Schools are places of learning and it begins in the form of general knowledge in all or most subjects of importance like language, math, science, history, etc. — TheMadFool

No, schools are places to keep children occupied so their parents can work, if any learning takes place it's a bonus, and the subjects are those thought most appropriate to a colonial ideal which are sorely in need of updating, not anything to do with importance, otherwise they would be computing, economics, household maintenance, and organisational skills at the very least.

That tangential rant aside...

if people want a doctor, a qualified and experienced one at that, for their aches and pains, i.e. they look for experts in the problems that concern them, why is it that they don't impose the same exacting standards for their leaders (presidents, senators, governors, etc)? — TheMadFool

Because people are not looking, in a leader, for someone who knows how to govern. Knowing how to govern would involve meeting the needs of the population in the long term (or something like that). People are, mostly, looking for someone to meet their needs in the timescale of their lifetime. And that's only if you're lucky enough to get people who think about it at all. The incumbent president almost always gets a second term - why? - because he looks like a president. Policies can go hang, personality - forget it, he can be barely able to read - who cares. He looks right. "Oh look - he's the guy off the telly..."

Put potential leaders through governance school (even assuming that school would actually teach them anything about governance), and they'll be soundly beaten in the next election by the latest winner of Pop Idol, or a Disney cartoon character.

I guess the problem runs deeper than it appears at first glance. What of the idea of a true leader? Have you ever encountered anyone that fits the description? There must be a couple of such people out there somewhere.

I'd first think about why people need a leader at all. What is it about the nature of people in a society which prevents them from simply going about their day-to-day lives without any leader at all?

A popular narrative is that when there are disagreements about shared resources someone has to have the final say, but we could also argue that people could just fight it out/vote/reach consensus by themselves with no great loss. Many perfectly functioning groups in fields as disparate as business and the arts are leaderless and function perfectly well. So I don't think we can use this need with any certainty.

Another is administrative, someone has to take charge for the efficient progress of a group. But again, there's actually limited support for this theory too. Groups which contain more independent actors actually tend (in some tests) to be more efficient at complex tasks than groups which are under the yoke of a strong leader. I know it's pretty clichéd business-speak, but the reason they're all put on endless team working courses is because it's an efficient goal (not saying anything about whether the courses actually achieve this goal). So I don't think there's much mileage there either.

My favourite theory of leadership actually comes from a paleoanthropologist studying neanderthals. In changing environments it pays to be innovative, to derive new solution to problems, but innovation costs energy in brain terms, so an efficient community only needs a few innovators. The rest are better off being conservative (small 'c') as it's far more efficient to rely on tradition to tell you what to do rather than work it all out from scratch.

In times of stability, however, innovation isn't needed (and can actually be problem-causing).

So a good leader is an innovator, but they themselves might be a good or a bad choice for a community depending on the stability of the environment. Stable communities don't really need leaders at all.

I'd first think about why people need a leader at all. What is it about the nature of people in a society which prevents them from simply going about their day-to-day lives without any leader at all? — Isaac

This loops back to what I said about requiring qualified experts for any and all jobs. I mean governing a state or a country isn't something an unskilled person person can handle. I'm not to sure about it but guiding a nation in the modern world with its diverse peoples requires great wisdom and wisdom is exactly what most people lack, making them unfit to be heard so we can forget the idea of referenda and plebiscites achieving anything worthwhile.

In addition, one among many things is that the general populace has to feed themselves or their families which is in itself a difficult task for many, precluding the possibility of them being well-informed enough on many crucial issues that are on the nation's agenda. To allow the masses to make decisions would be a grave error. Of course this doesn't mean we ignore popular opinion but you did mention good candidates for leaders losing to pop idols and Disney cartoon characters and that really puts a dent in the reliability of the masses to make right choices; this vindicates my call for good leaders and institutions where they may be trained .

In short we have an ingrained, fully justified, belief that to solve a particular problem we need to consult an expert in that field and to produce such experts we need schools and education programs in those fields. — TheMadFool

This belief is deeply ingrained but not at all justified.

In fact, it is even a dangerous belief. As a matter of fact, we must never "trust" service providers.

The reason why we may carefully believe a "ruling", i.e. a conclusion, a "professional opinion", is entirely contained in the fact that the justifying paperwork is verifiable, and that we have carried out the procedures for verification.

In that sense, it does not matter in the least who exactly has produced the justifying paperwork. On the contrary, if it matters who has said it, then what he has said, cannot possibly matter.

