Geeks In the Public Forum? 326
cedarhillbilly writes "In his new book The Geek Manifesto, Mark Henderson 'pleads for citizens who value science to force it onto the mainstream political agenda and other main walks of life.' There are some important questions that need answers: 'Do you have to give up your tech practice to undertake a public role?' Also, 'Is political life (compromise, working by consensus, irrationality) antithetical to the "geek" values?'"
The Guardian's coverage sums up the idea nicely: "What I desperately want is a move toward an evidence-based culture in politics. Politicians are free to say: 'I think people on drugs should be punished because drugs are immoral.' That's a moral call, albeit a rather stupid one in my opinion. What they shouldn't do is say: 'I want to reduce drug use, and sending all users to prison is the most cost-effective way to achieve that.' That's not a moral call, it's a factual statement; as such it should be evidence-based, or else the person making it should shut the hell up."
Technocrats (Score:5, Interesting)
In short, Mark Henderson wants Technocrats not Politicians running our system. I tend to agree.
Lobbyists and Fascists Too (Score:4, Interesting)
my take (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been working fulltime in an elected, political position for about six years, so I kind of know what I'm talking about here:
If you get the chance, do it. This is a real win-win for everyone when it happens. It will help you do things with real meaning and bring about some important changes. I'm modest when I say that my approach to the office revolutionized it and most of the methods I developed are still in use today, four years after I left. That is the "evidence-based" approach TFA talks about, but more. Geeks in general have a less ideological approach to methods and procedures: We tend to have it easier dropping stuff that doesn't work instead of clinging to it "because we've always done it this way". That does get you into political fights sometimes, when you unceremoniously dump the pet method of someone, but it works and that's where you get the credit and trust you need to push more changes through.
And it also benefits you tremendeously. My social skills advanced greatly in this time. Instead of sitting at a computer most day with occasional meetings, my job suddenly was mostly about meeting people.
Negotiations are the greatest thing, ever. A geek with some negotiation training is most opponents worst nightmare. Most of us don't care enough about our own image to be tricked with the various ad hominem dialectics, and we have a great ability to cut through the bullshit and hit the facts of the matter. And since numbers and math are our friends, we aren't easily fooled by bullshit statistics.
And finally, you will almost certainly find that law is not the evil enemy, but just a different type of code. After a few years on the job, I was regularily discussing with full-time lawyers at eye level. A basic understanding of the law - not of any particular law, but the way the law in general works - is a benefit that will pay you back for the rest of your life.
So yes, yes, yes - if you geeks find an opportunity to enter politics, by all means do it. It doesn't have to be a for-life choice. I would've certainly been re-elected for a third term, but decided not to run again because I'd had enough. It isn't always easy, and sometimes all the politics and the people with their pet agendas and all the personal crap gets on your nerves, a lot. I wouldn't want to do it for live, but it was more than worth it doing it for a few years, and I know that both myself and the office profited from it.
Did I say you should go and do it?
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Geeks are as bad as anyone else (Score:4, Interesting)
"That's not at moral call, it's a factual statement; as such it should be evidence-based, or else the person making it should shut the hell up."
Right there is the problem. Geeks are often, by nature, chock full of hubris. Assuming that you have all the evidence, and that all your evidence is correct, and that you have interpreted the correct conclusion from your evidence, and therefore anyone who questions your evidence should just "shut the hell up", is not conducive to compromise or cooperation. It is precisely THAT attitude that got the U.S. into Iraq, to cite a recent example ("We KNOW there are WMD's, and we KNOW Saddam is going to use them, so we're going to invade Iraq and the rest of you can just shut the hell up.").
This is a constant problem at my office, where the .Net developers are so bloated with hubris that they think their applications are perfect, and always want to blame the DB2 database first when something goes wrong. And they continue to do this, even though evidence indicates that 99% of the time they have a bug in their application.
"Evidence" is not always objective, or correct, and geeks are just as prone to ignore facts as anyone else.
Re:Technocrats (Score:4, Interesting)
You can still have Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians... but it is about using fact-based arguments over appeals to emotion.
They derive opposite conclusions from the same facts, so I don't see where that gets us.
That's his precise point. They do that because they are ideologies. For example, libertarianism is the ideology that consenting adults should be free to do whatever they want unless there is a necessary and compelling reason to forbid something. The only necessary and compelling reasons it recognizes are those things which infringe on the freedoms of other people who do not consent. For example, you are free to drink alcohol whether or not I think that's a good idea, because it is your body; but you are not free to drive drunk and put me in danger I didn't ask for.
Whereas a few extremely conservative people may feel that drinking is always wrong. They cannot be satisfied with simply not doing it themselves, because that gives no cause for controlling their neighbors, so they want alcohol to be illegal. They lost that battle a long time ago, and banning alcohol outright is no longer politically possible. So instead they implement local laws that make no sense, such as forbidding the sale of alcohol on Sundays (as though one couldn't stock up on Saturday).
Both of them are looking at the same thing: the act of consuming alcohol. All competent observers who watched you drink a beer would report the same data. It is the ideology that drives their responses to it. This is the difference between a conclusion and a response.
I also have wanted evidence-based politics for a very long time. Under such a system, we could not have a War on (some) Drugs without first demonstrating that it is a law-enforcement issue and not a medical issue. It would also have to be demonstrated that there is no such thing as responsible use and therefore all use of certain substances is always undesirable. Finally, it would also have to be proven that making drugs illegal prevents users from easily acquiring them through the black market, otherwise there is no point. Because all of those things are easily falsified, such a policy would not exist under that system.
