What do you think about collective knowledge?
Time for another thought of the walk, but this is really a question to you:
Which do you think is better at developing the standards of society - the collective knowledge of millions of people in the society, or the studied knowledge of a single expert or group of experts on the society?
(...and why?)
Which do you think is better at developing the standards of society - the collective knowledge of millions of people in the society, or the studied knowledge of a single expert or group of experts on the society?
(...and why?)
It's a loaded question. Of course the collective wisdom, especially if based on thought, heart, and experience, would be better. But collective wisdom? The mean of American society's? The average? The norm? Some other country's? The whole of humanity's? What about animals? The sum of collective wisdom sounds even unrealistic.
Then the question might be stated: Which do you think is better at developing the standards of society -- all of us, some of us (and who gets to choose the "some"), or the elite? To which I would add: If you will leave me to live, I will let you decide your societal standards. If your pursuit of life limits or destroys mine, you will hear about it.
So my answer: I desire to be the expert who gets to decide societal standards for myself and my dependents -- until I transgress your space and life.
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Please add "more" between "even" and "unrealistic" in paragraph 1.
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I agree that it is a loaded question, but I was considering it from another angle...
I felt the question was a moot point, because regardless of who is 'smarter' or comes up with a 'better' set of standards, the masses will win the toss by default.
Name me king of the world tomorrow, I'll declare that I'm laying out the new standards for our society and I'm starting with the edict that everyone should wear a bone through their nose and raw egg in their hair. The only real new standard for society that I'd set is it would become 'standard' for society to ignore me.
It's a silly example, but the bottom line is that it will be the masses that set the standards. If the standards are set by an elite few, the masses force the standards to shift and adjust to accommodate them. Does everyone drive the speed limit? We have police to enforce it, and yet it is so 'standard' for people to exceed the limit that they do not issue a citation unless you were well in excess or did something else to get his attention. The new 'standard' has become (standard limit + 5 to 10), may vary from state to state depending on circumstance and how much those local masses pushed the standard from it's original point.
The standards in our society shift constantly, driven by the attitudes of the masses. For better or worse, right or wrong, I think inertia wins over intelligence.
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