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A Real Catch 22

Entry 2144, on 2021-08-05 at 12:13:29 (Rating 3, Comments)

I've done a lot of political commentary recently, and some people have asked why I bother with that stuff; is it really that important in the greater scheme of things? Well yes, it is... unfortunately. Whatever you think of politicians, and the political system in general, it is important because ultimately politicians control the direction of society, at least until they meet enough resistance from the population.

Most people, including me, have a pretty poor opinion of politicians. I think this is largely justified. Anyone who thinks they can take control of anything as complex as a country is probably delusional, and most likely suffering from the Dunning-Kruger Effect, which states that some people are incompetent to the point that they don't realise how incompetent they are.

Now, this is going to sound strange, but this post was originally going to be about current cosmological theories of the origin and future of the universe, but I seem to have spent a couple of paragraphs talking about politics, so maybe I should finish that theme now and tackle the cosmology story next time.

I said above that I think politicians overrate their ability to do their jobs of managing a country, but is this unique to politicians? Actually, no. I think anyone who considers themselves capable of running any institution of even moderate complexity is probably delusional. Incompetence is almost inevitable in the leadership of all organisations involving even a moderate number of staff, because the only people who are confident they can manage that are the ones who are ignorant enough not to realise that they can't, which is the essence of Dunning-Kruger.

This point becomes significant in discussions regarding the relative merits of government versus private management of resources and processes. For example, in New Zealand we previously had a primarily government run electricity system, and that was privatised a a decade or two back. Many people say we were better with the publicly owned systems while others point out the huge inefficiencies of many government projects.

So which is it? Is private or public ownership and management of significant systems like electricity and telecommunications better? Well, there are pros and cons to both, but generally the bigger the organisation is, the less efficient it is likely to be. So a government running the whole country's infrastructure is likely to be less efficient and responsive than a series of private companies are, simply because the government is bigger.

So this means that I don't see a lot of difference between private and public ownership overall, except in terms of scale. I really don't see a CEO or director as being a lot different from a prime minister or president. They both are very likely incompetent to the extent that they don't realise how incompetent they are. Anyone who has a true perspective would most likely not want to take on the job at all: a real "Catch 22" situation!

Regarding the origin of Catch 22: if you don't recall, the "anomaly" which resulted in the novel's name was that in order to be allowed to leave the army, the person had to show that they were insane; but if they wanted to leave they were obviously sane, so they couldn't leave. Either way, there was no way out. Since then, the term generally means an anomalous or self-contradictory situation with no way to escape.

In fact, now that I have introduced Catch 22, I should mention in passing how that book introduces the ultimate form of my argument, where the main character comments on the incompetence of God, and suggests the problem of evil, and other theological dilemmas, can simply be explained by understanding that God himself is utterly inept! And judging by the portrayals of gods in most religions, the gods aren't aware of how incompetent they are. Is this the ultimate manifestation of the Dunning-Kruger Effect?

Of course, that above point is purely rhetorical, because I don't believe there is any good reason to think any god - incompetent or otherwise - exists. I think this fullfils the requirements of Occam's Razor while still resolving the problem of evil.

Can the system be changed? In theory, yes. In the Catch 22 novel there never really was a Catch 22. It was just some amorphous law invented by the senior military staff for their own convenience. There is an obvious parallel here.

There is another related issue which might be worth mentioning too. An infamous economic study, carried out a few years back, showed mathematically that the mechanism most organisations use to promote staff is inferior to just selecting them at random! This might seem odd, but when you factor in my theory that the people who want control are probably the most deluded and incapable of leadership, then it makes perfect sense.

So if we accept my proposition - that the people in charge are incompetent - what is the answer? Well, there is the random promotion idea. I have often said, that if I was in charge (but, of course, I would never be) I would ask for the people who want promotion to indicate that in some way. I would then make them leave the room and choose the person for promotion from those who are left. I'm not being totally serious here, but it might work!

Alternatively, I might propose a flat management system where no one is in charge and decisions are made by a vote amongst all of the staff. That could go either way though, so I'm not convinced that's the answer.

So maybe the current system, despite its very obvious problems, is the best one. As a minimum improvement I would suggest that those in charge should be more accountable to those they are responsible for. At the moment there is very little accountability, and that is one area where democratic governments have one theoretical advantage, at least.

But in reality, change is just too hard, and maybe we just have to get used to being lead by those who are least capable of doing so, because those who could do the job better don't want to. A real Catch 22!

Comment 1 (6821) by Anonymous on 2021-08-06 at 14:34:27:

Sorry I have to ask have you actually read Catch 22?

Comment 2 (6822) by OJB on 2021-08-06 at 16:04:29: Yes, I have. Why do you ask?

Comment 3 (6824) by OJB on 2021-08-07 at 14:42:49:

I hate it when this happens: why ask then leave it at that? Seems like an implied criticism there, but I'm not sure why.

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