It is exactly when we trust these people that they will abuse our trust. It is the trust itself in the deceptive statement, i.e. that a=b, that fuels the growth in the total amount of deception (b-a)².

This approach to trust service providers, fully explains the distinction between the intellectual have-nots and the intellectual haves. The have-nots believe a proposition because of who says it (personal "authority"). The haves believe a proposition because its justification is verifiable, i.e. how it was said.

The belief in personal authority of experts simply turns you into an intellectual have-not. Seriously, in God I trust and in nothing else.

To allow the masses to make decisions would be a grave error. Of course this doesn't mean we ignore popular opinion but you did mention good candidates for leaders losing to pop idols and Disney cartoon characters and that really puts a dent in the reliability of the masses to make right choices — TheMadFool

Indeed. Now is definitely not a stable time.

this vindicates my call for good leaders and institutions where they may be trained . — TheMadFool

Well, no. You're stuck on two grounds

1. The people doing the teaching and the curriculum itself would be drawn from that very mass we've just concluded can't be trusted. You'd have somehow ensure that the institution was started and maintained by the very quality of person you're saying is lacking as a leader. If we can't find them to make leaders out of, then what makes you think we can find any to do the teaching?

2. Even if you found some people, to install them as either leaders or teachers in an institution requires the consent of the masses. The masses are simply more powerful than any group which might oppose them (hence the election of cartoon characters). So whomever you chose to be teachers you'd be faced either with a rebellion in the school to replace your choice with a more 'popular' one, or a rebellion in government to replace the school-taught options with ones from outside that institution.

The belief in personal authority of experts simply turns you into an intellectual have-not. — alcontali

Bullshit, it's just about believing a person's claim to have more experience in a field (ie having accumulated more data than you) because trusting people to a degree is more efficient and certainly a lot nicer than your paranoid delusion that the whole Western world is run by Satan.

Seriously, in God I trust and in nothing else. — alcontali

And who told you about God?

Agathon: I'm afraid the word is bad. You have been condemned to death.

Allen: Ah, it saddens me that I should cause debate in the senate.

Agathon: No debate. Unanimous.

Allen: Really?

Agathon: First ballot.

Allen: Hmmm. I had counted on a little more support.

Simmias: The senate is furious over your ideas for a Utopian state.

Allen: I guess I should never have suggested having a philosopher-king.

Simmias: Especially when you kept pointing to yourself and clearing your throat.
— Woody Allen, 'My Apology'

trusting people to a degree is more efficient and certainly a lot nicer — Isaac

Not really.

In fact, not at all. Trust is exactly what fuels deception.

When we talk about trustless systems, we mean that our ability to trust it does not depend on the intentions of any particular party, which could be arbitrarily malicious. A trustless system allows you to trust in the system without needing to trust in the parties with which you’re transacting. — Trustless systems

The more there are who people trust, and the more blindly they trust, the more dangerous the environment becomes to all people. It is exactly because they trust it, that it turns on them. If they had not trusted it so much, it would not have.

For example, if people did not trust the mainstream media so much, these media would not be incentivized to lie so much. In that sense, it is the audience of the mainstream media who corrupt them with their trust. In another example, it is by trusting the Federal Reserve that its users corrupt the US Dollar. Trust corrupts the trusted party. More trust means more corruption.

The idea of cryptocurrency technology is to eliminate the corruption caused by trust. In trustless technology, it is because we do not need to trust other parties that we can trust them. Trustless technology is incredibly efficient at achieving this goal. Furthermore, people are happy to use it in order to transact with other people. Hence, it allows people to be nice to each other.

Therefore, a trustless approach is more efficient and nicer than corrupting other people with trust.

And who told you about God? — Isaac

"Fitra" or "fitrah" (Arabic: فطرة‎; ALA-LC: fiṭrah), is the state of purity and innocence Muslims believe all humans to be born with. Fitra is an Arabic word that is usually translated as "original disposition," "natural constitution," or "innate nature."[1] According to Islamic theology, human beings are born with an innate inclination of tawhid (Oneness), which is encapsulated in the fitra along with compassion, intelligence, ihsan and all other attributes that embody the concept of humanity.[citation needed] It is for this reason that some Muslims prefer to refer to those who embrace Islam as reverts rather than converts, as it is believed they are returning to a perceived pure state.[2] — Wikipedia on the concept of Fitrah

This may be naive thinking on my part but if people want a doctor, a qualified and experienced one at that, for their aches and pains, i.e. they look for experts in the problems that concern them, why is it that they don't impose the same exacting standards for their leaders (presidents, senators, governors, etc)? — TheMadFool

Simply because the idea of leaders coming from a school and then assuming leadership roles in a Democracy or a Republic goes totally against the idea of a representative democracy.

