Governance in the presence of knowledge
Current governance models are old models that were designed in the absence of accessible data about societies and individuals
I find world’s current governance models (and consequently economy and education systems) highly outdated. I feel that those who are politically classified as “left” are often too kind and have an intellectually weak perception of decision making at scale. The ones on the “right”, on the other hand, seem to be too naive in their faith in human-made constitutions and establishments.
One good example would be the way both sides try to facilitate fair growth in societies. Leftists believe in equality of outcome, since they can’t balance the input of the system (they can’t balance people’s initial privileges, so they wanna put a cap on how much everyone can grow.) Rightists find that unfair and ridiculous and propose we should do nothing about the input/outputs of the system and let the system balance itself out.
In CS and maths terms, the leftists have a tendency to find solutions that overfit, and since that’s manually impractical, they can end up being extremely autocratic and inefficient. The right’s solutions are often mathematically inefficient and statistically too hopeful/careless.
In the case of open market theory, I’m not convinced by capitalism’s faith in the hope that ‘market will balance itself out and those who work hard will prosper’. I accept that’s been a good plan, but I’m not convinced that’s the way to go, in future. In fact, when I ask “why is that our plan A on this planet?”, people respond “because it’s better than communism” or “it’s just and fair because as long as you work hard, you can get wealthy and succeed. Look at the success cases.” That’s an okay argument, for now, but it’s crazy when I think about future governance and when I remember that in technology and software industry and problem solving in general, we’re more concerned about the failure cases rather than the success cases of a system. We literally define “quality” and “performance” by our system’s ability to minimize if not eliminate failed outputs. You could argue I’m being too idealistic in my comparison of governance and software, and I’d argue we’re living in 2018. I think we should aim for establishing equality of opportunities for every individual and then let them take it or leave it. “How is that even practical, ever?” Well, I’m 23; I’m less interested in what is practical and more interested in what is going to be practical in the world.
Contrary to the assumption that “everyone is either a leftist or a rightist and there is no better plan”, I believe all of these models of growing human societies were developed in the absence of accessible data about masses of people and individuals. I believe we’ve built inefficient one-size-fits-all systems based on the assumption that we will never know enough about people’s past and present and future lives to deliver the right system and growth model that serves them best. That assumption has been understandable, but it’s extremely prone to failure; now more than ever.
I live in a capitalist country (Malaysia) and I enjoy my freedoms, and I was born and I lived the first 15 years of my life in a theocratic country that’s publicly against capitalism AND communism (Iran) and hasn’t fully figured its economic or governance model yet, and I study Artificial Intelligence and work in this industry. So I’ve never considered myself a leftist or a rightist, although I subscribe to certain opinions of left and right.
I respect the thinkers and creators of all these systems, even if the systems went badly wrong; because I, too, believe a bad plan is better than no plans and that best way to express your unhappiness about not getting the great options you wish you had, is to take the best option you can have at the moment, and think, plan and create the optimal option that serves you and others, eventually.
