I strongly dislike social engineers. The best means to liberty is through laissez faire. In this system, which is really no system, spontaneous order will find rules of association. What is best for society is to ignore it, and let it reign order. I really dislike those who would arbitrate over others. Only an individual knows what is best for that individual. Life is not meant to be fair, but to be absolutly unique to every sentient. Their would be no beauty in total equality.
The engineers are bad everything, and their planning which is their ends comes through oppressive means. Their is no place for a King in a free society. Social order is best acheived without government.
"We all consume."
The state regulation of the consumption of goods always achieves a poor market. One monopolized by the state is an impovrishment to not only creativity, but at the detriment of the consumed, which is the taxed.
I want a "keep your mitts off the economy" policy. The schools who wish to prevert the classes into an anti-human struggle, would find little utility in such that dream of order is as of now not.
Or, government not only does a bad job and you pay for it at the tip of a sword, they will always defend themselves before their constituents.
Dear Mr. Honorable Representitive, please give the power of money back to the people, those that laboured and toiled for what is theirs should not be apprehended for any reason. I know you may have more important orders of preference, as it seems to be the case you just want to keep the great swindle that is the state propagated, Please let people be able to control their wealth, and you will find that this is one agenda that must surpass that of others. You may choose of course not to let people have the power of their money back, and be deemed as traitor to the cause of liberty.
How do some of y'all feel about the social sciences?
Individualism Rocks
Hayek has a wonderful essay on the phenomenon of 'planners':
Engineers and Planners
Generally social engineering is one of the biggest problems facing modern Western societies, and especially countries like Britain. Are you French by any chance, BTW?
I am (french)... but who cares ?
I'm not French. I just feel it is part of being American to butcher the english language. I enjoy dialects, and like to use alternative, or foreign spellings, words, whenever.
I need to put The Counter-Revolution of Science, on my to read list. Thank you for linking that exerpt, as it is indeed helpfull.
I like how Hayek quotes Cohen at the end.
"the great lesson of humility which science teaches us, that we can never be omnipotent or omniscient, is the same as that of all great religions: man is not and never will be the god before whom he must bow down."
Are all social engineers meglomaniacs?
I like this line too...
He has been trained in objective possibilities, irrespective of the particular conditions of time and place, in the knowledge of those properties of things which remain the same everywhere and at all times and which they possess irrespective of a particular human situation.
From Theory and History, pp.196
Of course, there have always been men who planned for eternity. For the most part the failure of their designs appeared very soon. Sometimes their constructions lasted quite a while, but their effect was not what the builders had planned.
Lastly from the Tao Te Ching ...
Do you want to rule the world and control it? I don't think it can ever be done. The world is a sacred vessel and it can not be controlled. You will only make it worse if you try. It may slip through your fingers and disappear.
Bank Run: I strongly dislike social engineers. The best means to liberty is through laissez faire. In this system, which is really no system, spontaneous order will find rules of association. What is best for society is to ignore it, and let it reign order. I really dislike those who would arbitrate over others. Only an individual knows what is best for that individual. Life is not meant to be fair, but to be absolutly unique to every sentient. Their would be no beauty in total equality.The engineers are bad everything, and their planning which is their ends comes through oppressive means. Their is no place for a King in a free society. Social order is best acheived without government."We all consume."The state regulation of the consumption of goods always achieves a poor market. One monopolized by the state is an impovrishment to not only creativity, but at the detriment of the consumed, which is the taxed. I want a "keep your mitts off the economy" policy. The schools who wish to prevert the classes into an anti-human struggle, would find little utility in such that dream of order is as of now not.Or, government not only does a bad job and you pay for it at the tip of a sword, they will always defend themselves before their constituents. Dear Mr. Honorable Representitive, please give the power of money back to the people, those that laboured and toiled for what is theirs should not be apprehended for any reason. I know you may have more important orders of preference, as it seems to be the case you just want to keep the great swindle that is the state propagated, Please let people be able to control their wealth, and you will find that this is one agenda that must surpass that of others. You may choose of course not to let people have the power of their money back, and be deemed as traitor to the cause of liberty.How do some of y'all feel about the social sciences?
I dislike social engineering too, but the social sciences are not "social engineering."
Yes, though, I agree though that academia is plagued with dishonest idiots.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_studies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_studies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer_studies
All three of those fields are garbage, most likely because they're sub-fields of "Sociology" which appears to have been where most Marxists fled to after their theories were rejected by economists.
"Austrian economics and freedom are not synonymous." -JAlanKatz
Social Sciences study the behavior of humans individually or in groups and try to like any science predict behavior and there is nothing wrong with this. Nor is there anything wrong with social engineering which in my mind is the use of social science to influence a potiential transactions. Although omnious sounding, there is nothing wrong with this as the folks do not have FORCE over the actors in the future transaction.
Add in force and you have a new ball game. The social engineer who uses violence to effect the outcome of a transaction is immoral. These individuals use the tyranny of government (The holder of a monopoly of violence) to perform their dirty work.
billott1:Social Sciences study the behavior of humans individually or in groups and try to like any science predict behavior and there is nothing wrong with this. Nor is there anything wrong with social engineering which in my mind is the use of social science to influence a potiential transactions. Although omnious sounding, there is nothing wrong with this as the folks do not have FORCE over the actors in the future transaction. Add in force and you have a new ball game. The social engineer who uses violence to effect the outcome of a transaction is immoral. These individuals use the tyranny of government (The holder of a monopoly of violence) to perform their dirty work.