And of course there indeed are schools in nearly every nation where one part of the leaders of the nation all come from: that is the higher military schools where captains and majors are educated to become field officers. Not your Officer Schools or institutions like West Point, but the advance schools where from all the generals come from. The system dates back to the Austrian and Preussian militaries and the idea of there being a General Staff.

(Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth US. Notice how old these students in the picture below are compared to university students. In this picture (from 2013) it is highly likely that there are many future generals of the US Army, though likely the South Korean officer in front won't be)


The example of the military shows that a true leadership school works only for very hierarchial organizations where higher level leaders are chosen by a formal process.

The example of the military shows that a true leadership school works only for very hierarchial organizations where higher level leaders are chosen by a formal process.

Yep - just expanding on your point here, in the US these types of leadership schools are present at basically all levels including the enlisted. For instance, once you make Sergeant (E-5) you're sent off to a leadership course and ditto when you hit climb up to E-7 when you're now supervising sergeants. Leadership education is pretty big in the US military.

The real awesomeness of the US system of non-commissioned officers is that it too represents a hierarchy where on top you have the sergeant majors of the military branch, who then work the commander of the branch. This actually works as many armed forces have a real problem in lacking the essential professional 'hands on' leaders that non-commissioned officers provide and just have a basic divide between officers and men (the problem that Soviet Union/Russia for example has had). The system also makes older non-commissioned officers well respected and not just "junior" officers.

(The Commandant of the USMC with the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps interviewing a wounded Marine sergeant. Not a coincidence that the two are together.)


Of course hierarchial systems are prone to become too unyielding: the divide to officers / noncommissioned officers and the enlisted shouldn't become a barrier. If the most capable person isn't used because he or she is in the wrong formal category for the job, there is something wrong with the system.

Just how well the whole system of officers/sergeants/enlisted men works actually tells extremely much of the society itself. Poor performance of a military can be traced back to problems in the society itself, especially if the officers come from one rigid class/caste and the enlisted from another. Militaries are a reflection of the society that produces them. We may often the say that military was lead poorly, but rarely is it about just having poor generals in charge. (A dictator with poor judgement is another thing.)

The simple fact is that societies, where authoritarian leadership is typical and where subordinates have no say and are assumed just to follow orders, simply don't work effectively. It creates class division and weakens social cohesion. It prevents innovation. In wartime this can be literally observed: if the enlisted have not been taught to think and use their own initiative, once the officer is out, they are often paralyzed and cannot work as an effective team.

Perhaps in academic circles too much is importance is given to the social control aspect of these hierarchies, along the lines of Michel Foucault, and the simple pragmatic reasoning just why things like the military are hierarchial with centralized leadership are sidelined.

And btw. the military is a great topic for this thread when we are talking about political leadership, because they have the weapons. That many countries have this "merry go round" of going from democratic leadership to military rule, which is then followed by democratic leadership while in other countries the armed forces can stay firmly in their role in preparing for outside threats is interesting. Here the issue isn't so much about leadership, but there being the ability to lead the sometimes quite dysfunctional institutions and organizations.

(When civil-military relations aren't the best:)

Perhaps in academic circles too much is importance is given to the social control aspect of these hierarchies, along the lines of Michel Foucault, and the simple pragmatic reasoning just why things like the military are hierarchial with centralized leadership are sidelined.

I haven't read Foucault... but I do have over 5 years active duty military experience in the US (I am in the military.)

The effective function of the US military in peace time - obviously there's the national security part - but aside from that it brings people and families into the middle class (on the enlisted side.) You'll see Dave Ramsey posters at whatever duty station you're at and I can tell you that there'll always be lectures and classes on financial readiness no matter where you are. The US military absolutely has a vested interest in its soldiers being financially stable and this often a very pertinent issue because you have often young people from lower class backgrounds getting decent, stable paychecks for the first time in their lives. There's much more that could be said about this: The GI bill encouraging college attendance and the VA home loan giving someone the option to purchase a home with 0% down to name a couple.

On the other hand, as soldiers get married they do get dependent on this system and leaving would result in a pay cut so that's a definite reason how you get soldiers to stay in for the full 20 years plus the option of a pension and this is especially true once kids enter into the picture.

