(A Blast from the Past from September 2024: https://accordingtohoyt.com/2024/09/30/down-with-technocracy/)
In the 2000 election my brother told me he didn’t understand why I was so worked up. Both the candidates were basically technocrats and their program was very similar.
As we’ve come to find out, he was right. Wrong also, of course, but ultimately right.
Of course there were differences between Bush and Gore, beyond the question of which noses would be on the through. The left in the US seem to be the only true believers in communism left in the world. Even those at the top seem vaguely shocked when they try to implement extreme left measures and not having the success they’ve been assured should come. One must blame the universities. The rest of the world, by and large, those on top are aware that communism doesn’t work, it’s just a racket to keep the masses down. The intellectuals still believe, but that’s because by and large they need something to put their faith on, and religious faith is considered uncool.
Anyway, for one, Gore was industrial strength stupid, and wholly sold on using the climate cult to stomp on us, completely unaware of repercussions.
But other than that, and as far as we can deduce, they believed largely the same things and were largely “technocrats.” I.e. they believed in rule by the “educated class” and the “experts” who could “solve all the big problems.” And they shared — as we can tell from Bush’s post-presidency friendship with Clinton, of all people — a certainty that the little people should be ruled and not listened to.
The problem of course is that Obama was brought in by the same people. Who are the faces behind the Junta now. As well as those controlling most of the world. Badly.
Part of the hatred for Trump — particularly among the University educated class — is a sort of back-of-the brain certainty that he’s ruining the program. It’s the only reason I can find for the frothing mouth and glazed eyes, the screaming of how terrible he is and how he’s going to burn down the world, when he’s been president once, and all he did was stop the waves of illegals, stop the wars, and make us energy independent. This is terrible?
Yeah. For the international would be technocrats it is. You see, they need to dislocate people, make them rootless and disconnected. They need to herd masses of people here and there like sheep — a technique for breaking up nationalities that has worked since the ancient world (except, by and large, on the Jewish people) — broken from traditions/beliefs/ customs and social bonds. Only then will the masses be utterly dependent on their wisdom and able to be indoctrinated in the new beliefs of the….
Well, they don’t call it that, but of Homus Sovieticus in a new suit and tie, with a bit of computer savvy.
It is essential to them to make as many people as possible dependent on pay offs that are wholly divorced from labor or production. They need you to have nothing to live for. To, as they put it, own nothing and (pretend to) be happy. Only then can they direct every minute instance of your daily life.
Why? Well, they’ll give you all sorts of reasons. By and large the same reasons as communists: it’s a more efficient way to allocate resources, so we don’t all starve when the (non existent) population bomb goes off. It’s best for us to be kept in hygienic surroundings. It’s best to not let us get racist/sexist/homophobic ideas. Etc. etc. etc.
In other words, you’re a sheep they want to feed what they want, shear when they want, and eat when they want.
A curious thing happened on the way to the technocracy, though.
Humans don’t herd well. You can break humans and give them Stockholm syndrome, but you have to be offering something pretty strong for them to attach onto. Which “own nothing and be happy” ain’t.
Humans are in fact refractory apes, and have been breaking out in rebellion all over.
And the technology never worked as the technocrats thought. You see, they’re not in themselves technical. They just thought they knew how to control humans through tech.
They’ve already failed. Oh, they’re fighting a rearguard action, composed of vote fraud, violence, lawfare, spying, etc. etc.
Their problem is that it’s already out in the open, because they are fairly desperate. And the more it’s out in the open, the more horrified people become at the smile on the face of the tiger.
In a way the covidiocy was their high water mark, the complete coup of the technocracy. It worked, but not uniformly, only briefly, and the actual compliance outside big cities was — as I found out — notional. Their attempt to roll it into a “climate emergency” lockdown was shrugged off. Their attempts to spook us into locking up again have been… laughable.
As almost always, but now faster, the humans failed to comply.
Plus they burned their “expert rule” by revealing most “experts” are no such thing.
The insurgence — the real one, not the one they tried to gin up as an excuse in 2020 — is alive and well, composed of set faces, clenched fists and feet planted in the ground, refusing to be moved.
I don’t know if they’ll manage to fraud themselves into power in November. They might. But it will do them a whole heap of no good, you know?
In China rulers lose the mandate of heaven. Throughout the west… you can piss off people enough that they don’t put up with your bullsh*t anymore. So it’s been throughout history.
The only remarkable thing about our would be expertocracy is how fast they burned a clout that took them a hundred years to create.
We are not sheep. We are not in the mood to be herded. We are not going into their profoundly stupid future.
We are chaos. We are liberty. We are — us here — Americans.
And intend to stay that way.
According To Hoyt 
“Technocracy” otherwise known as the “Science Council”.
