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That same exact reasoning can be applied in favor of a dictatorship.



Exactly

America is a republic no?

Yeah.. And what's the big difference between that and a representative democracy?

Uh...what do you mean? It seems to me that if the society changes it makes it that much easier to change the government.

Favoring them, yes. Giving them billions of dollars, however, is a very conscious decision and quite frankly if a leader doesn't have the will power to keep from doing it, they shouldn't be in that position.

Well, it would certainly bring us that much closer, and there' s no harm in it.

No, it does not. See, with a meritocracy you actively put those few moral people into positions of power, whereas with a dictatorship all you can do is hope they're the ones in positions of power.

There isn't any big difference. They're basically the same thing.

It really depends on many things. On the goverment type, on the mentality of the people. Do you think the absolutist goverments changed as soon as the people decided that they need a change? Do you think the USSR's goverment changed when the the people wanted?

If the people want a change, but the goverment doesen't make one for long periods of time, you get revolutions.

Thats if you let them change. Like North Korea, it cuts off all the other cultures from its people, and have military polices carving their speeches into nothing.

No, it's exactly the same. Infact, dictatorship has an advantage in that field because it only relies on one moral person.



That took the words right out of my mouth. Because that is exactly what's wrong with meritocracy and any other political system that has to heavily rely on "Moral" People in order to work good.

Uh...you seem to me to be reading more into what I said than there actually was. I didn't say that when a society changes its government automatically and immediately changes as well.

Judging from history, it seems that much is true.

No, it is not. I just explained how it is different.

But, unlike meritocracy, a dictatorship also relies on that person just happening to be the one to get into a position of power. This is why it is inferior.

...except that that is not what is wrong with meritocracy, because a meritocracy actively puts the moral people into positions of power, which a dictatorship does not do.

You missed the entire point that was made. Let me make it simple for ya.

How can people know that the first set of meritocracy leaders are moral and intelligent people??

Until meritocracy is some how able to solve that question, we will not move onto the much harder ones.

K guys, I've not been following this topic at all so I'm just going to give my "thoughts" about what dtbk said in the first post.

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I don't see exactly how ignorance and how the education system has failed to develop a higher level of thinking rather than just analzying facts has to do with the "faliure of the democratic system in america". More of just a faliure to me.

I do agree with you for the most part, as I said up there rather than developing a higher level of thinking (philosophy in a way) teachers have just been giving kids close ended questions and skills.
IE: what is the answer of 2+2 rather than a questions like why is 2+2=4? All the first question does is show that you can answer something but not neccissarily be able to apply it to any real life situation, the other shows you can reason it out. Of course realisticaly there would be much more complex questions.

It annoys me in class that students learn how to balance chemical formulas and reactions but once the teacher starts relating those to real life scenerios or what not, the students get completely lost although it is the exact same thing.

One thing I don't completely believe is that its the school systems fault entirely. Yes, our schools are under funded among other things but the main problem is the 1 in 100 high mantience kid or parent. The person who complains/sues etc. the school so that schools are forced to remain ignorant. The book Farenheight 451 (The main characters name is guy montag ) takes things to the extreme but never the less the problems occurring in that book are occurring in our society as well. Although most people are fine with controversial ideas that 1 in 100 people are the ignorant mean persons who force everyone else to be.

Theres no problem with educational systems except for the fact that everything Bush does with it are HIGHLY UNFUNDED. Obviously, and childrens lack merit in education. Which equals failing schools. Also, since there aren't enough transfers being made; the federal government refuses to give 700 million dollars.

By choosing them that way using tests. Face it, we know the tests either already exist or can be made, all we have to do is agree to use them.

Agreed. This is one the many places where the education system needs rewiring, so to speak.

I'll have to disagree with this. Throwing money at the education problem isn't going to solve it alone. The system itself has to be changed.

Allow corporal punishments back?

Who chooses them? Who makes the tests? Who decides what is and what is not moral? You? The people? The people are philistines full of apathy. They don't care about politics. They don't care about these intellectual topics. Only when there is another great depression that causes people to start living on the streets, will they begin to care. (Which hasn't happened in 70 years, back when the goverment knew nothing of aggregate demand) That, or become a white middle class teenager who doesn't see how good he's got it.

Bottom line is: Considering the american system a failure, is like saying your birthday was a failure because you only got a 2002 lexus instead of a 2006 one.

Mostly psychologists.

Logical people. Morality is based on logic and is discoverable by any entity that is capable of logical thinking. Additionally, any 'morality' that is not logical must have a flaw somewhere, which is also discoverable.

Wait a second...you admit that the public is currenlty made up of apathetic morons, and then immediately afterwards call the american system a success? I believe this is an example of what we call 'self-ownage'.

These public, some could be smarter than you are. I don't think you could call all of them idiots. Also, without a resolve; you should not blab about how the american system fails. Of course there can be a fix to change things... but things change everyday, just not majorly.

Politicians would easily lie about being moral and the Psychologists would easily be bribed so they can vouch for the politicians. Whoever's incharge of the test is incharge of the country.

Once people get in, they can say stuff like:
President: "I vouch for this guy, he's a nice wholesome man. He should be governor."
Psychologist: "Yes, Leif Anderson is a great canidate for governor. He's passed all the tests with flying colors."

Everyone on this site already knows, morals are in the eye of the beholder. There are just a few universal morals that all people can agree on. But in meritocracy, the government has say on everything. And the older it gets, the more ridiculous it's claims on morals get.

"Criminals are immoral, they should never be allowed to become bosses."

"Anyone with a heavy alcoholic history, should not be allowed in certain public places."

"Sorry tom, you can't be making anymore blizzard games. The government has deemed starcraft immoral."

"Communism is immoral, all communists are to be locked up."