I'd be interested to read what academics have said about the military and if you've read that material I'd be interested in hearing it.

Now, if one does a survey of higher learning, there's a degree for every conceivable subject the acquisition of which makes a student qualified and, fingers crossed, highly competent in the given subject. This has the benefit of making such qualified people into experts in their respective fields and thus become people we can put our trust in. — TheMadFool

It works exactly the other way around.

According to the Dunning-Kruger study, intelligence is defined as:

Knowing when you do not know.

Intelligence has nothing to do with what people do in college, i.e. memorizing phone books filled with trivia.

What happens when you give someone a certificate which says that he knows, i.e. a degree, while he has merely read some trivia on the matter and has absolutely no experience in the field? That person will think that he knows while in fact, he does not. In that sense, a degree increases that person's arrogance and reduces his intelligence.

While a track record of successfully solving problems is a good reason to believe that people are competent, a college degree is the opposite: it is an excellent reason to distrust their ability to do the job.

This belief is deeply ingrained but not at all justified. — alcontali

Who do you go to when you get sick?

It is exactly when we trust these people that they will abuse our trust — alcontali

Oh, I see. There are many obstacles between those who seek expertise and those who possess expertise, one of them being trust. In my humble opinion, there are two types of trust at work here viz.

1. Trust in the knowledge of an expert

2 Trust that the expert is concerned about your welfare

I don't know how society functions in terms of these two kinds of trust but if I'm to be realistic the primary concern for us would be type 2 trust which can mess up type 1 trust which can be extremely problematic. I mean if an expert has no interest in your welfare then his knowledge/expertise is of no value to you for it can be withheld or misused.

To the extent that I'm aware, this problem of trust hasn't escaped our notice; the courts can probably justify this for me. The "solution" to this problem of trust that I'm aware of is to make experts value their expertise and knowledge above all else and this can be done by placing a premium on knowledge itself; for instance we consult not just any doctor but the best among them and the same applies to other areas of knowledge. If people adopt this policy, and they probably have, experts would strive to be their best and also, more importantly, do their best i.e. we can guarantee our own welfare by prizing knowledge and expertise. Also, doing this would align the expert's own welfare with that of those who seek his/her expertise; after all, if s/he doesn't perform well in solving our problems s/he would lose credibility.

Well, no. You're stuck on two grounds

1. The people doing the teaching and the curriculum itself would be drawn from that very mass we've just concluded can't be trusted. You'd have somehow ensure that the institution was started and maintained by the very quality of person you're saying is lacking as a leader. If we can't find them to make leaders out of, then what makes you think we can find any to do the teaching?

2. Even if you found some people, to install them as either leaders or teachers in an institution requires the consent of the masses. The masses are simply more powerful than any group which might oppose them (hence the election of cartoon characters). So whomever you chose to be teachers you'd be faced either with a rebellion in the school to replace your choice with a more 'popular' one, or a rebellion in government to replace the school-taught options with ones from outside that institution. — Isaac

I see but how do you explain the existence of experts (in other fields)? Maybe the answer to your question lies there. The way you put it, experts would be nonexistent and yet there are experts in every possible field and teachers too. Why should leadership in re learning and teaching be any different?

It isn't the case that everyone is incapable of learning or teaching leadership. There'll always be some with adequate knowledge to impart lessons on being a good leader and there'll always be some who have an interest in and an aptitude for leadership. All we have to do is connect these two kinds of people. The masses can't be trusted, not because all of them are incapable of becoming leaders or lack knowledge on how to become leaders, but because most of them don't have the time or the resources to invest on issues that matter. I think the same applies to other fields, hence the existence of experts in them.

Simply because the idea of leaders coming from a school and then assuming leadership roles in a Democracy or a Republic goes totally against the idea of a representative democracy. — ssu

Read below:

Put potential leaders through governance school (even assuming that school would actually teach them anything about governance), and they'll be soundly beaten in the next election by the latest winner of Pop Idol, or a Disney cartoon character. — Isaac

According to the Dunning-Kruger study, intelligence is defined as:

Knowing when you do not know. — alcontali

While a track record of successfully solving problems is a good reason to believe that people are competent, a college degree is the opposite: it is an excellent reason to distrust their ability to do the job. — alcontali

Dunning-Kruger effect: "the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others."

