
A Botulism Outbreak Gave Rise to America’s Food Safety System - samclemens
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/botulism-outbreak-gave-rise-americas-food-safety-system-180969868/?no-ist
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lifeisstillgood
We always seem to live in a world where it takes front page news like this to
put into effect genuine reform, reform that slams the door in the face of
entrenched interests.

This seems to be just one of those things, but it reminds me of (most/all)
companies I have worked at, where action across the company is really only
determined by the next pressing crisis - actual plans are laughed at as
everyone know how things really are.

But it does not have to be like this. I think the concept of technocracy is
most relevant when it delivers things that should be done based on scientific
analysis - even if those are not the latest crisis yet.

imagine an election where we voted in the order of the governments backlog -
fix these things in this order.

wonder what it might look like

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whatshisface
I've never understood how the concept of a "technocracy" was any different
from "government, but more complicated and more reliant on cool heads and
intelligent decisions." That just sounds like what republic democracy would be
if we elected better people. With the same people, a "technocracy" would just
be a more authoritarian version of the government we have now, with way more
power to plan centrally but not much more capability to do a good job at
anything.

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HarryHirsch
Some things can't just be put to the vote, they need to be run by career civil
servants. Pension plans need to be actuarially sound, you can't contribute
more or less, depending on which party is in charge. You'd also like to see
architects in charge of town planning. I'm sorry if that's too technocratic.

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jaredklewis
Well who is going to choose the domain experts to run the system? And what
kind of checks are going to be on the domain expert executives?

I don't think the parent is saying the don't want domain experts to make
policy decisions, but rather that we would already have (in effect) a
technocracy if the people of our democracies valued domain expertise. If US
voters (for example) trusted and valued the opinions of climate and
environmental scientists, they would elect representatives that felt the same,
and the EPA would be staffed with world class environmental scientists.

But if today's US voters were mixed with technocracy government structure, it
would be horrible. The elected representatives wouldn't be choosing domain
experts based on their expertise, but would be trying to pack the government
bureaus with ideologues from their own party.

Nothing about our current government structure prevents the creation of a de
facto technocracy. The issue is that a very large portion of the US population
dislikes domain experts.

> You'd also like to see architects in charge of town planning.

And on this point I strongly disagree. This would be horrible. Centrally
planned cities are invariably poor: Brasilia, Washington DC, Abu Dhabi, and so
on. I would take an organic city like Paris, Milan, London, New York, or Tokyo
any day over a planned city.

Of course I am sure architects, are like "no but we really got it this time!
We learned that all that Le Corbusier stuff is garbage, we are going to make
walkable human scale cities now, with less cars, and more scooters, blah blah
blah." But I am incredibly skeptical anyone can do this stuff right. Acing a
planned city is like getting a hole in one in golf. Much better to just let
things grow organically, as I trust citizens and businesses to better
understand the local needs of the city dwellers than I do a central planning
committee with a grand vision. Of course mistakes get made, but they are on a
small scale and can eventually be corrected. When central planning makes a
mistake...the scale is usually massive.

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HarryHirsch
_Centrally planned cities are invariably poor_

On this I disagree, people think they know what they want, but it's not
necessarily what they need - consider the usual over-55 development, which is
car-centric, doesn't have sidewalks or supermarkets and community centers
within walking distance, and not nearly enough medical facilities nearby. Good
if you are a healthy 55-year-old, but there'll be much pain in the future when
the owner's health is failing 25 years later. The golf course doesn't make up
for the fact that you can't get anywhere from your home!

The developer has a conflict of interest, their interest is to sell, the long-
term viability of the development or the well-being of the owners is not on
their radar. Something needs to provide a counterweight here.

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jaredklewis
You say you disagree, but what real world planned cities do you think came out
well?

I think we probably generally agree on what might make a good city, but that's
just theory, and my objection to planned cities has nothing to do with theory
and everything to do with their empirical track record. I've heard no shortage
of fascinating ideas for how cities could be planned and arranged, but
whenever someone actually does plan out a city, like the examples I listed in
my previous post or those in China or New Delphi, or wherever, it totally
sucks.

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HarryHirsch
In Lisbon Salazar's architects did a good job. See my comment from three weeks
ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17588010](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17588010)

