A world without Politicians

[Joseph_Bennett]

No.

Even if every single politician disappeared, we would end up with new ones, whether or not our government was elected or appointed by the Great and Powerful Oz. Even small tribes needed people with political skills to keep things working, to encourage folks to get along and to keep from running afoul the neighbors. As societies became more unified, as tribes merged into larger and larger communities until there were nations and empires, the need for leaders with political skills increased.

The problem is not that we have politicians, but that we often expect something of them that they cannot deliver or that we allow ourselves to be duped.

Your comment about small tribes got me thinking. It's totally true that "leaders" always come up in any group. That's one of the reasons that I usually dislike being in groups of 3 or more people my age (I think it's different with children). If anybody has tried traveling with 3 of people people, you know how horrible it can be. It takes forever to make any decisions and there's usually somebody unhappy with the decision. You're always waiting for somebody. The only way that it really works is if somebody takes the leader. Honestly, they have to pay a little bit less attention to what everybody wants and just make decisions, so that something will happen.

[custard7]

Many people have commented that it's impossible to eliminate politicians because a leadership-follower dynamic emerges within any society, citing the history of tribal warfare up to modern day liberal democracies. While this seems true, it falls victim to the is-ought fallacy. Even if we take it as granted that this is true, that doesn't mean that it ought to be true. Sure, corruption has existed in all societies with leaders who have the capacity to abuse their power, but that doesn't demonstrate how that must necessarily be the case.

For a thought experiment, let's envisage a world without politicians and what that would take. Many other users have supported the idea that 'experts' / 'intellectuals' / 'elites' / people-with-phds should be in charge of the world, presumably because they have access to higher knowledge which allows them to understand the sophisticated dynamics of a complex society and fix them. First, higher intelligence individuals might actually allow people to more efficiently extract rents / exploit / manipulate their subjects, might not have the emotional depth of 'less smart' individuals, or possess the moral fibers necessary for creating a 'just society,' whatever that actually means. Replacing one set of corrupted politicians (which, many people noted, seems to be the natural result of putting people in positions of power, regardless of who they are..) with another set of hyper-intelligent politicians, vulnerable to the same tendencies of evil, seems like a poor choice. --But, all is not lost. The underlying attractiveness to the idea of elite-rule (reminiscent of Plato in his Republic) seems to be in the discrepancy between the 'objective facts' of the world and the 'subjective reality' of a voting populace. Simply, people vote for populist leaders who are so far detached from the objective facts of the scientific world that it boggles the mind -- thus, putting technocrats in charge will fix the problem; they already have solved the problems, the solutions just need to be implemented. Putting aside the question of whether or not that is true -- that technocrats have ready-to-apply solutions to the world's hardest problems -- the real attraction to experts as leaders is that they could, seemingly, create a fair and intelligent society which takes everyone's preferences into account within the context of a concrete - rather than fictional - reality, unswayed by the pleas of the 'reactionary, ignorant' masses. But that doesn't necessarily require people to implement. In fact, in the spirit of this post, people might be in the way. If we could aggregate everyone's preferences in a secure way -- say, their every action was recorded by their phone, laptop, etc and then weighed and crunched alongside everyone else's preference (instead of voting, we 'synched' on a global level), smart contracts and AI could merely implement the required changes to our world to align with global preferences. Perhaps there could be a digital, institutional constitution which prevented egregious abuse / the aggregation of despicable preferences. I'm interested in what people think about this type of approach to replacing politicians? Does it sound appealing?

[neliawesome]

A world without politicians is like a world without rules/regulations.If theres no law do you think we had peaceful living?Yes we all know that most politicians are corrupt but lets not generalize all of them coz some are serving people and country in a good way.Without a leader our world will be messy because all people want to rule for sure.

[Emigham7]

Most of the political systems in most of the countries are currupted. Government collect Taxes but in return we get very less advantages. There is a doubt about the knowledge of ministers too.