In the Superman comics, Superman’s homeworld was ruled by the Science Council which failed to believe that Krypton was doomed, even though Superman’s father was a leading scientist of Krypton. [Crazy Grin]
LikeLiked by 2 people
In some versions, the ‘Doom Of Krypton’ was caused by something the Science Council did to solve some other problem they were having. Of course they didn’t want to believe they’d doomed the planet.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I like how in ‘Man of Steel’ the Kryptonians were genetically hard-wired the way that they were, and it made them unable to even acknowledge that there was a problem (aside from Zod and Jor-el), let alone come up with a way to resolve it.
LikeLike
In Man of Steel, Jor-El was a Kryptonian Odd.
LikeLike
So was Zod, to an extent. Both men are able to recognize a problem that no one else is capable of seeing. Given the way that their society worked, Zod’s solution (the failed insurrection) might have been the only way of saving the planet.
Unfortunately, Zod wasn’t enough of an odd. The movie strongly suggests that his actions following his arrival at Earth are dictated by an inability to exercise complete free will due to his Kryptonian upbringing. i.e. his ability to influence events only extended so far as to pursue the goals that he did. The goals themselves were something that he was unable to *not* pursue.
LikeLike
Or in the DCAU it was Brainaic, who lied about Krypton’s doom… while uploading itself into a memory bank it was going to launch offplanet.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Locking the door on the smoking ashes of the barn”
LikeLike
Hey, how did that get here? WPDE! 😡
LikeLike
In 2000 I knew Gore was actively dangerous, but thought Bush was an empty suit. Oops!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Algore was a classic example of Active/Stupid. If you’ve ever been in the military, you know*. Bush was both less activist, and less stupid.
* They not only f*k things up, they go out of their way to find things to f*k up.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Bush was sufficiently activist and stupid to give us TSA and two wars.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, he didn’t invent TSA, Congress invented federalizing the existing private airport security contracts in a blast of “do something” Security Theater after 9/11, closing the barn door long after the barn was completely empty and on fire, but GWB certainly went along with it.
Given the huge body of data proving it’s useless, I am still waiting for anyone in Congreffs to seriously work towards reprivatizing airport security.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Locking the door on the smoking ashes of the barn”
TSA: 25 years of Security Theatre, subsumed by the Iron Law Of Bureaucracy from Day 1. ☹️
LikeLiked by 2 people
If one were to be actually concerned with in-flight airliner security, imagine the real world impact of redirecting all the TSA budget to the Air Marshals Service budget line item.
LikeLike
‘Abolish The Police!!’ would include Air Marshals.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We still need to repeal the Patriot Act. Also need to eliminate the FISA courts.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I suspect that’s still a ways off. Any attempt to abolish the TSA would end up being hugely politicized against the individuals suggesting the abolishment, likely inducing a massive wave of hysteria.
And then a big blue city (such as LA, NYC, or Chicago) would route the contract toward someone’s nephew, security at that airport would get poor (was going to use LAX, but… *cough*), and we’d have another incident on our hands.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I may have fully shared my opinion last time.
Current me may have learned a bit studying since to have new thoughts.
Dunno.
I think Sarah is correct on the facts, I’m not so sold on the emotional explanation.
My basic thing, I am both a subset relevant to describing this, and someone trying to describe and communicate what is going on. I partly treat being a technocrat as a persistant character flaw that I share.
I’m basically of the body of frothing lunatics that thought study, time served, adn dedication to ideas was my path forward in life.
I’m seeing in hindsight how I was influenced by the crazy academics who contributed to my education. Which is part genuinely real education, and part not.
I can tell you some shrewd guesses about some pieces of the insanity in my own mind. Some of my insanity, I am too self-interested in to allow myself to clearly see and understand.
The step from my own insanity to that others experience is huge. I think I can relate a little to the people deeply around the bend, and unwell over all this. I think I can also relate to the people who had similar schooling but somehow managed to dodge the damage, and who are maybe not aware of the scope and scale of the damage. I have an uncertain smidge of feeling about whether I think Sarah’s explanation of the emotions holds, or if there is a better one that I have not found.
One of the things we can look at to understand the feelings better, is at what people do. Including at what they do in the future.
Many interesting indications when it comes to the future.
We shall see.
LikeLike
It may seem odd, but given the choice between the GOP (“We accomplish nothing! For the good of the people!”) and the overt lockstep narcissism of the Dems, I’ll take Do Nothing every time.
Do I wish they would think about something other than their chances for re-election? Sure. Do I think they should obey the will of the people rather than their backroom deals? Absolutely. But if it’s a choice between creeping socialism and inertia, I’ll take “Do nothing.”