Dunning-Kruger Effect

Sorry, I can't post pictures. If you look at the graph there are two peaks - one at the extreme left consisting of the incompetent and one at the right consisting of the highly competent. Doesn't this indicate that the competent are also very confident of themselves, oddly, as much as the incompetent are.

Also, it's a bit vague as to what exactly they mean by expertise. Could it mean a degree?

Who do you go to when you get sick? — TheMadFool

I go to a doctor.

However, depending on what is at stake, I do not just blindly trust him. Here in SE Asia, their services are affordable enough to ask for a second opinion. Furthermore, you can search online for people with similar medical conditions and double-check their experience. I certainly trust the narrative by other patients a lot better than what one, arbitrary doctor says. This is just a simplistic description of how you could start building a verification procedure for what medical doctors tell you (when it really matters ...). The problem is obviously harder than that.

The medical industry is badly afflicted with corruption and misplaced trust. The ongoing opioids crisis is just one example of things that can go wrong.

Trust that the expert is concerned about your welfare — TheMadFool

You can reasonably assume that the expert is first and foremost concerned about his own welfare.

That is not necessarily a problem as long as you are aware of that. I do not believe in their hypocritical "oath" either. The more a service provider talks about ethics, the more likely his industry is fraught with moral issues.

I mean if an expert has no interest in your welfare then his knowledge/expertise is of no value to you for it can be withheld or misused. — TheMadFool

Exactly.

His expertise may also be ideologically tainted.

For example, some doctors will refuse to prescribe Indian generics, even though they are equivalent and ten times cheaper, because they do not want to miss out on the incentives offered by the pharmaceutical oligarchy. His own interests obviously come before yours:

Pharma chief defends 400% drug price rise as a ‘moral requirement’. Nostrum Laboratories’ Nirmal Mulye says he is right to charge as much as possible and slams FDA. A pharma executive has defended his decision to raise the price of an antibiotic mixture to more than $2,000 a bottle, arguing there was a “moral requirement to sell the product at the highest price”. — Financial Times on the morality of the pharma oligarchy

The next step is to convince doctors to make their patients believe that any alternative to that antibiotic mixture is "highly unsuitable" for the patient. I just safely assume that these people are lying all the time.

for instance we consult not just any doctor but the best among them and the same applies to other areas of knowledge. — TheMadFool

What is "the best" in this context?

Other industries are not necessarily better.

For example, universities just want to saddle you and/or your children with exorbitant student loans in exchange for a worthless degree that will guarantee a successful coffee-slinging career at Starbucks.

I do not believe that there is a simple solution, especially when the incentives are stacked against you. The entire system is purposely built like that, with a view on sucking you dry. It is a minefield. Lots of people knew back then that it was going to run out of control, and now it has.

how do you explain the existence of experts (in other fields)? — TheMadFool

In some fields, the right and the wrong answers are matters that people, in general want to put to some purpose. People allow/support experts in engineering, for example, because they want bridges to stay up. Experts are the ones which make that happen. With leaders, you have two confounding factors. One is that the leader's decision is only partly responsible for the outcome (external factors affect things like well-being of the population), and secondly there is no clear 'right' way to do many of the things leaders need to do. Together, these mean that people (the masses) do not have a particulary high cognitive dissonance to face if they believe a particular leader (some pop idol contestant) will deliver the results they desire.

Get a pop idol to build you a bridge, it's quite hard to convince yourself it wasn't their fault when it falls down. Get a pop idol to implement an economic policy, it really easy to convince yourself (when the economy doesn't do so well) that it was global factors, the previous government, the media, the weather etc.

The US military absolutely has a vested interest in its soldiers being financially stable and this often a very pertinent issue because you have often young people from lower class backgrounds getting decent, stable paychecks for the first time in their lives. There's much more that could be said about this: The GI bill encouraging college attendance and the VA home loan giving someone the option to purchase a home with 0% down to name a couple. — BitconnectCarlos

This is one of those smart moves the US have ever done, which likely has had a huge effect. 16 million Americans served in WW2 and not to care about them after the war would have been a political, social and even in the long term an economic disaster.

After WW2 my country (Finland) didn't have the resources and just gave the young veterans small parts of land to cultivate or a meager payment. Giving the young veterans a free education would have been a great idea, but I don't think there would have been the resources back then. The country had to handle also 420 000 people (over every tenth person those days) that had been evacuated from areas annexed by the Soviet Union and give them a new homes, which amazingly was done. That the US armed forces is a way for many Americans to get a degree, which otherwise would be out of touch for them, tells actually a lot about the US.