"That new slasher movie had way too much violence in it. The creators of that movie are to do community service, and are now black listed."

"Psychologists have proven that blacks are inferior to whites through the use of logic and reasoning."

"Hunting is now considered immoral, and should be illegal."

"Drug dealing is now considered immoral, and should be illegal." (This one is alive today)

"Pornography leads to immoral behavior, and should be illegal."

"Being in a sport shows sign of a lack of intelligence."

"Protests are a breeding ground for immoral acts. Such as vandalism and destruction of property. Psychologists have said that when ever people protest, they have a ten times better chance to commit such things. We must protect our country."

"Car salesmen are immoral. The government is now incharge of selling cars to it's citizens."

"Christians are immoral."

"Atheists are immoral."

"Muslims are immoral"

"Psychologists have shown that a person who can not make up their mind on big topics, such as being an agnostic, should not be allowed to become bosses. Because that shows poor leadership."

"Women are inferior to men, and should not be allowed jobs. The older ways was much more peaceful and productive."

And that's just off the top of my head.



Know one of the big reasons why the american system is superior to this? Because of limited government. They're not arrogant enough to actually enforce laws based on their opinion of morality. And when they do get arrogant, it always backfires on them years down the road.

Those aren't the ones causing the problems.

Well, the idea is that after a few obvious transgressions, they get kicked out by the other, moral government officials.

Seriously, to what extent is it possible to rig intelligence and morality tests before it becomes obvious that someone's setting them up? I don't think it would be very far. And remember, we don't have to get the best people right off the bat; if we just get sufficiently good people, then that should be enough to counter the vicious cycle and soon put the best people in positions of power. From what I can tell, if it was so easy to rig a meritocracy that it could reliably be made worse than a representative democracy, then the same principles would be applied every day and we'd be seeing a lot more corruption and injustice than we are (and that's saying something).

Only if at some point you get immoral people in positions of power. The idea of a meritocracy is to make the feedback loop positive (in a representative democracy it is negative), so that the government remains intelligent and compassionate.

Do you really think that? Because I can prove that wrong in a few minutes max. Let's take a look at...

Tennessee's State Constitution:
'No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this state.'

A South Dakota bill:
'The bill signed by Rounds allows doctors to perform abortions only to save the lives of pregnant women ... Anyone who performs an abortion under any other circumstance -- even in a case of rape or incest -- can be charged with a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.'

The Defense of Marriage Act:
'The Federal Government may not recognize same-sex or polygamous marriages for any purpose, even if concluded or recognized by one of the states.'

You call this 'not being arrogant enough to actually enforce laws based on their opinion of morality'? ROTFL!

Remember when we both agreed that people are full of apathy?

"But I didn't exactly agree with you on that, I just quoted you. ROTFL"

*Debates drags on for 30 more posts, thread gets locked*
*You go home thinking you have room to speak because I was unable to prove you wrong*
*Then you realise one day that it is extremely hard to prove things wrong, and that in a meritocracy, it would be ever harder to prove what good morality is, but you throw that thought out the window because it makes you feel like you're wrong.*

Seriously, see how hard it is for a person to prove/disprove things on an abstract level? Do you know how much psychological proving meritocracy would have to do? And how easily a few normal politicians can mess with it?

"That's why we use good people to design it, or people that are good enough."

How will you know those people are good enough to design the thing?

"We do an election, or we use psychologists."

How do you know the psychologists are good people as well?

"Then you use psychologists for them, or have them be secretly appointed by a council of people."

Who decides who goes on that council?

"Then just, etc etc"

*3 posts later*

"That's a stupid argument loser_musician, do you actually think people will go that far into bribing people in order to gain power?"

If you seriously ask that question, then I'm done with you. That's just a friendly heads up.

"What's with all the fake quotes of you thinking of what I'm going to say? You think you're smarter than me or something? Who's arrogant now? I'm going to try some on you now, see how you like it...."

*Soon after, thread gets locked*



Reason why it's hard for a meritocracy to come into power, is because america is a capitalist country. (In order to be a capitalist country, the government must have limited power)



That was your counter to this:




I'm done

Well, the thing is when you have a representative democracy in place it isn't very easy for stupid, ignorant people to see when someone's interfering. With biased tests it is somewhat easier.

Also, remember that, in the past, people did succeed in changing monarchies to representative democracies several times after they got annoyed enough at the monarchies. Unless the government has a lot more power relative to the power of the rest of the population now than it did then (which is unlikely), if people get annoyed enough at the representative democracies they can still change them. We just need to get people annoyed enough- or, more properly, to understand where to put the blame for various problems they're already annoyed about (health care, tax rates, pollution, you name it). It seems to me that any cure for representative democracy has to start with the public, because they merely don't understand what's going on, while the government is actively, knowingly and willingly causing problems.

I don't think you have to worry about that.

There is no reason a meritocratic government cannot similarly have limited power. Meritocracy is merely a way of choosing who gets to be a government official, it doesn't say anything about how much power they get afterwards- or how much of it they use; it has been shown that more intelligent people tend to have more libertarian viewpoints.

Nepotism is rampant and I don't think it's going to just disappear. I said before that I thought it was instinctual and not changeable. Unless, of course, you bring in those futuristic arguments about altering the brain, and cyborgs.

I dont think you guys can call a few major and minor problems within its society of America, 'the entire system's failure'. Trying to bring back already failed systems arent just going to work that way. There needs to be a difference.

Well, it's not as bad as it could be, but let's face it there are still lots of problems that could easily be solved if the government wasn't made up of corrupt, greedy jerks.

Thats quite true. But thats the sad truth to all over the world. And alot of other countries have alot more corruption than the US does besides 8 other countries.

So because there are many other countries worse than it, that somehow makes the United States okay?