LikeLiked by 2 people
I had a character elected as Emperor in a novel on a platform of “i will veto every law the assembly puts in front of me on general principle.” His buddy the Prime Minister either approves of this or thinks he can get round him, maybe a little of both.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I am also in favor of nothing. My problem is there is not enough nothing being done. If we only had a party working towards more nothing, they would get my vote.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Absolutely. That’s why I was happy Trump won the first time. I knew that being hated by Establishment Democrats and Republicans alike, he and Congress would be too busy spatting with each other to do much real damage, no matter which party had the majority. And so it went.
LikeLike
Was that supposed to mean ‘which hogs would have their snouts in the trough’?
LikeLike
“We know better because … we know better.” Or “Listen to us because we went to the correct universities, have the correct political beliefs, sneer at the correct things, and know more than you peons, er, that is, people who didn’t go to the correct university.” I remember Sarah Palin being the butt of jokes because she went to a state college instead of an Ivy or at the very least a private college like Stanford.
At this point, I’ll take anyone from State Cow Palace over Ivy-Encrusted University at the drop of a hat. At least the State Cow alum might have a bit more of a clue about reality being real, and not being something that wishing and pious intonation of policy goals can bring into existence.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Vo-tech over community college, community college over a state four year univeristy, state universities over specialer universities, and even those over the ivies. I’m mildly agnostic on foreign universities but do not consider alien to be better. (I think a low status foreign school that works hard may give training that is much better than what high status US schools think they can pass off as sufficient. I would have zero interest in prestigious schools in first world or allied countries.)
I’m not entirely blackpilled on tertiary.
However, if I were an insider I would have an continuing urge to say “guys, if we do not stop murdering outside critics, the public good-will will be entirely gone.”
It would appall me, shame me, and disgust me to be at an institution with people stupid, ignorant, or unthinking enough to think that the doubling down was a good idea. Or feasible and viable at all.
Dudes and dudettes, I could not provide a client infinite good by selling him, her, or the plural clients a scholarly service. Therefore the public good I can do selling scholarly services through a sketchy brokering agency is easily offset if the agency is a RICO that conspires to common law capital felonies.
Whether I think a broker is signalling that it may do such crimes in the future is really pertinant to whether I should be planning to do business through it very many years into the future.
Apologies, I stupidly looked at instapundit again, and then I stupidly went to a substack, and drafted some slightly more vehement thoughts.
PS (My issues with university faculty are not their partisan preferences, or ideological factions. One who is my party, and roughly my ideology, who is still a university supremacist would remain on the other side of an important divide from me.
My biggest concern about the composition of the faculty are that there are a few who misunderstand enough, and are evil enough, to think that mass murder or the murder of outside critics are a path back to how the status game felt decades ago. This is non-zero, but is maybe only a few.
Faculty are a tiny minority. Students stupid enough to murder at faculty prompting are also a tiny minority.
Minorities so tiny do not win silly games that they make into naked force of arms.
Affirmative action did not fix that discrimination. It recruited system loyalists, loyal to the system that hired them over those they spoke for. We cannot fix the faculty disparities with affirmative action in favor of MAGA conservatives.
If any outside investigation can find sane faculty at a university, we need to encourage those faculty to speak more loudly that faculty must be able to be effective at rhetoric, and at speaking to the public effectively about research funding for their field. The weak rhetoricists we have now, who rely on ‘I believe in science’ or ‘the public is racist’ or similar things that depend on an audience afraid of being expelled or murdered?
To persuade the current public audience, we need academics who can afford to openly explain the recent fuck ups, why academics should not have done them, and what they will do in the future to prevent future incidents. We need academics who can understand where the public actually is in ideology, not where rote textbook recitation says that the public is. We need academics who can quietly focus on doing excellent work in their own field, and accept when outsiders disagree.
Some of the quiet excellence faculty still exist, kept their mouths shut, and did not contribute to the misconduct of an academia that was too extreme for them. We have academics who knew or discovered that the thing done was wrong.
We need faculty who have done work inside their field which they can take anywhere, including outside academia, and still be proud of what they did. We also need faculty who can correctly understand a wide range of fields, and understand the reality of where academia is in the world.
The bitter injured pride that drove us here is the wrong way to a future university.
The university is not the entire world. Those outside the university are morally speaking, humans, with valid rights, and value. The stuff we have been talking around in circles, with ‘reproduction crisis’ being at a safe distance we could afford to talk about, really do impact how much all of this stuff means more widely. We could know a decade ago that we would have decades of sorting and quite fixing to ‘pay off’ the ‘technical debt’ of our shoddy research, and our faculty who are social status signalling about incorrect stuff they learned in undergraduate/freshmen courses.)