In fact, many war-ridden countries would desperately need an equivalent of a GI bill to truly put the conflicts and insurgencies into the past. To dismantle an armed forces and just leave huge number of people (men) that know only how to use weapons unemployed is a really stupid idea, but of which there is the wonderful example of Paul Bremer's decree of dismantling the Iraqi Army and not care about the consequences. What possibly could go wrong with 400 000 military men being made unemployed and be let alone to their own devices in a country that you are btw. occupying?

(At first, they participated in a demonstration, then something else:)

I'd be interested to read what academics have said about the military and if you've read that material I'd be interested in hearing it. — BitconnectCarlos

I don't know of classics in this field, but usually the field would be called Civil-Military relations. There the military is viewed from another viewpoint than from the military/war fighting viewpoint (as in military history). In some countries this is quite painful if there has been military junta and literally many of the academic people have been jailed and/or shot by the military. You can guess how they view afterwards the military. Another thing is that understanding the military without seeing it from inside can be puzzling and hence the term of Civil-Military culture gap is used often in the US. Only 0,5% of Americans serve in the military and only 22 million (of those living) have served in the military and that is a small minority. Those who served under the Draft are starting to be quite old.

Of course having universal conscription or not has an impact on these issues. In Finland roughly 75% of all males still do their military service, where everybody starts with basic training, then some are picked into the NCO school and from there some are picked into the Reserve officer shool. After this conscription is over then the best of the reservists are picked for advance positions. This in turn creates a great example of the meritocracy of our society. You can imagine how different the US Army would be if 75% of the boys from your school class would have served in the army. It was this before the all volunteer force. At basic training you meet variety of people, people who you would never otherwise work with. Later in your the war-time position your peers are likely to in same type of work as you are. For example, the majority of male university professors in Finland have either been or are reserve officers. Males who are in managerial positions are likely reserve officers or NCOs. In politics, there are only few male Members of Parliament that haven't done their military service and of those, the majority are reserve officers or NCOs.

It would be the same as if you would divide the people to those that have an university level degree and those that don't and then start looking at how is the political and business elite made by these two groups. The school drop-out billionaires are literally a few. The educational system is a hierarchial system also.

If you look at the graph there are two peaks - one at the extreme left consisting of the incompetent and one at the right consisting of the highly competent. — TheMadFool

Yes, I agree. The extreme left is hugely incompetent and doesn't understand things. :grin:

Dunning-Kruger effect is surely real, but also there is a genuine distrust of institutionalized leadership. If only those that have passed a formal school or test can take political power, then that school itself holds a lot of power. And in a representative democracy the representatives should really represent the people.

Anybody should understand that implementing Plato's ideal society where people are divided to workers, soldiers and guardian king philosophers, those that decide just where a person will be have a lot of power. And those calling themselves 'Guarding Philosopher Kings' might not care a god-damn thing about philosophy, but are there only for the power and the wealth. Anybody opposing them will be put to be the lowest class worker there is.

Remember that 'rule of the best' is called Aristocracy. How did that work in the end in real life?

I am very sorry for my ignorance, but this is my first post on this forum, my point being that I have not Read everything that you have all had to say and will very likely write in a subpar manner with some not very well thought out ideas. Please criticise if you desire.
How leaders should be educated is a very interesting topic with I have thought about before, which is why I join this dialectic.
I found it odd when thinking about the incompetence of many politicians as to why this is the case, for surely it would be the so that if an individual was chosen to govern the state they would be confirmed as able through some rigorous method. The system of popular vote which forms the backbone of democracy has the potential to fail on its own due to the fact that people will vote for those they like and not those who are good rulers. To circumvent that I thought of adding an additional kind of test besides the judgement of the many, which I was inspired by from the Tang Dynasty scholars examination. The idea being that politicians should be judged also by a kind of test of knowledge and ability that incorporates elements of modern psychology too to determine the ideal way of measuring these features within our current limitations and to tell as to what the individuals personality is truly like and if it is fit for being in a certain position in government. Of course the institution that would create such a test and the maintaining of the quality of it, making sure that whoever runs the process does not become corrupt, are things which only the processes nigh infinitely complex of history can make arise. We must be a thoughtful public which is educated too about wether nonsense is being said by an individual. If we teach people how to be more rational through the greater understanding of the self and make it a place in education then the likelihood of things such as the test I mention above and a more rational society to survive will increase despite human nature.
e

It seems, kind sir/madam, that according to your most valuable post on the Dunning-Kruger effect all of us are under the spell of one or more cognitive biases, giving the issue of trust a whole new and uglier twist: we can't trust our own selves so we can forget about trusting anyone else and I'm afraid most of us, including myself, fall in the category of incompetent and yet very confident of themselves.