If we can introduce a common governing  system for the world without politicians I think it will be more friendly to the people. Government can be handled by group of people like this. That means same as what we do here in crypto. So there may be varities of ideas. Group of moderaters can pick the best ideas and apply them to the system. It will cut off the additional cost of maintaining ministers and will be more human friendly and real time updated.

I really hope this is not a daydream. It will surely not happen. I cant see the possibility of what you are thinking here my brother. Every society needs politicians

[Harz58]

I guess you are referring to a decentralized government.

[Joseph_Bennett]

Many people have commented that it's impossible to eliminate politicians because a leadership-follower dynamic emerges within any society, citing the history of tribal warfare up to modern day liberal democracies. While this seems true, it falls victim to the is-ought fallacy. Even if we take it as granted that this is true, that doesn't mean that it ought to be true. Sure, corruption has existed in all societies with leaders who have the capacity to abuse their power, but that doesn't demonstrate how that must necessarily be the case.

For a thought experiment, let's envisage a world without politicians and what that would take. Many other users have supported the idea that 'experts' / 'intellectuals' / 'elites' / people-with-phds should be in charge of the world, presumably because they have access to higher knowledge which allows them to understand the sophisticated dynamics of a complex society and fix them. First, higher intelligence individuals might actually allow people to more efficiently extract rents / exploit / manipulate their subjects, might not have the emotional depth of 'less smart' individuals, or possess the moral fibers necessary for creating a 'just society,' whatever that actually means. Replacing one set of corrupted politicians (which, many people noted, seems to be the natural result of putting people in positions of power, regardless of who they are..) with another set of hyper-intelligent politicians, vulnerable to the same tendencies of evil, seems like a poor choice. --But, all is not lost. The underlying attractiveness to the idea of elite-rule (reminiscent of Plato in his Republic) seems to be in the discrepancy between the 'objective facts' of the world and the 'subjective reality' of a voting populace. Simply, people vote for populist leaders who are so far detached from the objective facts of the scientific world that it boggles the mind -- thus, putting technocrats in charge will fix the problem; they already have solved the problems, the solutions just need to be implemented. Putting aside the question of whether or not that is true -- that technocrats have ready-to-apply solutions to the world's hardest problems -- the real attraction to experts as leaders is that they could, seemingly, create a fair and intelligent society which takes everyone's preferences into account within the context of a concrete - rather than fictional - reality, unswayed by the pleas of the 'reactionary, ignorant' masses. But that doesn't necessarily require people to implement. In fact, in the spirit of this post, people might be in the way. If we could aggregate everyone's preferences in a secure way -- say, their every action was recorded by their phone, laptop, etc and then weighed and crunched alongside everyone else's preference (instead of voting, we 'synched' on a global level), smart contracts and AI could merely implement the required changes to our world to align with global preferences. Perhaps there could be a digital, institutional constitution which prevented egregious abuse / the aggregation of despicable preferences. I'm interested in what people think about this type of approach to replacing politicians? Does it sound appealing?

I've never thought of anything like this. It almost sounds like it could be a Black Mirror episode. You're basically proposing using big data to make political decisions? Computers would just track out actions and correspondence to identify what we would prefer in any given situation and implement it? It seems like it would create this strange feeling that you can't really control anything. It doesn't even give you the illusion of voting. How could this system protect from hacking? How would people doing things like watching pornography affect the system? We have to keep in mind that so much of what people do and think is influenced by media. The media could sway the system.

[maldini]

it is impossible and it will cause destruction to the state without having politics, the government requires taxes for the welfare of the people, although the community does not get the expected but at least that is enough, they do not get it because of the higher material prices.
dreaming is easy and everyone wants as you think, but the fact is not as easy as you think and maybe aan cause the chaos because the real world is not as beautiful as cyberspace

[Impulseboy]

While it is a dream to live in a world where politicians and government do not exist, the problem lies in the fact that if this comes true, then who will govern us? I think what we need is to rid the world of corrupt politicians, the ones that try to manipulate us and who are greedy and abusive of power. The world will be in chaos if the government is abolished.