LikeLike
TL;DR
I’m not feeling like my family’s two votes will impact the race at all, so we will stay home and pray all day.
—————-
I grew up in California and in the 70s and 80s the rabid pro-abort mobs on my university campus switched me off that party. They also wore Che shirts with 2 Swatch watches on each hand. And those were their good points.
I played at being a Republican through Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Dubya’s first term; but he ganged after reelection.
I still voted almost 100% R every election and always tbe chorus was “if you don’t hold your nose and vote for [insert RINO] then the Democrats will destroy us all.
They probably will. I have nothing but contempt for them and their supporters. Which is not what I want to feel about any Americans.
But 40+ years of voting and the GOP is more stupid than ever before. And they’re absolutely brazenly contemptuous of their voters, assuming we won’t be the ones tossing them into a volcano.
Which I wouldn’t do anyway. Volcanoes haven’t hurt me and I see no reason to pollute them.
And I am not certain anything but prayer can save America.
YMMV.
LikeLike
If you can hold your nose and vote for them, the volcano can hold its nose and incinerate them. 😁
LikeLike
I live in a conservative county in Oregon (the RC in my handle stands for Red County), and while a) The Dems are dominant, and b) the OR-GOP establishment can make SpongeBob look like he’s wearing armor, the fight for the conservative vote is still going on, with enough success to make it worth continuing.
At the beginning of the Tea Party, we had three RINOs on the county leadership. One was recalled, two were de-elected. The replacements weren’t as pure as the driven snow, one figured that only the small town he lived in deserved support, another got busted for water law violation, and the GOPe won that battle.
It’s been going back and forth, but a long-time establishment supervisor is now “private citizen”, with the other two looking with a bit of dread on the next election cycle (one seat in this election, two in the next).
It’s a fight with the Prog-donks at the state level. Our governor, Tina (the unfortunately named) Kotek isn’t quite as vile as Despicable Kate Brown, but she’s pretty bad, and backed by a strong D state house and senate. We’re still trying to fight it. If (Lord, please let it be so) the mail-in EO stands, Portlandia and the NW Oregon progressive stronghold won’t be as strong as it looked. Meanwhile, we try to get good candidates, and win elections when we can. A county supervisor candidate may eventually turn into a state senator. It did for us.
See what can be done at the local level. That builds.
LikeLike
They consider themselves technocrats, but they don’t understand technology, what it can do, or what it can’t do. And still they believe they can use the technology they can’t understand to control society and micromanage everybody’s lives.
LikeLike
The techno- in technocrat is better understood as expert. The purest understanding is those who identify as expert-rulers.
Understanding technology is secondary or tertiary.
I do also try to reject the underlying model they have of expertise.
The idea they have is that the silos of academic study can be synthesized into an optimal ruleset for managing behaviors of large groups.
My path was a combination of being naturally fixed on rules, and of overestimating machines and underestimating humans. It seemed quite intuitive that a rule, or a simple change in rules, or a machine could just change stuff in predictable ways.
I also really wanted more control over my immediate surroundings.
But, yeah, if one knows zero it seems like it might be possible to engineer a leadership box, and that box does the change. That a machine operates from the behavior of the people makign or repairing it seems outside of their understanding. As well as that if coincidentally a leadership box was operating to design, and kept running, and if the people with the knowledge of how to manipulate were getting the best stuff, then others would notice, and behavior would shift to bypass the leadership box.
The invincible robot army is a really hard problem, likely impossible, and the invincible robot army is the extra element that could be appealed to to explain why people don’t shift to bypass the leadership box.
The EA conception of AI is a) a cult of pure reason and intelligence (those are the cultic objects/mysteries, not descriptions of the EA sentiment) b) a leadership box c) that needs the active intervention of the EA priesthood to prevent the robot army. The priesthood say that mass murder is justified to avoid AI without that intervention, it very much escaped their awareness that the rest of the world might then irrationally distrust the EA priesthood.
The premise of the economic explosion post LLMs is either about voluntary adoption, or about machine persons. Voluntary adoption hypothesis runs into the question of how much goodwill the technocrats have spent on murderousness and on hating the ‘uneducated’.
I don’t buy the robot army, and I am suspicious of breakaway synergism forecasts. (Even as I have some evidence of synergism happening.) I mainly want LLMs as a tool to help build autonomous weapons.
LikeLike
They’re not experts in anything except lying, and manipulating gullible ignorant people. Which the left-wing schools have delivered in droves, already indoctrinated to accept their bullcrap.
They believe LDMs will enable them to delegate the actual expertise to a digital slave that will magically transform their clueless vague ‘feelings’ into whatever actions are necessary to impose absolute control. Because they don’t understand what it can and can’t do.
LikeLike
“Vibe-ruling”.
LikeLike