Our authoritarian default
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Nice little piece from Robin Hanson
Many intellectuals, and intellectual wannabes, would, if pressed accept that UFOs seem sufficiently puzzling evidence to justify more careful study. But they are reluctant to say so, or even to think so, due to an eagerness to show allegiance and deference to the usual intellectual authorities, who have clearly marked UFOs as worthy of ridicule.
Similarly, many would, if pressed, accept that cryonics seems to have a high enough change of success to justify it as a precaution. Yet most are reluctant to suggest or even consider it as a choice, for fear of seeming weird or of opposing medical authorities, who are seen as not only not endorsing it, but also opposing it.
When I show my college students, or talk audiences, my many reform proposals, I can usually get them to admit that I’ve presented sensible reasons these reforms might plausibly add big value, and they don’t see insurmountable obstacles. Even so, they typically don’t support them, and feel awkward about not being able to justify that. Their strong default is that if some social institution isn’t part of our current social world, and the usual authorities aren’t recommending them, then they must have fatal flaws.
People feel this way even though they believe that the usual authorities are self-interested, chosen mainly by mutual admiration societies of folks with many prestige markers, and that they typically don’t consider changes that outsiders invented or initiated.
In the rich west at least, most people expect their nations and large government units to use elections to choose leaders, allow a free press able to expose many problems via investigating many people and public records, and large organized political parties also able to seek out and expose problems in other parties. They also expect disciplinary actions to be precede by independent judges applying neutral due process in public procedures.
However, most people are also well aware that, and okay with, most of the small orgs around them, including families, clubs, churches, and firms, having far fewer of these accountability mechanisms. Even though the such accountability and challenges are similarly useful in such small orgs.
Most people can be shown that it is possible at low cost to add the new accountability mechanism of prediction markets to check on leader claims, and the effectiveness and progress of their projects, and that doing so would likely substantially moderate the tendency of leaders to lie and exaggerate. Even so, such informed folks are not much interested in taking advantage of this possibility, neither for their small local orgs nor for their nations and other large governments.
Thus most people seem basically okay with their leaders often lying and exaggerating to them on key org issues. But if so, why do they also seem to prefer more accountability for national leaders, and investigative journalism discouraging such lies to some degree?
I think the main reason we want more accountably for national leaders, compared to local leaders, is pride. We are told that it is shameful to be dominated by these (but not other) leaders, and so we are proud to have some degree of control over them, to show we are not so dominated. But even so we are basically okay with a world run by authorities and their buddies; the kinds of accountability we use don’t much threaten this outcome.
I also think the main reason we are okay with accountability via investigative journalism is that we know authorities have great powers to suppress and retaliate against them. Only media orgs with substantial support among elites could mount a credible criticism of leaders, and we are quite okay with elites fighting among themselves for who among them should rule. But we want to keep those fights among elites.
And this is why, I think, we don’t want accountability via prediction markets. That would allow most anyone, not just elites, to challenge our leaders and other authorities. And we cringe at this. Doesn’t matter if the challengers are right in their claims, we fear the instability when conflicts spread beyond elite infighting.
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@Horace said in Our authoritarian default:
The forum software now makes titles out of text with ---------------------------- under it
like this
That's new.
This is me talking.
This is me yelling!
Oh cool, you only need one "dash" under the line to make it work.
