On Technocracy

Beyond Open and Closed Society

People!

Experts and people of knowledge should be chosen in every single domain as leaders. And the reason for this is as clear as the broad daylight and has been so since Galileo’s time at the very least: The belief in the supreme utility of science and the person of knowledge! Truth and honesty demand such a system, even more so when considering the high tide of complexity that our species has reached in the 21st century.

And truth and honesty have been the dominating strategies of our species’ evolution so far as seen by the game-theoretical lenses. If it was not for this duo, we would have probably have joined the long list of extinct species millennia ago. Hence let us boldly follow where they lead us!

Below are some short notes on how such a system might organize itself.

(first part)

A designated number of human affairs (not necessarily closely) related to the governing and further development of a society are cherry-picked and then grouped together in generalized branches (slightly akin to ministries under the current prevailing systems). For example, group economics might include subbranches such as micro and macroeconomics, positive economics, rational or behavioral economics, and so on. A limit should probably be set for the number and depth of subbranches that a certain group can have. Obviously, a field like medicine will have an enormous amount of subbranches, with ones such as genetic engineering receiving special attention. This limit, as well as the branches themselves, are to be revised every couple of decades, depending on the field, but probably no less than three decades in order to keep fads out of the way.

Next, the top X researchers/engineers/workers, depending on the development of the particular domain in that particular country (or rather a group of countries), in a particular domain, e.g. deep learning (as part of the computer science field), are picked as members of that particular community. This forms what we might term the central committee of a particular sub-branch (some of these fields, will also observe the current functionalities of local governments of our current systems). The process of being selected to this central committee is a fourfold process: first, hard facts and various measures about the person’s knowledge and contributions in the field are considered (e.g. citations). Second, voting by the X incumbent members of the current central committee is carried out. Third voting of all the broader community, i.e. the people that have that particular domain as their vocation is carried out, and finally, the voting of a special group of the citizenry to be discussed later on is also carried out.

The four aforementioned criteria do not have the same precedence. A weight is given to each of these players, namely 0.3/0.4/0.2/0.1. This gives precedence to the ruling central committee but also takes into account the opinion of the broader community, the general citizenry as well as achievements of the individual. This central committee is to be elected every 10 years but very rare exceptions can be made to elect it on shorter notice, every 7 years. Moreover, they get a reconfirmation every 5 years. For the reconfirmation process, we can implement some sort of mock elections, where a lower threshold than the normal elections is set to get reconfirmed. Based on the reconfirmation results, and various other constraints, it is decided whether the next elections are held in 7 or 10 years. Another requirement should be that only 30% of the committee, at most, can change in election time. This means that a process that decides who is expendable should also be implemented. One way to do this could be a score that each member of the central committee takes and that represents his weight in the system (as well as contributions). Probably a function that gives precedence to seniority (what is and has been proven to work, is incredibly higher than any “thus it ought to be”) must also be implemented.

An age restriction should probably also be implemented. The numbers should be studied accordingly but a range of 29–69 and 26–66 for men/women respectively might be a good start. Finally, this will be a part-time job for its members, taking anywhere between 10–20 hours a week.

Special precedence is given to important subdomains such as artificial intelligence or molecular biology and quantum mechanics. For e.g., for decisions taken in the A.I. domain, or genetics engineering, ethics plays a vital role. After all, ethics and morality are what separates us from the lower stages of humanity.

Further, the top X researchers/members of the central committee elect among themselves the so-called inner-5, the technocrat committee, who are to make the decisions for that particular domain. It is important to pick 5, because we want these 5 people to be extremely well connected to each other, especially on a deeply personal level, and research indicates that 5 is about the limit that our current brains can handle. Most importantly, it should be emphasized that these 5 people need not be the best academically speaking. Nay, a requirement should be the general flexibility of mind to other domains as well.

The inner-5s then elect the higher technocrat committee for the whole branch of the subdomains, that is the field, for e.g. medicine in general. This higher committee is to play a mostly unifying role akin to what the president plays in current parliamentary republics and take miscellaneous generalized decisions in the field as a whole.

Revising what we have so far: We have branches of human inquiry with subbranches going many levels deep if necessary. Each domain has a number of members in the central committee, who in turn elect the inner-5. This inner-5 is not necessarily the academically most accomplished. General prudence and wiseness in the complete human condition is a mandate to be elected here. Finally, the inner-5 of the subdomains elect the inner-5 of the whole branch from their own ranks, which plays more of a symbolic role in this system, since it is the specialized inner-5s that have the most weight in decision making thus far.

The idea of the system then simply is — and to reiterate — that specialized decisions in the given domain are not only taken by those who know best but also those that have that general flexibility of mind that grants them with a vision of the future, the inner 5. More general, symbolic decisions about the domain as a whole are then taken by the inner-5 of the field as a whole.

