Oddbean

I was listening to a Dr. Phil podcast that was talking about psychopathy being more prevalent in certain areas like politics. I agree that there are higher numbers of them in politics, but the narrative that all politicians are bad is just not true. I think the truth is closer to being that the good ones are just ground up in the meat grinder because WE (culturally, in general) value emotionalism (that charisma you mentioned) more than rationalism and freedom. Hence Trump, Biden, AOC, etc. They aren't really the best we can come up with. It's just that enough of American culture is altruist-collectivist, anti-reason, pro-emotionalism that we end up with shitty options. We are easily controlled as a result. I'm American, but I'm sure this is the case to some degree in most other countries too. I blame us (Americans) and our culture . At least we (you and I) are doing SOMETHING to address the problems though. #Bitcoin, #Nostr, etc.

Good and bad are elementary concepts that we should just throw away when talking about politics. Politicians seem dumb because like you said, they cannot know about all the issues a person can know about. If they do, it's usually not at an expert level. So they listen to people who tell them things - more correctly or less. And they do things that they may think are right, but majority may disagree with. I honestly don't think the current system is designed to accommodate societies of our size and no politician entering the space can fix it. Also, some, like you pointed out, realize they are just a cog in the machine and that the machine is far too large to do anything about - so they end up either getting corrupted or just going along with the flow to milk the job. Of course some have good intentions, but once you realize there's little you can do, and that perhaps you don't have enough knowledge about any given subject to make the best decision, you kind of just let it unfold to the best of your ability - which we see as incompetence.

Yes, but most of what you point out here comes from a cultural expectation that government take an ever increasing parental role over the lives of citizens. Voting isn't the only solution. Take Bitcoin, for example. It's been around 15 years. It takes power away from central banks and pretty much renders the politicians we allegedly hate so much impotent. But people aren't tripping over themselves to adopt it because most aren't even looking for a way out. You ever seen what happens when a politician from any party in the US starts talking about axing medicare/medicaid/social security? People demanded a nanny state and they got it. Yes, most of that happened before we were born, but people today enable it. We enable politicians by going along with it. Political structures only matter if enough people support it either outright or by inaction. These aren't simple issues, but my point is that blaming politicians without addressing the root disease is intellectually dishonest. We don't get to go vote and choose to go along with the status quo while blaming the consequences on other people. My position is that politics can never fix these issues because it's exactly what broke things. And that was by choices the American people made when voting. I also reject the notion that good and bad should be separated from politics, but I will agree that those terms should be more specific to define what one means by them, since they indeed are elementary.

> But people aren't tripping over themselves to adopt it because most aren't even looking for a way out. They don't understand it. > Political structures only matter if enough people support it either outright or by inaction. They don't know there's another way. > My position is that politics can never fix these issues because it's exactly what broke things. And that was by choices the American people made when voting. I think this is a common position.

They don't understand and don't know because they aren't thinking and searching. That's my whole point. A magical fairy didn't just fly into my room and drop knowledge into my head. I had to use reason and philosophy to figure it out. We will keep headed down an ever darker political path until people take responsibility instead of evading it by blaming politicians and central banks they enable by not putting work into understanding the world they live in. Ignorance isn't a valid excuse for not using one's mind to discover the truth. Otherwise, we would still be living in caves.