Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Technocracy Movement of the 1930s

donotresearch.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 148 posts

Re: The Technocracy Movement of the 1930s

#91

Post by jongjong »

wakawaka28 wrote: post #66

Technocracy sounds good in theory, but if you understand human nature and economics you'll realize that technocratic governance makes no sense. It's up to humans to decide what to do, with value judgements about what they want to give up in exchange for what they want. It is the role of technology to facilitate the implementation. We certainly hope to have leaders who are literate in science and tech, but science and…

Yep and I think unfortunately people don't understand human nature because they look at themselves and look at their neighbours to estimate it... But human nature is very different when evaluated from the centres of power. Humans near the centres of power are fundamentally very different from those on the periphery. There are powerful selection mechanisms at play.

I used to think success was mostly about luck but now I think there are selection mechanisms but they're not selecting for what people think. Selection is not based on skill or hard work.

Re: The Technocracy Movement of the 1930s

#93

Post by The_Goonies1985 »

c6400sc wrote: post #79

Technocracy rose roughly simultaneously with the Good Government movement of the 1920s. Both were a response to the machine politics and crony capitalism of the gilded age. The hippie movement was itself somewhat a response to the inroads Technocracy had made in American government, so argued in this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Making_of_a_Counter_Cultur...

[dead]

Re: The Technocracy Movement of the 1930s

#94

Post by jdub »

trhway wrote: post #36
intalentive wrote: post #8

Technology did change the world, and technocrats did shape it. This was part of what Burnham called the "managerial revolution". In the 1930s the fascists, communists, and New Dealers all took the reins and governed their societies in new technocratic ways. It has never really changed ever since. The permanent war economy of the United States never ceased, the constant monetary tweaking by the Federal Reserve never c…

> In the 1930s the fascists, communists, and New Dealers all took the reins and governed their societies in new technocratic ways. ... They are technological means by which to manage populations. As Yuval Harari puts it, the answer to "unnecessary people" is "drugs and computer games". while "New Deal" have a lot of issues, note that 2 other approaches totally failed. At least for some time we considered them as fail…

The USA didn't New Deal hard enough to keep up with the rest of the "Western" world's more humane form of capitalism, which you can see in how consistently the USA lags behind other countries in measures of actual human progress and comfort.

While most "Western" countries suffered through similar technocratic, neoliberal turns in the 80s, they were built on a stronger social democratic base than the USA.

And don't get fooled by "horseshoe theory" ignorance: Fascist states were/are authoritarian by definition. Communist states were/are authoritarian by culture.

Re: The Technocracy Movement of the 1930s

#95

Post by pembrook »

chermi wrote: post #72
recursivecaveat wrote: post #38

Technocracy always struck me as weirdly incoherent? If you take the economy, probably the most studied of government policies, it is not 1 number. There are many questions about what priorities ought to be. There is no 'expert' answer for how many starving poor people are a worthy trade off for a GDP point. Even if there was, there is an economist branch that disagrees with any possible position you might take. The q…

Hubris. Is the same mindset that leads to socialism, central planning, social darwinism, etc. The temptation of "theory" without the suffering from pesky reality.

How ironic that you were downvoted.

HN is full of left-populists these days and any slightly negative mention of socialism or central planning (their equivalent utopian vision) triggers them.

I think this suggests it's more than just hubris, it's religion. These aren't just ideas, they are belief systems and identities for people. Hence why someone would downvote a benign internet comment like yours.

The steady decline of traditional religions has left people searching for meaning in other ways, and it has manifested in all sorts of bizarre belief systems and behavior over the past 200ish years, technocracy being one of them.

Re: The Technocracy Movement of the 1930s

#96

Post by j45 »

engineer_22 wrote: post #43
recursivecaveat wrote: post #38

Technocracy always struck me as weirdly incoherent? If you take the economy, probably the most studied of government policies, it is not 1 number. There are many questions about what priorities ought to be. There is no 'expert' answer for how many starving poor people are a worthy trade off for a GDP point. Even if there was, there is an economist branch that disagrees with any possible position you might take. The q…

My theory It coalesced at a time when science was becoming more accessible to the masses, more educated technicians running around engaging in work and trade. And these technicians were frustrated by bosses who didn't understand the science and technique behind things. So there was great inefficiency because the bosses hadn't caught up to the technicians in their understanding of the world. And so the political idea…

Sounds like early AI..

Re: The Technocracy Movement of the 1930s

#97

Post by pembrook »

recursivecaveat wrote: post #38

Technocracy always struck me as weirdly incoherent? If you take the economy, probably the most studied of government policies, it is not 1 number. There are many questions about what priorities ought to be. There is no 'expert' answer for how many starving poor people are a worthy trade off for a GDP point. Even if there was, there is an economist branch that disagrees with any possible position you might take. The q…

This comment strikes me as weirdly incoherent.

It seems to be an assemblage of random political ranting (derived from mainstream US politics) instead of addressing anything about the Technocracy movement of the 1930s.

Re: The Technocracy Movement of the 1930s

#98

Post by rcxdude »

_bypa wrote: post #15
jauntywundrkind wrote: post #4

It's so wild to believe humanity held such a hopeful political mythos, ever. And I see such appeal here. To make efficient, to make a government that functions that builds that runs well. Mechanistic sympathy is a key term that sends the engineers heart aflutter; to work together holds great delight. The idea that there might be some shots for mankind at engineering not just a social, as the article highlights, but g…

Why optimize for efficiency though? Why not human flourishing or planetary health, whichever way you wish to define that? Efficiency sounds to me like an absolutely awful way to run any society as it's what turns individuals into disposable cogs of a machine that needs to be operated smoothly because, well, no obvious reason other than a fetish to see the machine run smoothly, no matter the human cost.

Until you manage to eliminate or at least limit competition between groups, efficiency is a very important metric to optimize for lest you get out-competed by others, at the very least reducing the effect of your group, if not resulting in it shrinking or disappearing.

Re: The Technocracy Movement of the 1930s

#99

Post by mohamedkoubaa »

intalentive wrote: post #59
trhway wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the 1930s the fascists, communists, and New Dealers all took the reins and governed their societies in new technocratic ways. ... They are technological means by which to manage populations. As Yuval Harari puts it, the answer to "unnecessary people" is "drugs and computer games". while "New Deal" have a lot of issues, note that 2 other approaches totally failed. At least for some time we considered them as fail…

Seems to be working fine in China. Bad management happens, and does not refute the idea of management itself. Good management works.

I think it's reductive to call China fascist or communist.

Re: The Technocracy Movement of the 1930s

#100

Post by [deleted] »

pembrook wrote: post #95
chermi wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hubris. Is the same mindset that leads to socialism, central planning, social darwinism, etc. The temptation of "theory" without the suffering from pesky reality.

How ironic that you were downvoted. HN is full of left-populists these days and any slightly negative mention of socialism or central planning (their equivalent utopian vision) triggers them. I think this suggests it's more than just hubris, it's religion. These aren't just ideas, they are belief systems and identities for people. Hence why someone would downvote a benign internet comment like yours. The steady decli…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN