Raised the point of divergence between most of us (and especially the technical of us) and our “leader class” who are increasingly out of touch with reality (technical, economic, physical, etc.) so make ever crappier decisions.
A little further down, Another Ian points out the Idiots In Charge are pushing for ever more centralized control in greater depth, while regular folks push for more distributed and local systems.
While pondering “Why?” (“Why? Don’t ask why. Down that path lies insanity and ruin. -E.M.S.”) I think I’ve got a clue on at least part of it.
The “Upper Crust” and especially the managerial and legal/political/lawyer class, do not put in the thousands of hours of work it takes to learn the realities of the physical world. They avoid hard sciences (like physics, chemistry, math, biology; and especially the rigors of engineering that requires integration of them all).
I personally remember watching the large cohort of my peers entering college as they self sorted into “Science” and “Humanities” – with the future managers, lawyers, and similar avoiding science and engineering classes. Opting for thumbnail explanations and heuristics to understand the world around them. (I’ve “consulted” with a lawyer on a case where they needed an explanation for an electrical fire, and I had to give him just enough insight to get the actual cause across to judge and jury without actually understanding what was really happening… He won the case but doubt he really understood why multiphase power had 2 “legs” and why having them out of Balance could overheat a transformer…)
I think this is the root of the basic problem with “leadership” today. Both Government / Political decision making and business managerial decision making.
As the total body of actual knowledge has grown exponentially, the need for ever more brief “thumbnails” and ever less accurate “narratives” grows exponentially as well; so as to keep the total mass of such “shortcuts” small enough to continue to fit in the abbreviated space in the managerial minds and political brains “in charge”.
The assumption is that as complexity increases the total information space where decisions must be made and the important information to cover such decisions, also increases proportionately; but the human brain does not. So ever more “compression” is needed to make it fit. At some point, the total compression (or simplification of the “story”) eventually causes it to be too far removed from reality to be correct.
I’d suggest that the next phase has 2 more damaging steps. First, the managerial / political class becomes ever more comfortable with just “making up a narrative / story” and using it (since that ends up being what they do all day long). This causes the question of accuracy to be dropped. They stop caring if their “story” is true, just if it works. “A lie is as good as a truth as long as people believe it” becomes the norm. “Narrative Construction” exceeds the quest for truth and validity. Then, decisions based ever more on “What I Want” rather than “What is Right” come to dominate since there is ever less (or even NO) perceptible “valid” choice. Just competing narratives that are not anchored in reality.
This pushes the “In Charge Class” into making ever more decisions based on “Fantasy Narratives That I Like” or “What makes my life easier or more wealthy”. We end up with ever increasing hubris / arrogance in our “leaders” even while they make ever worse choices and decisions based on ever less valid “stories” about the world, ever further from reality. It takes a few years to actually understand why Global Warming is a flawed fantasy, but only a couple of minutes (and far less brain time / space and information) to hear the narrative “CO2 causes heat trapping and then global warming will destroy the climate”.
Once that process is common enough, evil folks lusting after power will encourage it and use it to get the decisions they want from “Government” and “Executives”. Pfizer will push mRNA Tech that is defective as a “safe and effective vaccine that must be mandated” to politicians who can’t understand the tech but love the “saving the world” narrative of their part. At that point, we’ve reached Idiocracy.
Folks who don’t really understand what they are doing, or how it will impact the world, making decisions based on “narratives” created by the immoral for their personal gain. And none of them knowing that it is a bad thing for the rest of us. Or even caring to spend the time to find out what effect it has on anyone. But they can do it very fast and without needing to think too hard… or knowing anything much about anything technical or hard…
I think there’s a 2nd level, but that will be for another day. Institutional Decisions based on thumbnails and momentum. Like the EPA being told to “clean up air” but not knowing just what that means, so we now end up with a $Billions Administration that doesn’t want to lose their job or admit they don’t know much, deciding that normal air components (CO2, water vapor) are “pollution” that must be abated, so making up rules that can not possibly be met… Or the mandate to make cars run only on electricity in a time period that is impossible since we do not have the needed materials (copper, cobalt, lithium, etc.) AND can not possibly get them that fast. The “Narrative” said we have to do it In 7 years, and we are used to just making rules, so make it happen in 7 years and “don’t bother me with facts, math, or that painful thinking stuff”.
Or something like that… That’s my narrative and I’m sticking too it! ;-)
Musings from the Chiefio 