Technocracy is one of the World’s Problems, not its savior

Back when browsing on the Internet about architecture, I encountered the story of the Fallingwater house by Architect Frank Lloyd Wright. While I think the house is nice, I initially found myself rolling on the floor in laughter upon learning about how it was built.

As I understand it, Wright was expected to build the Kaufmann weekend home with a view of the waterfall, not over it. But, lo and behold, Wright built it right over the waterfalls. It upset the client, but somehow it couldn’t be canceled. So Fallingwater was built and the client had to live with the result. One nephew of mine who is an architect said it was a classic case of miscommunication. However, there’s a lesson in this aside from the idea that a service provider should listen more to the client.

Architects like Wright seemed to see themselves as society’s elite, with thoughts like, “I know better, so I should decide for my client.” Today, we see this as a big no-no and deem it unprofessional behavior. Some familiar with Wright’s story might attribute this to his notorious ego. But I also see Wright as as influenced by other things, such as ideology and philosophy creeping into their work and encouraging egoism.

In other words, architects like Wright, Le Corbousier and Walter Gropius were celebrated as “thought leaders” in their day. These architects might have been expected to not only build buildings, but formulate ideas on how society should be organized. The same likely applied to other professionals like generals, professors, scientists, philosophers, and more. It eventually led to the idea that “experts” in various fields should be made the world’s leaders – which today is called technocracy.

That environment though that gave birth to technocracy is the same environment that created people like Karl Marx. Such people would often come up with Utopian ideas; one probable factor is that Theosophy and esotericism were popular at the time, having influenced these Utopian views. But, as I wrote before, having views of a better world does not necessarily mean being free of malice or misguided views.

In my Gnosticism article, I said that there are always these people who believe that they are bright light bulbs while others are dim, leading to their declaring that they, the “bright,” have the right to rule over the “dim.” This thread of “light bulbs over dim bulbs” can be traced from Plato and Gnostic ideas (which some claim to have come from ancient pagan religion in Egypt and Iran, for some) to medieval mysticism, alchemy and magic, but also Freemasonry and other secretive organizations of “enlightened,” the New Age and esotericism, Marxism, transhumanism, transgenderism, critical theories, and more.

If you put Frank Lloyd Wright or similar into a political position, what would you expect? A better world? No, I expect disaster. They will be no better than the traditional dictators and despots of old.

You would say, oh come on, it has to work! When technocracy means the right people, they really are the right people, they have great skill and intelligence, they can’t fail! Such naivete in that. Thomas Sowell explains why.

Illusion of Superiority

The idea of technocracy is, get all the best professors, scientists, economists, soldiers, architects, and more, and put them in charge. Because they they’re the experts, they will know what to do. We’ll have efficient systems and no more corruption! We’ll have Utopia! But that has actually led to disaster.

When people are intelligent (or, more correctly, see themselves as “intellectuals”), it tends to get to their heads. As Sowell implied in his interview, some people become famous or good at their craft that they think their talent can translate to other fields – especially politics. For example, using the previous iteration of an architect, that architect may be awarded and popular that he thinks his architectural skill gives him insight on how to run a society as a politician. A chess player may be the reigning champion for years, he may get the idea that he is also an authority on politics. That’s the illusion of superiority that leads to ideologies like Marxism.

Knowing more things than others doesn’t automatically make someone a good leader. Experts are limited to their expertise. An engineer cannot be a great economist using only their profession-specific training. A doctor cannot be a good administrator using just doctor’s knowledge. When you want someone to do woodwork, don’t call a mason, or when you want your plumbing fixed, don’t call an electrician (But Filipinos seem to love doing this). I’m sure we Filipinos already know the dumbness from making a celebrity a leader. Profession-specific skillsets do not translate into wisdom in life.

Karl Marx was certainly one of these people. Or, rather, he was more like a spoiled brat who read some stuff and thought he knew a lot, a lot to make him egotistic enough to suggest that workers rise up to kill “capitalists” to attain Utopia. But it was nothing more than his spoiled bratness manifesting. I’m sure the same attitude is in people who join Woke movements or even foolish western youth who joined ISIS.

But not just experts. Even ordinary people could have a false light bulb moment when a thought suddenly comes to their heads, leading them to exclaim, “Oh my god, I have such a great idea! If only other people would follow this idea! I know, I should make the government force people to follow it! And if they don’t agree, they should be punished!” Whether an idealistic sheltered kid, an idle housewife, a farmer who’s drinking out with others, a philosophy student who locked himself for weeks, a disgruntled veteran, a career politician, a taxi driver, anyone from any walk of life, they could come up with such bad ideas and stop respecting the lives of those who disagree.

