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[–] feral-toes ago 

Because intelligence is graded on a curve.

Plato made this mistake. He thought some people should have the special role of "guardians" and decide public policy. He never asked what the IQ level needed to be a guardian was.

It maybe around 400. Even the cleverest of 2018's humans, with an IQ of perhaps 160, are nowhere near clever enough. And you've got to have the common touch to succeed in democratic politics with universal suffrage, so there is a complication. Either IQ in the range 120 to 130 to be clever but not out of touch, or 150+ and able to fake clever but not out of touch.

So how does civilzation work at all? Humans aren't clever enough to sit down with a blank sheet of paper and design it, so what's the story?

Evolution via competing nation states and incremental adjustment to tradition. Different states have common origins. Their intellectuals meddle. Since they are too stupid to understand, some incremental adjustments to tradition are wise, and some are foolish. Nations become burdened by a "mutation load" of stupid variations of tradition. They fail. Over the centuries natural selection creates civilization.

Why socialism in particular is a question for psychology. What is so attractive, to humans in 2018 and 1917, about "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."? What is so repelling about "Incentives matter. Don't punish the cultivation of abilities. Don't reward falling into need."? Important questions.

But notice the assumption behind the question. It is easier to notice with bit of jargon. "Norm referenced" is grading on a curve. Humans vary and we grade them: clever, average, stupid. "Criterion referenced" is when the pass mark is set by an external standard and is kept the same, even if nobody passes. Humans vary. Marking them on their ability to understand how civilization works, we issue grades: extra-stupid, super-stupid, hyper-stupid. No-one is close to passing.

Ahh, but what of all those conservatives, who argue for tradition, cultivated by modest incrementalism? Try a social change. Wait and see. Back out the failures. Build on the successes. Don't those conservatives pass?

No. They don't pass because they depend on religious faith. They have a vision of tradition found in the bible. They argue "organize society this particular way because God tells us to." That leads to three way split.

  • Oppose all change. For example, slavery is OK because it is in the bible

  • Fancy theology. Some small changes get tried, but arguments that they might have practical benefits have to be dressed up in religious language

  • Hybrid. Half "God tells us". Half "But it works!"

Conservative fail to see that hybrids are unstable. After two hundred years, a hybrid goes all one way or all the other. Either the respect for what works is lost, or something worse happens. Respect for what works takes over and speeds up. Faith is lost. "God tells us" no longer makes people wary of change. Things get changed. But you need to wait a hundred years to see how it all works out. In a decayed hybrid, people try stuff and the people who advocated the change assess it in their own life-times (and declare that it is good for psychological reasons) and build on it and make it impossible to revert. The long term eventual arrives, the changes proves to be for the worse, but it is too late to undo, so people do the stupid-human thing and make up a story about why it was for the best.

Conservatives fail to see because "lasts a lifetime" has two meanings. The personal meaning of "lasts a lifetime" is when you emerge from childhood with a particular hybrid, say 60% faith 40 % pragmatism, and you stick with it for the rest of your days. But the collective meaning of "lasts a lifetime" is when your father is a 60:40 man and brings you up to be 60:40 and you bring your children up to be 60:40.

Does hybrid conservatism last a lifetime? No. Your father was 80:20. He tries to bring you up to be 80:20, but faith is declining more broadly so you grow up 60:40. You try to bring up your child to be 60:40, but faith is declining more broadly, and they grow up 40:60.

Your father was 80:20 all his life. You were 60:40 all you life. Your children are 40:60 for the whole of their lives. Every-one thinks that hybrid conservatism can last because, in their personal experience, it lasted for their own lifetimes. They can also see that society is changing, but cannot understand that this is inherent in a religious/pragmatic hybrid.

So what exactly is the assumption behind the question? It is that humans are clever enough to sustain civilization. We tricky ourselves with norm referenced language, calling some clever and some stupid. But actually, humans are super-stupid and are always falling for something. The Romans fell for Christianity. The Thirty Years way was because Catholics fell for Protestantism. The 18th Century Enlightenment was humans falling for faith/pragmatism hybridization. Which decays in various different ways.

We assume that humans are clever enough to sustain civilization and so "falling for socialism" appears to us to be an anomaly. We hope for a cure, based on understanding this as specific to socialism. But humans will always be falling for some dumb shit.