Cowbee comments on What do you think about a political system fundamentally built around the scientific method with the primary goal of optimizing the HDI, GDPPP, and environmental impact?

What do you think about a political system fundamentally built around the scientific method with the primary goal of optimizing the HDI, GDPPP, and environmental impact? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 4 months ago by Zephyr@sh.itjust.works to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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That is all policies and political structures are testable and tested to see their effect on those three (or other suggested) factors. If a policy doesn't reasonably work then it's simply not continually employed. I'm curious to see what factors others think ought to be used.

It seems most political systems now were built without science in mind and utilize it as an afterthought to help develop legitimacy for policies individuals want. Generally politics across countries seems deeply emotionally driven and not fact driven. That is people have a feeling that an idea is a good idea and then they cobble together whatever they can to support that point without any unified measure of good or better. Ideally it ought to be the other way around, fact or evidence informed policy generation.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 months ago (10 children)

You're still not getting it, both are "scientific approaches." What you are describing as science is merely science with a mechanistic materialist outlook, one that relies on vulgar empiricism and removes the room for logical analysis of what has been empirically studied. Your philosophy underlining your science is better than religious science, but inferior to dialectical materialist science. It's all science, yours is just incomplete for the fact that you refuse to acknowledge the weaknesses of it.

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[–] Zephyr@sh.itjust.works [S] 0 points 3 months ago (9 children)

You skipped giving an example. What tangible real world examples do you have to back up your claims? You seem well convinced so you must have many good examples to support your case where material science failed at increasing human wellbeing while dialectic material science produced a better outcome.

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[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 months ago (8 children)

Fair enough. Mechanistic materialism does not understand change or development properly. When taken as a social science, this manifedtd in the form of liberalism. Trying to reform and fix a system that cannot be fixed, because it is necessarily trending in a definite direction, towards centralization and monopoly. Trying to means-test welfare fixes does not address the concrete problems with imperialism and late-stage capitalism.

The dialectical materialist approach can more accurately identify how we got here, where we are heading, and how we can best steer this in our own interests. Socialism becomes not just an answer because someone designed it, as the Utopians tried, but because it is the logical next step in production, moving from market-based distribution to planned economy.

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[–] Zephyr@sh.itjust.works [S] -1 points 3 months ago* (7 children)

Assuming ones scope of testing is limitied to a specific political paradigm or collection of policies I would agree but that's not what I'm speaking about. We're still lacking legitimate real world examples of your claims. Once again you seem thoroughly convinced so I imagine you have quite an awareness of legitimate real world examples to prove these ideas. Where exactly does science fail and Marxism-Leninism succeed in providing better outcomes for society and people, particularly in regards to human and societal wellbeing. Please keep in mind I mean science with the soul focus of increasing individual and societal wellbeing and not science for any purposes whatsoever.

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[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 months ago (6 children)

Again, you're pretending I'm arguing against science. I'm not arguing against science, I am arguing against vulgar empiricist forms of science, and not dialectical materialist forms of science. I explained the limitations of refusing to acknowledge that science is interpreted by humans, therefore philosophy impacts the way we read results.

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[–] Zephyr@sh.itjust.works [S] 1 point 3 months ago (5 children)

Sure but can you give one singular real world example? I keep asking and again you are deeply convinced of your idea so I'm assuming you have many real world cases that exemplify exactly what you're talking about.

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[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 months ago (4 children)

I gave you an example already, one deeply relevant to our conversation considering it centers social science. The liberals that believe they can simply keep trying different reforms and testing them empirically are right along with you, but this ignores the gradual changes in how wealth is distributed and capital is concentrated.

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[–] Zephyr@sh.itjust.works [S] 0 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I mean that really doesn't have to do with what I'm speaking about though and I've already addressed that. Like yeah if one is set on a particular political philosophy or collection of policies that's going to seriously limit the solution space. That's more so the issue with that example than it being an issue with using the scientific method as a means of governance.

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[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I'm not talking about political philosophy, but how we actually interpret empirically tested data. I never made the claims you believe me to be making.

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[–] Zephyr@sh.itjust.works [S] 1 point 3 months ago (1 child)

Let's get back to the beginning here. We were talking about Marxism-Leninism and how it is superior to vulgar empiricism and of course I've kept on with my original point from the beginning of using the scientific method to determine the best policies and political structures for governance, best in those that measurably increasing human wellbeing.

I guess you could bring in something like the double slit experiment and lot of esoteric science in which there isn't a clear way to tell which interpretation is the correct one or if it really maps to reality to begin with aka maybe the math works but that's not actually what's happening. Although I wouldn't see the connection between that and deciding how best to structure a city.

It really doesn't take much to see if people are healthy and happy, are prospering and living in a better state of being than they were before a policy was implemented.

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[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 months ago

Okay, then returning, vulgar empiricism is inferior to dialectical materialism because the dialectical materialist understands how change occurs and develops, while vulgar materialists fail to. I gave an example of how at a macro level this manifests in either focusing on reformism or revolution and development.

Why don't you propose an example of how you would use the scientific method in practice to test for a better system, and we will see if you make metaphysical errors in your approach. After all, my point is that philosophy is simply how we view the world, and we all have a given philosophy, even if we don't acknowledge it, and it determines how we interpret the objective reality of the world.

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