian systems that needlessly exclude pe…

I haven't read it (yet) but it was described and exerted in a recent BBC podcast on voting patterns in Brexit/Trump elections:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09tcvp4

Some interesting people interviewed and points raised.

Re: One of Estonia's first "e-residents" explains what it means

#54

Post by wiradikusuma »

I'm still unclear of the benefits.

Could anyone shed some light: What can we do with it that we can't do now? Let's say that I'm a solo entrepreneur or small SaaS owner from a developing country (e.g from Asia, Africa or LatAm) -- basically, typical HNer who's not from Europe/US.

Re: One of Estonia's first "e-residents" explains what it means

#55

Post by ibn_ibid »

wiradikusuma wrote: post #54

I'm still unclear of the benefits. Could anyone shed some light: What can we do with it that we can't do now? Let's say that I'm a solo entrepreneur or small SaaS owner from a developing country (e.g from Asia, Africa or LatAm) -- basically, typical HNer who's not from Europe/US.

It is basically a way to make it easier for entrepreneurs to do business in the Eurozone and take advantage of Estonia's generous corporate tax structure. It's mostly a legal / financial device, you can't use it for travel or citizenship purposes.

Re: One of Estonia's first "e-residents" explains what it means

#56

Post by njarboe »

stonogo wrote: post #17
mpweiher wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in a meritocratic world, what happens to the dumb and/or lazy? They don't get to run things? Put another way: assuming you're going to have some sort of hierarchy, and you will, how would you want to organize that hierarchy? Merit seems like the least bad way to do so.

"Merit" is not a quantifiable characteristic. All your plan would do is give the power to the people who define "merit." It's like you're advocating for correctpersonocracy. Put another way, literally every government that has ever existed would call itself a meritocracy. The actual word 'meritocracy' comes from a book that warned about the dangers of creating easily-gamed draconian systems that needlessly exclude pe…

I think I like a new phrase/idea I heard from Jordan Peterson recently. "Hierarchies of competency". This seems to me like a better idea of how society can arrange itself. Society needs to be able to have different people have different amounts of power in different domains, but those hierarchies don't have to be built on violence and raw power. Maybe "hierarchies of competency" could be a stable, positive way to organize at least some parts of society.

Re: One of Estonia's first "e-residents" explains what it means

#57

Post by ohazi »

> can open Estonian bank and securities accounts

Does anyone know how well this works in practice for US citizens?

I've been led to believe that FBAR requirements are so onerous that most non-US banks would rather turn away US citizens than take their business.

Re: One of Estonia's first "e-residents" explains what it means

#58

Post by marcus_holmes »

njarboe wrote: post #56
stonogo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Merit" is not a quantifiable characteristic. All your plan would do is give the power to the people who define "merit." It's like you're advocating for correctpersonocracy. Put another way, literally every government that has ever existed would call itself a meritocracy. The actual word 'meritocracy' comes from a book that warned about the dangers of creating easily-gamed draconian systems that needlessly exclude pe…

I think I like a new phrase/idea I heard from Jordan Peterson recently. "Hierarchies of competency". This seems to me like a better idea of how society can arrange itself. Society needs to be able to have different people have different amounts of power in different domains, but those hierarchies don't have to be built on violence and raw power. Maybe "hierarchies of competency" could be a stable, positive way to org…

Competency in what? The best person to make decisions may not be the best person to talk about those decisions in front of a camera, or the best person to inspire confidence in those decisions in a nation of (by definition) less-competent people who (again by definition) would have made the decision differently.

Re: One of Estonia's first "e-residents" explains what it means

#59

Post by [deleted] »

mathgladiator wrote: post #20
lwhalen wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if they were prone to revolution, you'd think "get a danged job" would be the path of least resistance (pun fully intended).

I've been thinking about this with respect to America's future. Basically, suppose people want a revolution. Well, that would require a competent leader to make the mob effective. This is the rub, if you have leadership skills then you make bank and would be in 'the system'.

[deleted]

Re: One of Estonia's first "e-residents" explains what it means

#60

Post by gwbas1c »

wiradikusuma wrote: post #54

I'm still unclear of the benefits. Could anyone shed some light: What can we do with it that we can't do now? Let's say that I'm a solo entrepreneur or small SaaS owner from a developing country (e.g from Asia, Africa or LatAm) -- basically, typical HNer who's not from Europe/US.

From the article, the author is able to be on the board for an Estonian company and take payment in Euro as a consultant. He can also e-sign documents.
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