Wouldn't that presume UK experts were first successful in implementing an austerity plan on the UK?  Good luck!

No eric_5. I am suggesting that UK experts could have prevented UK sovereign debt.

On the issue  of Eurozone bonds, how do you suggest they can be backed jointly if the member states are on the verge of financial collapse themselves (ie, Italy & Spain). IM

Because eurozone members issue euro-denominated sovereign bonds individually, speculators can pick off the weaker members one by one. It's like the difference between the bonds of individual US states and federal treasury bonds. The obstacle to eurozone, jointly guaranteed, bonds is political and beyond the control of 'experts'.  

It's the parochialism of 'expert government' that I'm underlining.

Expand.

Government experts would create policy based on the evidence. They would be much more likely to act on climate change evidence than politicians. All the people in one country can do is mobilise their country and set an example. It is defeatist to give up because other countries are slow to understand.

Government would comprise the experts that do apply. It is desirable but not necessary that they are the greatest examples in their field. The division of government into many specialisms with many specialists in each is the important factor. Hopefully some experts would find the time, perhaps toward the end of their careers, to do something for their country.

Great advances in civilisation were never made by votes. They were made by people with great vision and dedication to their fields.

Was Abraham Lincoln merely mouthing the words of a visionary, or was he the visionary? Are you saying he was not expert in what he constructed?

Tell us why authority vested in votes is so great.

Are you a politician, or are you an expert on the role politics plays in government?

I not only agree with you that experts / specialists would not agree with each other, I intend that there should be selection criteria that encourage diversity of opinion. Specialists / experts with diverse opinions will naturally tend to generate moderate positions to reach an acceptable compromise. This is why I require many specialists / experts in each specialism. One principle I state on the front page of my site is the need to reserve extreme action for extreme circumstances. This also tends to encourage moderate positions. It is my belief that extremism is usually damaging except to manage extreme circumstances.

By definition, experts do “know best” about their specialism. Some people equate the terms ‘expert’ and ‘academic’. There are experts that have deep theoretical specialism, and those with deep practical specialism. The best experts would embody both, but this may be impossible in many disciplines. In that case some selection criteria should foster diversity of practical and theoretical specialism. I agree with you that experts will not always know the “correct course of action”, but I think they are always best placed to make a best effort. The preeminent concern of politicians, or at least a powerful concern, is winning elections. This can hinder impartial assessment of a matter, even in the unlikely event that a politician is expert on a matter. This is an inescapable problem of a system with an inherent adversarial design. Your example concerns a rare case at the extreme limits of human knowledge. Most matters are considerably more tractable. Nonetheless, to extend your example; would a politician be better placed to advise on performing pertinent physics experiments? Einstein and Bohr may have disagreed and had to compromise, but all the politicians in the world could not even begin to answer such questions with any likelihood of success.

Concerning your area of specialism, do you feel that decisions in it are best left to politicians, even though you presumably know much more about it then they do? I think that most specialists would feel that their decisions, and particularly those of their experts, would be better. I imagine that you might say that the specialists / experts could advise the politicians. If the specialists / experts know the best decisions themselves, then they do not need the politicians and should not give them the opportunity to corrupt the decision. I imagine that you might say that someone is needed to coordinate cross-cutting concerns. I would say that that should not be a politician, but a selection of specialists from each relevant discipline. We do not need politicians. In your specialist area it seems that you think it matters how expert one is, and indeed I would not even try to debate on your subject. Yet you deny this of economics. I imagine that experts in economics might have the opposite view to you. Like in the earlier example, the experts may disagree about economics, but a guess from a politician is much worse than any compromise position from experts.

The experiment you suggest is already in place. Almost all the products and services in this world are created using this principle. Government is the last significant throwback to authoritarianism. Politicians are privileged elite that gain their authority by convincing the easily led that voting for someone who does not know anything about what they are deliberating on is a good idea. A vote has no effect on the policy of parties and a negligible effect on which party gets to be in government. Which party gets to be in power is almost irrelevant anyway, as neither understands what they are talking about. Almost half of the people in the UK have figured this out and so don’t even bother to vote. Out of those that do vote, most vote the same way each time regardless of party policies. Some simply vote for the opposition each time to reduce corruption. In effect the thought that goes into a vote is also negligible. For many, voting and the watching the results get announced have descended into a distraction, an evening’s entertainment. The subsequent political coverage is just a soap opera. People in the future will look back and marvel at how ridiculous this system is, and how we could have adhered to it for so long.

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“According you your thinking, gebyatt, these two great experts should know more than anyone on the planet, be able to look at the evidence, and, since they are the two premier experts in the field, agree on the answer to a question in theoretical physics (their acknowledged field of expertise)”

“All expertise does is give two people the training to disagree, and argue, on a more-or-less equal footing.”

