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Those damn plebs just have no idea what's best for them. Imagine an average person being able to comprehend anything or understand something that our appointed "expert" (some person that's never operated in the real world) can.

Please, can you even hear yourself?





I agree with you that my words are unpopular. Populism is popular.

Government and economics is complicated, so it's not that crazy to suggest that your average person doesn't understand it very well. The medical analog of economic populism is antivax and free birth content. Super popular online, but leads to bad outcomes.


    Those damn plebs just have no idea what's best for them.
Most people are not an expert in a single field, much less multiple fields, and never every field.

So yes, we need experts to play a substantial role in running things.

Perhaps even more importantly: it's not solely about what's best for every individual. You know what would be best for me? If the government gave me a free giant SUV that gets 4mpg fuel economy, and also let me drive as fast as I wanted while also subsidizing 90% of my fuel costs. Also it should drive itself so I can sleep while driving.

Sometimes we need to consider what's best for society and the planet, too.


France tried something clever pre-covid.

You can read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_Convention_for_Climat...

Totally random people could draft new laws on climate (at least, they were told this). They met with lobbyists, both pro-oil and pro-climate for two weekends, experts on three other weekends, once in a conference-style where very generic stuff is said, two other in focus groups with more specific expertises, depending on the subject the focus group is on.

Experts were real experts though, with multiple publications and PhDs (or in some cases, engineering degrees, especially during the conference week), and tried to only talk on their subject matter.

In around 8 weekend, the 150 random people made ?148? law propositions, helped by lawyers, and most experts agree that they were both good and reasonable. What's interesting is that most of the 150 people said that before really learning about the subject, they would never have made this kind of propositions.

All that to say: experts don't have to run things, and imho, they should not. They should however have an advisory role to the random people drafting new laws.


I agree completely. I think the main difference is that it's important for your average people to become educated on topics by experts. Thats the part that is missing today.



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