Going one step further, these inner-5s also select among themselves one single leader, which we might term the high vizier. And just as the inner-5 takes into account the opinion of the central committee of that particular domain, but ultimately decide themselves, so the high vizier is able to ultimately decide himself on all matters and can overwrite the inner-5s decisions if needed. Obviously, various prudent checks (but not balances) have to be implemented by means of which, for e.g. the central committee can nullify the inner-5 and the high vizier. One such check is the above-mentioned reconfirmation process. But it is obvious that the high vizier will arrive at his decisions based on his four other comrades and they all together based on the central committee.

Finally, one step higher still, from the inner-5s of all human domains of governing as well as inquiry the final high-7 will be selected, as well as, among these 7 people, the techno king, the crown of this technocratic system and the ultimate leader of a country, or, as we are to hope, a federation of countries. The final, highest-level decisions on every domain are to be taken by the techno king and the high-7, while the nitty-gritty details are no doubt left to the inner-5s. There is no higher authority for decision-making than this body.

For the 7 final high viziers as well as the techno king, a higher threshold of age requirements is needed. For the male counterpart 39–69 sounds about right, and for the female, 36–66. Important to note that these are not hard requirements and in exceptional cases, such as individuals showing high levels of energy even in old age, exceptions can be made.

The election process for the techno king and the high-7 happens every 7 years and is a two-fold one: first the inner-5s from all the subdomains vote and second a chosen section of the citizenry votes. The weighting process could be given as 0.6/0.4 respectively. For the latter voting agents, the next question would then be as to how to pick this chosen section of the citizenry?

The chosen section of the citizenry, or rather the elites of the citizenry, will come from a system that might be termed the Social System. It will be a virtual and physical space where each citizen of a federation of countries, can discuss every single matter from any single possible domain of human inquiry. The citizens conduct discourse among themselves but also, and very importantly, with members of the different central committees. In fact, it is a requirement that members of the central committee engage with the citizenry for all the decisions that are on the agenda. In other words, yes, those who know best should rule, but they should nevertheless still subject their decisions to further scrutiny even though such scrutiny might be of a lower and superficial level most of the time. Each citizen has a score, which weights in their particular weight in the decision-making process. As to how exactly your score increases, is a matter that needs serious and continuous contemplating but essentially, any exceptional proof of wisdom or ability in any domain might help increase this score. What is more, individuals with higher scores also have more benefits in life in general. Finally, to go back to the election process, depending on the population of a country the top Y (e.g. 30k in the case of the USA) scores are picked as eligible voters, who will vote on the 7 high viziers and the technoking.

The Social System is a very important system and is worth to further elaborating on. It will play a threefold purpose.

First and most importantly it will provide a platform for active discourse to be conducted by those who are interested and have a natural inclination for it. It will provide for our kind what the abhorring early 2000s-social media platforms provide for the rest: food. I think it would be best to model such discourse after Franklin’s Junto clubs. Very succinctly: the purpose of each club would be the unadulterated and inexorable pursuit of truth and self-development merely for development’s sake and they would consist of about 10 individuals, who meet on a weekly basis and discuss ideas of various nature, as well as produce some essay or presentation that goes in-depth on any chosen topic. This process will forge informed and wise citizens.

Second, it inoculates a degree of preponderance to the ablest citizenry when compared with the rest. If there is anything we do not want, is extreme egalitarianism (equity) and the citizen’s score ensures we remain out of this trap. Moreover, it makes perfect sense that those that have more to contribute are also duly rewarded more. We want to reward such behavior, not punish it as has frequently been the case so far. Hierarchies are indispensable for the continued enhancement of our species. That is a fact.

Third, this system provides a platform by which those who are interested and able can contribute to and become a part of the decision-making process without necessarily being highly technical. As to what impact they exactly have in the decision-making process remains an open question. Finally, there should be mechanisms in place by which this section of the citizenry can climb in the central committee, and beyond, even reaching as much as the top in the high-7 committee.

But back to our high viziers.

A very hard requirement for the high-7, even more so than with the inner-5, is the general flexibility of mind to other domains apart from one’s vocation. The quintessential example here would probably be Einstein (or Goethe, or even better, Aristotle): a genius physicist but also a philosopher and erudite of merit, and, mind you, great amateur chess player.

Moreover, it will be mandatory that the high-7 contains at least:

• one physicist. Simply the fact they used to make up one of the (if not the) most intelligent communities that our species has produced thus far should be enough but one could probably list about 1001 other reasons.
• one philosopher. Loosely defined though, given the fact that philosophy seems to have entered its final death pangs since the end of the 20th century and probably, rather painfully, irrevocably so.
• one person with an engineering background as one of the best ways to make sure one is rooted and nailed to reality.
• one entrepreneur as a species that is bold in taking risks.
• finally, one artist might also be needed because even though they lie all too frequently, they do represent a significant portion of the human condition.

