tillingborn wrote:Have you seen any such statistics?
Well it's extremely intuitive that when you personally don't understand all the factors that you can't make anything better than a random guess ^^ And shouldn't random guesses statistically be worse off than calculated choices? We are talking building construction here, law drawing, budget drawing, evaluating the rights of human beings against each other and so forth (one of the biggest jobs of descent politicians is to avoid individuals or smaller groups getting smashed by raging masses of citizens who wants unreasonable prioritization). Politicians work with initial inclinations of public opinion, but their results
doesn't have to match public opinion, because the public won't be bothered to understand all the reasons why their policemen aren't getting bigger wages, for instance, all they see is small wages but doesn't realize that maybe in order for policemen to get bigger wages the government would have to cut on somewhere else (possible some people valuable jobs) and perhaps there are no other areas that are worth to be cut, maybe the budget has been optimized or perhaps it has already been cut and the country experiences austerity or perhaps the budget is in deficit and no further increases can be made!
tillingborn wrote:That sounds like you don't have much trust in them.
Well I don't have any generalized opinion on trust when it comes to experts because it doesn't make sense to talk about things like that which really requires you to speak about specific experts and to some degree know them (not necessarily personally). Initially I trust experts to do their jobs, but many of them will always have some bias, whether very small, which won't make big difference, or, unfortunately, sometimes large, where it does make a difference. If they do their job they should be trustworthy with the large majority of their decisions and one can rely on them to avoid most mistakes.
tillingborn wrote:That's essentially what we do every 4 years or so, but on a much more complicated scale. A general election is fought on a lot of fronts and the people have to make decisions by weighing up all those things we are not experts on.
In general elections we vote our public opinions into power and those people we trust the most. I read some long time ago that a survey of the American voters saw that they were inclined to vote on those who most matched their own personality, hinting that they are essentially trying to "vote themselves" into power, which seems very reasonable. They want somebody there that thinks and acts the most like them so that whatever the outcome of decision-making, it would be preferential to their own opinions. It is noteworthy that this does indeed happen only once every two years in Norway, four years between national elections and four years between local elections, arranged to happen two years after each other. That gives the average voter a lot of time I would think to figure out for him- or herself without too much bother who is the best person to think and act like yourself and likely to carry out things you want to see happen.
tillingborn wrote:I think Bob might beg to differ. Free marketeers would tell you they are entitled to spend their money any way they please.
Well in terms of education, private education barely exists in Norway and is heavily regulated and there are limits to how much profits you can take out of the schools which is minimal. But if you live in a free-market positive society then people will likely elect officials that create free-market legislation, so I don't know if that's gonna make any difference to anything.
tillingborn wrote:Come to think of it, the National Lottery in our country is more like what you are suggesting. Some of the money raised supports culture, people have complained that since the overwhelming majority of people who buy tickets are in the lower income groups, why should things they have little interest in, opera and classical music typically, get such a large share of the kitty? I suspect the opera buffs, who are more likely to have power and control would argue that if culture was decided democratically, we would all have to read The Sun and watch EastEnders.
Although it's unlikely to ever happen. I would've preferred a monopoly on selling culture with a fixed monthly amount paid for unlimited consumption, but with the obligation to rate things and give things weight-points that decided how much funding they deserve to get, and that in that way you could get a society that sorted out wasteful culture spending while promoting good culture spending right from every consumer. I kinda have a similar idea for public transport, although in that idea I also have ideas about new means of transport to be used based.
tillingborn wrote:He was elected, possibly by rigging the vote in Florida, as I remember, should he have been trusted? Conflict doesn't always conveniently coincide with election campaigns; certainly there are occasions when decisive action is necessary, but a commitment to send thousands of our young people to be killed and mutilated, I don't think, is something that politicians have a right to decide without at least making us aware of the facts. Many people argue that this is exactly what Bush and Blair did.
Well my personal opinion is that they were both crooks. But hopefully not every leader is like them. When it comes to the invasion of Afghanistan, a full-scale invasion should perhaps had been decided by direct voting, but military operations in general shouldn't have to because of the need to keep sensitive information and strike when the iron is hot, that is: strike when the opportunity rises.
tillingborn wrote:It is stuffed full of elected representatives; don't you trust them?
I don't trust people from Romania to have any good interest in deciding what happens in the UK, or my own country Norway, for that matter, if my country had been part of the EU, same with UK deciding what happens in Norway. Also, it inhibits the opportunity to resist and influence own governments, and elected officials will start focusing their attention on what the officials in Brussel thinks and not what the people in their own country thinks. They will effectively rule Norway from a remote control in Brussel, and that is not acceptable. The Troika is an example of where power-hungry people gather to make large-scale decisions void of direct contact with their voters and their opinions, they treat their voters like crap while bathing in power and prestige. It is not right, that is not the kind of officials I want for my country, I think the representatives of Norway would slowly but surely be corrupted by the social atmosphere in Brussel and stop representing Norway in the full force they should and slowly but surely only play power-games with other country leaders, giving away just because they can for abstract senseless reasons, and make happen without close regard for who they are making things for.
tillingborn wrote:Well, you hear a lot less about the BNP these days. I haven't looked into UKip, no doubt they have a policy on everything, but despite suspicions, there is no suggestion that they believe they will achieve anything more than a referendum on EU membership.
Less about the BNP? Didn't that UK prime minister take the credit for his country's meagre BNP growth? Something for which, by the way, I didn't buy, unless there is something really important he has done and which has avoided my eyes when reading news from the UK, I'd think it was more random than that. The UK is in good progress of creating its own lost generation with fewer applicants to high education and incoming debt burdened citizens in one of the world's already most indebted countries ^^
tillingborn wrote:It's not an issue of trust. I trust politicians to do what they say they will do; they don't always, but then more than anything, I trust them to be human beings. Some are honourable people who get involved for entirely laudable reasons, others are conniving little shits; most will be somewhere between the two; just like the rest of us.
Well seems we can agree on that, depending on your perspective on human nature, which tends to cloud what culture you grew up in. The Nordic countries ranks among the highest in the world in terms of how much their people trust their government, so naturally my arguments will be coloured by a generally more positive view on the nature of my politicians and perhaps the nature of human beings in general.