Using propaganda, intimidation, lies, and other forms of deception to spread your beliefs is no better than government, in my opinion.
I don't mean that as a straw-man. I'm just saying that if that's what you mean by "private" social engineering.
Frankly, I don't think social engineering is possible because the "engineers" are inevitably being engineered by the very society they claim to be attempting to engineer, based upon allegedly objective observation.
To call social planners "engineers" is an insult to real engineers everywhere (and I am not blaming you for this). Engineers are ethically bound to produce designs which, if they do no fulfill the requirements their customers requested, are at least well-documented. Since Hayek has pointed out that no set of "engineers" could have the knowledge to plan society, any planning is necessarily the product of hubris or fraud.
Hubris really has no place in engineering. Decent engineers don't let anything unsafe be built, and certainly don't let social "plans" kill the tens (hundreds?) of millions of people were the victims of state hubris in the 20th century.
Not all real engineers are good engineers. Some of them are probably laughing that they don't have too deal with their poor mistakes. They are not the repairmen in general. The science of engineering is grand. But taking the methods of that field and trying to say that it will predict anything accuratly hasn't produced society a notable oracle.
Hubris is generally pretty nasty. The women I meet don't like to hear "vanity is no vurtue."
I think their is an academic epidimic of focusing on groups, and trying to strip away individuality. Perhaps that is just the schools I went to.
billott1; How would you assume to influence my transactions without knowing me. Are you going to spy on me, and tell me the way you would want to have me or anyone else consume. Perhaps, if the law was libertarian you could just try to be a good entrepeneur, and use some engineering skills for cool stuff. For instance is there an engineer here that can design me a nice ten hour clock face, on a twenty hour day. I want 100 secs and 100 mins. Maybe digital that would include counts of 10 mins and counts of 10 secs. Sorry for the daydreaming. Good day y'all.
The paradigm of engineering, which we can call the Cartesian paradigm (let's assume the universe is a machine and see where that gets us) has been shown to be strictly limited to only a small subset of physical problems by Stephen Wolfram's study of computation, which he presents in A New Kind of Science.
The law of computational equivalence shows that it is impossible for a single human mind to understand a problem more complex than that mind is, and therefore any single human being cannot design a society more complex than that person is. Society must be emergent, based on the interactions of simple rules.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
Stranger: The paradigm of engineering, which we can call the Cartesian paradigm (let's assume the universe is a machine and see where that gets us) has been shown to be strictly limited to only a small subset of physical problems by Stephen Wolfram's study of computation, which he presents in A New Kind of Science.The law of computational equivalence shows that it is impossible for a single human mind to understand a problem more complex than that mind is, and therefore any single human being cannot design a society more complex than that person is. Society must be emergent, based on the interactions of simple rules.
Exactly. That's kind of what I was trying to say when I said that the so-called "social engineers" are consciously being engineered themselves by the very environment they're a part of. You're right about the limitations of the individual human mind, but don't let any Objectivists hear you say that.
Grant: To call social planners "engineers" is an insult to real engineers everywhere (and I am not blaming you for this). Engineers are ethically bound to produce designs which, if they do no fulfill the requirements their customers requested, are at least well-documented. Since Hayek has pointed out that no set of "engineers" could have the knowledge to plan society, any planning is necessarily the product of hubris or fraud. Hubris really has no place in engineering. Decent engineers don't let anything unsafe be built, and certainly don't let social "plans" kill the tens (hundreds?) of millions of people were the victims of state hubris in the 20th century.
I love this post!
"The best way to bail out the economy is with liberty, not with federal reserve notes." - pairunoyd
"The vision of the Austrian must be greater than the blindness of the sheeple." - pairunoyd
I'd say that social engineering is possible but only as a short-term thing. Laws of economics and human behavior eventually defy all attempts at social engineering in the long-term. Attempts to centralize always break down due to entropy and information complexity. Attempts to ban behaviors on a large scale are defied and sometimes even encourage the behavior in question (see prohibition theory). Individual members of society can be influenced, but society is not an entity in itself and cannot be controlled as such. The basics of human action and/or psychology cannot be abolished by any attempts at social engineering.
Brainpolice:I'd say that social engineering is possible but only as a short-term thing.
When you say 'short-term' do you mean a short chronological period or do you mean 'within a limited scope' (less grandiose/comprehensive)?
I'm probably wrong here, but wouldn't the possibility of chronological short-term success make the possibility of long-term success a, um, possibility? As the end of the short-term is approached, couldn't a new short-term plan be implemented, linking together an endless chain of successful planning? I guess it also depends on the ends you mean to achieve. It's easier to destroy than to build. It could take hours to build a house of cards and seconds to knock it down. Is that your 'entropy'? I assume we assume the engineers aspire to achieve good ends (and what is good is another discussion as well).
Inquisitor:No, not if each phase creates problems, and these problems accrue over time, making each subsequent phase harder to implement, and compounding the overall issues that arise.
So if you're assuming short-term social engineering 'is possible' but long-term is not, what is good (problematic word) about social engineering in the short-term? Or, how can social engineering be a 'net gain' in the short-term?
Can I compare what you're saying to self-planning or budgeting one's own finances? Would it be similar to consuming with little to no investing, ie it feels good while the party lasts?