[Tamboran]

I think it will be difficult, politicians are needed as a tool to cover government work, they appear in the media serves as a mere diversionary issue, although in reality the work of the government system does not always benefit the community, but with the political system the people are busy with other issues so forget to give criticism to the government.

[jak3]

First of all, I know how you are feeling it, but believe me, there is a lot of stuff you do not know about. You will learn then in your advanced lessons in the near future until then I don't think we should talk anything about government because they are not stupid. It's true that some countries have corruption in them but that does not follow all over the world. Many countries have a very excellent government with strict rules and good leadership.

[Buster2001]

If we can introduce a common governing  system for the world without politicians I think it will be more friendly to the people.

Nice, but pretty idealistic POV. I wish you were right, but I think it's a dream...

[kingsmith002]

Most of the political systems in most of the countries are currupted. Government collect Taxes but in return we get very less advantages. There is a doubt about the knowledge of ministers too.

If we can introduce a common governing  system for the world without politicians I think it will be more friendly to the people. Government can be handled by group of people like this. That means same as what we do here in crypto. So there may be varities of ideas. Group of moderaters can pick the best ideas and apply them to the system. It will cut off the additional cost of maintaining ministers and will be more human friendly and real time updated.

A world without politicians will be messy and it has a lot of wars because politicians is the role model or a leader to our country.But nowadays some politicians causes the crimes especially when it comes to money.Some politicians are corrupted and they corrupt the taxes that government collected to the people.

[Beli99]

It will be amazing without politicians ,world will became a much better place thats for sure if we change politicans for just well educated simple people that dont wana be part of this elite program and start thinking with own head not just be puppets like most of them are...i partially agree their has to be someone to lets say lead but it can be a group of scientist and highly educated people that works like a group for best interests for their country and people ....only sheep people have this stupid idea that everyone needs a leader no matter how bad it is and one thing i can tell you smart and strong people dont need leader ,their is no perfect leader no hero that will save us all, its like every person need to start with himself ,because if we want healthy and resilient future is not something a hero can create for us. It’s something we can only create together in concert with one another.

[omonuyak]

The world without a politicians will be the best place and if you read most of the Holy scriptures you will find out that God is always against the politicians and corruption.  Politicians are the reason why there is killing and poverty.

[Joseph_Bennett]

It will be amazing without politicians ,world will became a much better place thats for sure if we change politicans for just well educated simple people that dont wana be part of this elite program and start thinking with own head not just be puppets like most of them are...i partially agree their has to be someone to lets say lead but it can be a group of scientist and highly educated people that works like a group for best interests for their country and people ....only sheep people have this stupid idea that everyone needs a leader no matter how bad it is and one thing i can tell you smart and strong people dont need leader ,their is no perfect leader no hero that will save us all, its like every person need to start with himself ,because if we want healthy and resilient future is not something a hero can create for us. It’s something we can only create together in concert with one another.

You think it would be good if there weren't any politicians, but you want smart people to replace the politicians? Wouldn't the "smart" people that replace the politicians then also be politicians? Even if it's a group of scientists, they would still be leaders, wouldn't they? You say that sheep people think they need a leader, but you just said that we would need somebody to lead. Aren't these thoughts contradicting? It seems like what you're really saying isn't that we need no politicians. You're just saying that we need better politicians.

[Joseph_Bennett]

A world without politicians is not too smooth as now. Most of the countries are making progress with their hardworking politicians. No doubt, their image is not true due to corruption but somehow they are necessary for the world and the world without politician is mismanaged.

Could you give some examples of "hardworking politicians" that are actually making their country better. Maybe I'm naive, but it seems like they are definitely a minority. The worst thing is that politics is so often a show. A politician may "open" a new orphanage. The media will come and they'll have a great ceremony and celebrate the event. Everybody will be talking in the media about how great the leader is. In reality, though, he's just putting a band-aid on a huge problem and he didn't even do anything more than put his signature on a piece of paper to give taxpayers' money to the project. That's most countries' politics in a nutshell.