It's odd then that the people who need help the most are also least likely to seek it and this description, in my opinion, fits the majority.

Just curious but if all of us have such deep trust issues, why doesn't society collapse? There seems to be some kind of checks and balances in place that prevent mutual distrust from spiralling out of control. I'm not sure about other fields but as far as doctors are concerned they're under legal obligation to disclose all relevant info pertaining to your illness - pros and cons of tests and treatment - to you and that seems adequate to trust them.

you can search online for people with similar medical conditions and double-check their experience. — alcontali

And you trust the medical websites and search engines to provide you with a statistically viable sample? Why?

some doctors will refuse to prescribe Indian generics, even though they are equivalent — alcontali

You've tested them personally have you? Your own lab facitilies and access to controlled trials, remarkable.

I just safely assume that these people are lying all the time. — alcontali

Assuming they're lying doesn't get you anywhere because it doesn't provide you with the alternative. Presuming everyone is lying just tells you anything you haven't directly tested yourself might be false. Great. Now what? You don't have the facilities to test everything yourself, so what are you going to do now? Ask God? Last I heard his advice on the correct antibiotic was a bit thin on the ground.

Wellcome to the forum, Aristocles!

I found it odd when thinking about the incompetence of many politicians as to why this is the case, for surely it would be the so that if an individual was chosen to govern the state they would be confirmed as able through some rigorous method. — Aristocles

If the one who ought to govern simply cannot, then power lies with other people. And do notice that representative democracy doesn't mean that all positions of power are given to representatives of the people. Behind the media focus there are allways the career professional civil servants or people like the military generals. They have gone through the hierarchial system, which hopefully trains and picks the most able people into leadership positions.

One just has to think about absolute monarchies, where power is hereditary. The hereditary nature is used to prevent power struggles that may rip the society otherwise apart, but of course this may backfire in that not only the new sovereign can be mediocre, but truly incapable of acting in any kind leadership role. Yet this doesn't allways lead to problems. If there is an able court, an effective regime under the sovereign and no real problems, a monarchy with an incapacitated sovereign can easily chug along. And this ability has lead to the modern ceremonial monarchies.

(From first to the present prime minister of one country out of 16 (at present). One can be a ceremonial head-of-state, but even that gives power to a person assuming you have something important you want to say.)

The system of popular vote which forms the backbone of democracy has the potential to fail on its own due to the fact that people will vote for those they like and not those who are good rulers. — Aristocles

Sure. But usually we can trust that the people are rational and have sound judgement. When the society and the economy performs OK and the people aren't hopeless or extremely divided, democracy works. Yet if there are huge social problems, deep divides and a lack of social cohesion, democracy can easily turn into ugly mob rule.

These days I've read about the Spanish Civil War and it really is difficult to understand how polarized a nation can become. I think when people hate so much others that they start digging up the bones of the dead to desecrate them, something abnormally pathological has gripped the people. But it happened in Spain and lately during the Yugoslav civil War, so in our lifetime too.

We must be a thoughtful public which is educated too about wether nonsense is being said by an individual. If we teach people how to be more rational through the greater understanding of the self and make it a place in education then the likelihood of things such as the test I mention above and a more rational society to survive will increase despite human nature. — Aristocles

And respect your fellow citizens, even if they disagree with you.

I've always thought that the biggest problem is that we adapt far too easily to bad things. If politicians should all of the sudden start shooting each other, use thugs and mobsters and politics would become literally a battlefield, usually many would just shake their heads and wonder how it all came to this, but take it as the new normal. And those who say we should respect each other and uphold the laws would be declared to be naive and out of touch.

And you trust the medical websites and search engines to provide you with a statistically viable sample? Why? You've tested them personally have you? Your own lab facitilies and access to controlled trials, remarkable. Assuming they're lying doesn't get you anywhere because it doesn't provide you with the alternative. Presuming everyone is lying just tells you anything you haven't directly tested yourself might be false. Great. Now what? You don't have the facilities to test everything yourself, so what are you going to do now? — Isaac

Don’t Trust Your Doctor. I’m a doctor, so I can say this with a straight face: Don’t trust your doctor. There’s no question in my mind that today most doctors are businessmen first and doctors second. — Dr. Peter Rost

Trust in doctors has plummeted by 75%. What can be done?

