Sure, this is only a British bureaucrat, but there’s no reason to think there are other rulers who have the same “tendencies“:
It’s not so much that everyone in government is a psychopath, it’s that governments tend to attract psychopaths. It seems like governments are stuffed full of them.
No quite off topic is The Mathematical Danger of Democratic Voting. You can bet politicians are aware of this kind of strategy, because it works, particularly on a voting populace with a high time preference (i.e., they prefer to have a decent thing now as opposed to a more ideal thing later):
He had me until the end. If you’re talking about large scale systems like a nation-state, it’s impossible to know what strangers’ best interests are. Then there is the need to get everyone on board with everyone else with the idea. That could happen in a small enough monoculture, but if you have a place like America where there will always be competing interests based on race, economic interests, and overall worldview, it’s going to spark even more conflict.
It reminds me of that one type of voting that individual committees or union leaders could perform, where essentially all the votes go into a black hole and whatever the leaders decide is declared what everyone supposedly voted for. I forget the name for the method, but it requires the committee leaders to take a vote from everyone, usually on a qualitative issue, like “should we install new air conditioners in the break room or in the office area, and if so, in which windows, and what brand should we buy?” Everyone votes on slips of paper and passes it in—would be hard to do this with a simple online survey since these kinds of people don’t know how to fake the code to do what they want. The leaders take the votes into a separate room, tally them, discuss and consider everything, then come back out and announce most of them voted for this really expensive brand of air conditioner, in this and that window, which happens to be right next to the committee leaders’ offices. When in reality, the committee leaders didn’t do a damn thing in the separate room except decide what was in their best interest and announce that the majority voted for that. When in reality, the plebes that voted all likely voted for something vastly different, and they are all individually left wondering which ones among them voted less for their own best interest and more for the interest of the people tallying the votes. It’s an excellent strategy for leaders who are on their way out of a group to get some extra goodies before they bail.
4 Comments
Yeah, the end was bogus; anything that tries to harness altruism in voting always fails. And psychopaths are drawn to government because the process and procedures repel normal people. It’s designed that way on purpose.
There are always “unintended” consequences.
I completely agree with your observation that governments tend to attract psychopaths. It’s a scary thought, but it makes sense. Those who crave power and control over others are likely to be drawn to positions of authority. However, I wonder if there are any ways to prevent this from happening. Is there a screening process for politicians that could weed out those with psychopathic tendencies? Or could we encourage more people with altruistic motives to enter politics? It’s a difficult problem to solve, but it’s important to at least start thinking about solutions. On a related note, I found the mention of the “Mathematical Danger of Democratic Voting” intriguing. Can you elaborate on that a bit more? How can we ensure that the democratic process isn’t being manipulated for short-term gains? It’s something to consider as we continue to navigate the complexities of governance.
Sorry to say, there isn’t much hope in making democracy better, aside from a few things that barely anyone would go for. You could do well by making nations smaller and less centralized. That’s a difficult sell because it means lots of folks would have to go some material comforts to make it happen. The same thing applies to violent overthrowing of the government, but then you’d make things fine for a while before they devolve into what we have here in America, again. Finally, could make things less diverse–ethnically, religiously, socially–to increase social cohesion and get rid of a lot of competing interests. That’s probably the hardest option out of all of them because no one wants to be perceived as fascist in the slightest sense, which is it would take to make that happen in societies that have conflicts that come from diversity.
I don’t promote democracy at all, but a certain state of things would make it less insufferable for most folks.