Politicians are a special category of technologists that use a spectrum of processes from zero (or none) to varied (as few to as many) to accomplish their intended goals. There is nothing impossible for this special breed. Even when they quarrel among themselves [1], they can have as many specific processes of their own making to help them achieve their goals or none at all. This is a very interesting phenomenon and is not likely to see an end no matter how many ions of human generations pass through. Technologists of this caliber are not likely to resolve any problems either for themselves or for the public whose interest they are supposed to serve.
We can be rest assured even the schools in the USA such as the Kennedy School of Government, are not likely to educate anyone to be any different. Then, the question becomes do we need these profession and “professionals”? The answer might be “Perhaps not”.
It would be very easy to let the people directly vote on all issues without having a representative body or bodies. All decisions can be made objectively using optimization algorithms to arrive at whatever is the right thing to do in any given situation without any human intervention. The best and fastest way to arrive at solutions to social issues is to bypass the “information, education, improvement” cycles of the human robots. The biology of the human robots has several limits and those constraints cannot be eliminated by resorting to “terminator” type human-machine combinations. We can always continue to do what we are doing mostly to amuse ourselves and to engage in time-pass activities; however to achieve lasting improvement to human existence problems we need the help of decision support systems that are more like the Dr.Watson [2]kind.
We can always get the rich get richer by doing good[3] issuing social impact bonds (SIB) and creating Trillions of currency sized markets to replace the role of governments and satisfy our need for freedom from wants and govern ourselves without the use of representatives. In this 21st century it is better to compete and win with the technologists that can deliver than those that do not.
[1] Privileged MPs…. DNA Mumbai Sep 4,2011 p.5
[2] Dr. Watson…www.engadget.com By Amar Toor posted May 24th 2011 2:02PM
[3] Getting Rich Doing Good…Business: Social Investing by Thomas K. Grose Time May 9,2011 p.37