A doctor tells you why you can't trust your doctor again. Your doctor is merely a pawn in a multi-billion dollar industry - while your health and well-being are a poor, distant second. — Doctors are becoming pawns of a system

Never ask the doctor what you should do. Ask him what he would do if he were in your place. You would be surprised at the difference. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder

As far as I am concerned, it is obvious that there are very good reasons for a healthy distrust of doctors, the pharma oligarchy, and the entire medical industry. Furthermore, what information I trust, is my own choice, and is something that I decide on a case-by-case basis.

The system of popular vote which forms the backbone of democracy has the potential to fail on its own due to the fact that people will vote for those they like and not those who are good rulers — Aristocles

Well, this is paradoxical: you should like good leaders since a good leader, by definition, is one who's dedicated to your welfare and that's a primary concern for you. Isn't it?

Where has the system of popular vote failed if those we like and vote for may not necessarily be good leaders? What I see here is a conundrum, specific to democracy: democracy is a government founded on the premise of mistrust. We can't have some folks in control of the government for more than a 4 to 5 years because we don't trust each other. Democracy's premise is that no one can resist the twin temptations of power and wealth.

Given that the idea of voting and democracy is based on a negative view of our own nature, it seems almost certain that we'll have a dim view of our leaders - they are people after all - and this fact makes it permissible to vote for those who we like instead of "good leaders" because good leaders don't exist as democracy's central premise indicates.

As far as I am concerned, it is obvious that there are very good reasons for a healthy distrust of doctors, the pharma oligarchy, and the entire medical industry. — alcontali

Iii didn't ask you why you distrusted doctors, I asked you why you trusted these other sources. If western pharmaceutical companies are just out to make money by bumping up prices, then why aren't the Indian ones just out to make money by cutting corners on quality? If the medical journals can't be trusted to print the truth becasue of their biases and their sponsors, then why can those sources you just cited who have biases and revenue streams to consider too?

I'll give you a clue - it's because what they're saying fits a pre-conceived narrative you prefer.

Either your trust no-one and do all first hand research on everything yourself or you just pick who to trust.

what information I trust, is my own choice, and is something that I decide on a case-by-case basis. — alcontali

Really, a minute ago what information we trust was up for public debate when it was everyone else's choices being critiqued.

To TheMadFool
I can accept the notion that good leaders do not really exist in an eternal state, therefore when interpreting the following statement take good as meaning as good as possible for leadership.
On your statement that we should like good leaders because they are dedicated to our welfare, are you implying that individuals can identify intuitively if a candidate for some kind of office is good for it? People can easily be deluded and not realise that one man is concerned about welfare and another is not. Of course I think the best criticism here is that I would need evidence for this statement.

If western pharmaceutical companies are just out to make money by bumping up prices, then why aren't the Indian ones just out to make money by cutting corners on quality? If the medical journals can't be trusted to print the truth becasue of their biases and their sponsors, then why can those sources you just cited who have biases and revenue streams to consider too? — Isaac

Where is the paperwork for the first product and where is it for the second product? What products exactly are you comparing? If you think there is something wrong with the paperwork for either product, then staple a clarifying note to the document that is in doubt.

As I have said before, there may not even be a standardized tool to compare pharmaceutical products. Therefore, there may not exist software that properly embodies the proper procedure to verify the products' paperwork. Hence, an adequate procedure will have to be discovered on a case-by-case basis.

For mathematical theorems and proofs, there exists a standardized procedure. Encode the theorem and its proof in the formal language of Coq, Isabelle, or Lean, and then run the verification function. Unlike for mathematics, not all types of paperwork can be mechanically verified. Furthermore, there may not even be a complete tool for that purpose.

Its called Military School like Westpoint. The modern US Military is nothing like the military of the 19th century. Not many people have what it takes to be in the modern US Military.

Right, so despite having given some pseudo-technical garbage showing its not possible to personally verify either of the rival claims (which is what I'd already said), you've still not answered the first question. You have some condition, you need to take some medication, how do you decide which?

We've just established you can't decide mechanically, you can't gather the raw data yourself, God (the only person you claim to trust) doesn't have a prescription service. Personally, I decide to trust someone on the basis of how I feel about them. You apparently don't, so what do you do. Toss a coin?