Perhaps one other factor, something I talked about before, is belief in trait theory and similar ideas. The notion that certain people are born with better traits than others and thus they should be the world’s leaders is among the worst bullshit ideas ever. An idea is good not because of the personality who came up with it, but because ideas are good on their own. A broken clock can be right twice a day because the clock does not control time; time moves on its own. Sadly, when they don’t accept their limitations, even “good people” can come up with horrific ideas.

World-breaking Technocracy

I’ve written before about the World Economic Forum, a celebrated modern technocracy. It is actually a lobby group made up of businesses that seek only to push their agendas into law. They actually seek more control over the lives of people. The “you will own nothing and you will be happy” bit is one of the most obscene attempted deceptions by this Marxist-New Left-descended lobby group. And probably they are only one of the many groups to be wary of.

Their policies will lead to something like the Sri-Lanka collapse some years back (if those policies aren’t already the cause). Opposition to their initiatives, like protests by the farmers in the Netherlands and other parts of Europe, is justified. Plus, their idea of addressing people’s concerns by freezing people’s accounts (like the response to the truckers’ protests in Canada) is nothing more than the Communist Party of China playbook. Is this how “experts” should run the world?

The Woke movement in the west, supported through the DEI-ESG (Diversity Equity and Inclusion – Environment, Social and Governance) banner promoted by no less than the United Nations, is just power tripping. It’s a method by which so called “experts” or “technocrats,” such as Gender Experts or Diversity Officers in companies, seize power and try to take down other people for sinister reasons. When young people with gender dysphoria consult organizations for help, these “experts” will push for immediate surgery or conversion to the other sex instead of having psychological evaluations and such.

Experts could even be fake. A great example is scientist Trofim Lysenko from the Soviet Union. He rejected Mendelian genetics, despite that type of science having been empirically proven, and went on with his own erroneous ideas based on Lamarckian genetics. The agricultural practices he ordered also led to millions of Russians dying in famine. Lately, COVID response personality Anthony Fauci underwent questioning by US Congress. In that hearing, he admitted that certain measures against COVID were not based on science. Some commentators online are saying that he and other COVID response leaders, the WEF and other “world leaders” are just continuing Lysenkoism.

The Real Job of Experts

OK, so if experts shouldn’t be our “leaders,” what should they do? One good example of what they should do is the American College of Pediatricians coming out with a statement against unusual treatments on gender problems in teenagers, such as social affirmation, puberty blockers, and surgery to alter the biology. They called for a stop to these practices because these cause serious harm to people. They oppose the fake “experts” I mentioned above, the ones promoting these questionable medical practices.

In other words, experts best provide the information from their findings and give their recommendations, but let people decide for themselves. In the end, what people do with the information they are given is their own responsibility.

Even if some “experts” mean well, they are subject to the “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” phenomenon, which means they could have good intentions but can still make mistakes and mess up. The true experts would admit mistakes and recommend doing things differently. If they don’t, then something is wrong. Even real experts should be put to the test.

It may boil down to a single question: isn’t there someone who knows the one right way for everyone to live? Doesn’t a thing exist? No. There is no such thing as the perfect right way to live that everyone should be forced into. Each individual should be treated as the expert on their own lives.

I’ll quote two famous people who may be considered “experts” in their field who were offered positions of power, but they refused these positions because they knew better. Albert Einstein was once offered the presidency of Israel. He refused with the words, “I lack both the natural aptitude and the experience to deal properly with people” (That’s one reason why “experts” don’t necessarily make good leaders). In the Philippines, amid his colleagues of his who went into politics, the late comedian Dolphy is known to have said, “If I go into politics, one thing I’m afraid of is that when I’m already there, I might disgrace myself because I wouldn’t know what to do, and the people’s votes for me would be wasted.” These two people knew their place.

Technocracy is nothing more than a power grab, little different from despotism. No matter how illustrious or enlightened people may be, they will fall when their weakness hits them and a “rule by the best and brightest” can easily turn into the worst and darkest times. Also, some despots today can just pretend to be experts to make it easier for them to seize power (although that is something they have always done, I would argue, from ancient or even prehistoric times to today). As the late Rudolph J. Rummel said, people cannot be trusted with power over others. Such power must always be kept in check and individual rights and decentralization must be defended.

Recently, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Sarah Duterte were elected on the idea that the “Yellows” were disproven to be the “best and the brightest.” But they also undergo the same tests and will be affected by people’s perceptions of whether they are the “best and the brightest” or not. Filipinos have elected their government based on seeking the “best and the brightest.” It’s time to acknowledge that such a thing doesn’t exist and we vote for officials not because of expertise but because of platform – returning to Get Real Philippines’ old catchphrase Platform Plez™.