And to emphasize, these must not be among the best in their fields. There lurks a real danger in going too far into one direction, i.e. in this case towards the complete scientification of decision-making, which after a subtler analysis turns out to be out of reach even for the current high-tide development of our species, not least because of technical problems as the unlikeliness of a best-case solution to be implemented in the real-world environment. More generally though, the dichotomy Apollo-Dionysis has to be correctly grasped and a fine-line correspondingly drawn.

The inner-7 is the core force behind the spur of the development of society, capable of realizing a strong and judicious leadership. The inner-5s are the subtler decision-making body. The power of these two levels of governing is all-encompassing. For e.g. the inner-7 should have the power to merge, split, or otherwise mold companies as they see fit, keep a healthy check on events that can border to mass hysteria as is the case with the idea of living relatively well off by essentially doing nothing (crypto-trading), withdraw certain books or apps from the market, or even designate certain festivals for the proper release of all kinds of drives.

Such a system, which was merely rudimentary jotted down above, is most likely superior both to the open and closed society type of systems.

First, to the open society (but not exclusively) it can probably issue at least — but probably many more — the following claims of preponderance:

• The manipulative nature of representative democracy, which stems from the rulers’ drive to prolong their power, is utterly demolished since evidence of exceptional ability, voting from researchers, and voting from a chosen section of the citizenry are most likely immune to such manipulations (for even the languishing person, who wishes the world ends with him is, in the end, being manipulated) most of the time relative to the open social system.
• The pursuit of truth and fallibility are enshrined into this technocratic system by its very nature.
• The decision-making of this system is far superior to the decision-making of modern representative democracies.
• The efficiency of energies spent in the leadership process is tremendously increased. For e.g., in the US, half the congress is all too frequently out to trip the other half. Here cohesion by the highest guarantees stability, which in turn guarantees development.
• Those who contribute more, those higher human beings, are duly rewarded.
• People are now able to confront harsh realities because they have no other choice since decision-making resides in the hands of those who know best. Moreover, the Social System is guaranteed to facilitate this process with the help of discourse held in Junto clubs.
• The Lippman-Dewey dilemma is solved since no manufacture of consent is by default needed. As the argument goes, the common interests of the public are not obvious except upon a careful analysis of the collected data, and a critical intellectual exercise, of which the common public is both unable and unwilling to tend to. In our case, this job is duly overtaken and done by the central committee, the inner-5s, and the rest of the chosen citizenry, while the interested public can inform themselves through Junto clubs or even climb the ladders of the hierarchy if fit.
• Finally, and equally importantly, the production of genius in the long term is ensured and the further mediocritization of man is thwarted.

Second, to the closed society, it can issue the following claims of preponderance:

• Superior decision-making since truth does not depend on the party’s truth and there are no politically correct statements. Even the most developed closed society in the world today finds it necessary to modify its history. Most importantly, though, and as already mentioned, superior decision-making because those who know best, those ‘impeccable’ human beings in terms of powerful ruling drives, decide what is ‘best’.
• Will to power can (most likely) no longer be turned into a personal will to power given the nature of the system. For e.g. the technoking is not necessarily the sole decision-maker given the high-7, and many implementations and decisions, although to a smaller degree, reside with the inner-5s. But most importantly, I believe that this system will pick and breed a different kind of ruler, where it shall be rather rare for the will to power to degenerate into the personal level (these words are not to be taken in the strictest possible sense, since everything, in the end, has its origin in egotism).
• Individual freedom and rights are not trampled as is frequently the case in autocratic systems. All citizens rather enjoy some self-understandable, unalienable rights as are the common sense of most western constitutions today. They might somewhat vary for different sections of the population but they are not trampled and especially not so based on ethnicity or religion.

In the end, our hope with such a system is to select the highest possible elites of a society as its ruling people. It seems to me that such a system will be able to guarantee both stability and fallibility on much larger timeframes than both the open or the closed society could ever do. It will cultivate rulers with a strong and powerful vision, inexorable drives, and ‘impeccable’ principles. The system’s goal will be the further development of the society (species) as a whole.

Finally, it is very important to always keep in mind, that the answer as to what is ‘best’ for humanity’s further development can be terribly counter-intuitive. Or as the underground man put it:

And why are you so firmly, so solemnly convinced that only the normal and the positive, in short, that only well-being, is profitable for man? Maybe man does not love well-being only? Maybe he loves suffering just as much? Maybe suffering is just as profitable for him as well-being? For man sometimes loves suffering terribly much, to the point of passion, and that is a fact.

Thanks for reading.

As always, constructive criticism and discussion of any kind are highly appreciated.

Remember what physics teaches us: One’s goal is to be less wrong about everything.