The real frustration of modern politics is that so many people are at such an immature emotional level that they insist on continuing policies in the face of contradictory facts. It's as though they think that if you just try hard enough you can divide by zero. When you show them contradictory evidence in abundance, they get angry instead of saying "perhaps I should change my mind." For emotionally immature people, that would mean a victory for you and a loss for them, because they honestly believe they would be submitting to you personally for pointing something out and not to the truth. Thus politics is reduced to popularity because that's a form of brute force -- you have more numbers than me so it doesn't matter if you're wrong, you still get your way.
In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken," and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
-- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address (emphasis mine)
Re:There is only one moral call (Score:4, Interesting)
*sigh*
Yes, in a perfect world with a healthcare system paid out of taxes, people wouldn't do anything adverse to their health. One current hypothesis is that lowering your calorie intake to 20% below what is considered a "normal" intake is actually the best way to prolong your life ; I can't see that happening on a mass scale either.
I think the main point here is that everyone needs healthcare of some kind, statistically speaking, throughout their life. Some people need more than others, often through no fault of their own. Their right to life is often dependent on them getting this healthcare. But their right to life does not automatically give them the income to pay for it. With the economy the way it is, many people are struggling to eat, let alone pay for healthcare.
What you are essentially saying is "I don't give a shit if you die, I want my [pool | car | foreign holiday]."
On top of this, the way that healthcare is paid for in the USA currently makes it the most expensive in the world. Of the G8 nations, you pay nearly twice the cost per head of the next nation, for pretty similar outcomes. This extra cost is pretty obviously because of the nature of your health insurance industry. It seems insane to leave your health in the hands of a corporation who profit the most from denying you as much healthcare as possible. The extra bureaucracy the insurance industry engages in for their campaign to deny their customers treatment undoubtedly increases costs.
A libertarian will usually step in at this point and say "Well then, do away with the insurance companies, let me pay my doctor out of my own pocket, and the prices will drop!". This, alas, does not work well for everyone, as pointed out, because not everyone can afford healthcare, even healthcare that is now cheaper because of market forces. Healthcare is both labour intensive and employs many expensive, low-volume technologies, and neither of these costs can be depressed by mass production.
If you want a cheaper healthcare system, you only have to look to countries with socialised healthcare. Here in the UK, we have very similar outcomes to the USA (they have slightly better cancer treatment, largely because they have a larger population, and this means that drug trials for rare cancers are more viable, we have better cardiac outcomes). But we pay less than half per head what you do, because our healthcare system is run by the government, and the focus is not on making a profit, but providing the best outcomes. When we cut costs, we aren't trying to prop up the bottom line. We cut reluctantly, because we know that cut is hurting our patients, instead of rubbing our hands expecting a juicy bonus.
Well, I can see your point of view. Everyone has a selfish streak. No-one likes to be told what to do. But I would be interested to see how long your resolve to be a self-reliant individual lasts should you contract a medical condition or suffer an accident that outstrips your ability to pay for the care it requires.
Re:Religion First (Score:4, Interesting)
Removing the religion doesn't suddenly render you an immoral beast. I think the biggest problem with religion is that it provides an arbitrary justification for any stupid law you like, with a vast sourcebook of quotes that you can bend to support it. Without this, you have to justify your laws solely on their merits.
"Thou shalt not kill" is pretty obvious - everyone has an interest in this one being enforced. If you permit arbitrary killing, you might be next.
Despite "Thou shalt not kill" being quite early in the Bible, the rest of the Old Testament is packed with killing, genocide, etc, all approved of by Jehovah ; it translates more closely to "Thou shalt not murder". Wars of conquest, apparently, don't count as murder when God Says So. Without the religion, it becomes a whole lot more impartial - you don't have any particular groups of people who you can dismiss as being unimportant by dint of their religious beliefs or geographic location. So, remove the God, and now you have fewer justifications for killing, and you only have evidence and logic to fall back on - which really only leaves you with self-defence as a viable justification. If people only killed people in self defence, no-one would kill anyone, because there wouldn't be any people killing anyone except in self defence...
"Thou shalt not steal" is also pretty damn obvious. If you ask a 5 year old "How would you like it if I took your sweeties?", they'll say that's not fair. So if a 5 year old can grasp it, I'm sure it's not really a very challenging leap to ask atheists to support this remaining on the law books.
I think the kind of depressingly stupid laws being referred to are things like :
Tax exemption for religion : even Jesus said "Pay unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" ; ie, pay your damn taxes. Religion is all about the next world, right? So you can chip in your fair share to maintain the mundane and worldly matters we have in this one.
Laws that require Women to be subjugated and marginalized.
Laws that target homosexuals for different treatment, despite the evidence being very clear that homosexuality is a natural variation in not just humans but many other species, and thus presumably part of God's design (if you believe in that sort of thing).
Re:What an elitist (Score:5, Interesting)
>>>Except that they feed that natural milk to their kids, and it has a tendency to do severe and permanent damage.
> Bullshit. People have been drinking natural milk for 10s of thousands of years without harm.
Rubbish. Lactose tolerance in humans is a very recent development. The mutation is only about 5000 years old, and far more recent in some populations. It is also not true that drinking raw milk did not harm people. For example, raw milk was one of the primary vectors for tuberculosis. Illness from milk was one of the leading causes of bacterial infection in pre-industrial farmers and herders. There is a reason that the world adopted Pasteurization as quickly as it did: it saved a lot of lives.