The reason Bohr and Einstein couldn't agree despite being experts in their fields was because there was no evidence to support either of their claims. In the absence of evidence, their disagreement was not scientific; it was philosophical. Bohr was arguing that randomness is a fundamental property of the universe. Einstein believed there must be a hidden variable responsible for the randomness. At the time, neither assertion could be confirmed by experimentation. That was until 1964 when John Stewart Bell devised an experiment that could test the hidden variable theory. Experiments carried out during the 70s and 80s crushed the hidden variable theory. Einstein, who died in 1955, never lived to see these experiments. We can’t know whether or not Einstein, in the light of evidence, would have abandoned his position and adopted Bohr’s, but one of his quotes may provide some insight.

“A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be”

Truth is not determined by who the better arguer is. It is the evidence that counts. I would advise you to take the time to research things you know nothing about before using them to produce faulty anecdotes.

If you still think that change and new ideas are not going to happen, when I have just shown you that they are, then you are a Luddite, an anchor to those of us who want progress. gebyatt

What's new about tax evasion? The 'seasteading' idea is about setting up 'states' in international waters in ships, oil platforms or other structures or unclaimed islands outside the jurisdiction of sovereign states. The attractions of making laws to suit yourself are obvious.

I had seen that Sea Org page on Wikipedia, but I did not take any time look into the details as Scientology is of no concern to me. What you have said demonstrates to me the shortcomings of human nature interacting with hierarchical influence structures, and to some extent the problems of a non-secular authority. These are all features I have taken some trouble to exclude from my design for government.

Anyway, as per your mode you miss the two points I was making in my last post. Firstly, it easy to rubbish the efforts of others in the smug belief that one is endorsed by the status quo, but having contributed nothing to its formative ideas or progress. It is much more difficult to develop original ideas and refine them. As you can see I and others are trying, you are merely trying in a different sense of the word. Secondly, change is not impossible. I note that you do not comment on the Charter Cities effort. Perhaps it is not amenable to brand of cynicism and criticism because it appears to be making progress.

I wonder what character flaw of yours gives you the satisfaction to be so negative about others ideas. Perhaps you should turn your pop-psychology on yourself and let us know what makes you so brilliant while my efforts and those of others are worth so little.

Thank you Anonymous

Firstly, the main concern of Expert Government is to improve the efficacy of government; corruption and inadaptability are secondary concerns. Secondly, the design does have features to minimise corruption. The need to improve those features is not a reason to abandon the principal concept in Expert Government. Also it is a mistake to believe that voting for representatives is the only possible way to address corruption. The starting point for a design of government is to get the requirements in the right order.

The reason for my priorities is that civilisation is becoming more complex, but current forms of government do not adequately address that progression. It is my opinion that more damage is now being done due to ineffective government than corrupt government, and that this trend will continue until everyone can see this. For example, recent financial mismanagement brought the world to its knees. Many people are still suffering from the effects. Indeed the issue is not yet resolved. Regardless of what caused it, it is clear that ineffective controls by government allowed it to happen. The people who did understand the problem did not have the authority to apply the necessary controls to prevent it. Instead authority was with politicians. While corruption probably contributed to the lack of control, the more significant issue is that they did not understand what they were supposed to be controlling. Even if they were not corrupt they could not have been effective. Voting out politicians does reduce corruption, but it is at best curative, not preventative, and it does nothing to make them more effective. Our main concern must be to get effective government and then apply anti-corruption measures. The common concern about corruption is an understandable response to an authoritarian past, but people need to take a new look at the priorities for government in a complex world.

Let us focus on the main issue only first, rather than get side-tracked into discussing many others.

Representative democracy is clearly an improvement on many other forms of government. However, representative democracy is progressively less effective at managing countries because of the increasing complexity of civilisation.

Provision of products and services based on collaborating independent specialisms (i.e. businesses and other organisations) works very well. Its basis is the best way we have of managing a complex system. A system based on collaborating independent specialisms is not overseen; its success is an emergent property of its design. That design devolves authority to very many collaborating independent specialisms, each employing many specialists or ideally experts. I have used this design as the basis of Expert Government.

We have entered into a new era of complexity, in which a small number of individuals are not able to manage civilisation effectively. The correct policies for government should emerge from the actions of many specialists, each working only within their specialism. The top-down approach is no longer viable; it is an artefact of the past when systems were simple enough for that to work.

I want a reasoned argument on my understanding of the effects of the increasing complexity of civilisation and how to address them. Other issues are less important and to be discussed later. I note everyone has studiously avoided this critical argument so far. I hope you will address it. For example, the will of the public is irrelevant to the issue around the increasing complexity of civilisation.