Bhutan, after prioritizing happiness, now faces an existential crisis

> Every one of the popular modern phrases and ideals is a dodge in order to shirk the problem of what is good. We are fond of talking about “liberty”; that, as we talk of it, is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. We are fond of talking about “progress”; that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. We are fond of talking about “education”; that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. The modern man says, “Let us leave all these arbitrary standards and embrace liberty.” This is, logically rendered, “Let us not decide what is good, but let it be considered good not to decide it.” He says, “Away with your old moral formulae; I am for progress.” This, logically stated, means, “Let us not settle what is good; but let us settle whether we are getting more of it.” He says, “Neither in religion nor morality, my friend, lie the hopes of the race, but in education.” This, clearly expressed, means, “We cannot decide what is good, but let us give it to our children.”

No, it is just that that one was not the context to discuss the details of sought education. That one did not go into specifics does not mean the specifics are not available in good amount.

I think people who say education is the solution to democracy, or in particular to the people voting someone the spearker does not like, mean "educate more people to believe what I believe".

It's clearly a good solution from the perspective of that speaker - more people would vote the same way they do, so the "right" people would get elected, "right" policies would happen and so on.

Meh, if this avoiding the "definition of good" is really the problem, then the likes of Putin and Xi and Trump will fix us. They clearly think they know exactly what's good for everyone, and are willing to do most anything to achieve it. Doubtful they will make the world a better place, but who knows. I guess we'll find out.

No, it is the very hard obvious fact that empowering the ignorant (with power over the rest) is a very bad idea.

Clearly not everyone agrees with your opinion. Calling it "very hard obvious fact" changes nothing. Maybe add some caps, see if that helps.

Are you not worried in any way about needing to answer everything with "no"? Is this a discussion or are we here to be told by you what the truth is?

It is not an opinion: you do not choose it among alternatives. You have to look at it and see. "Giving the ignorant power over the rest is dangerous". Try to argue the opposite, you'll probably have to go into quite some effort to produce some good arguments.

> Are you not worried in any way about needing to answer everything with "no"?

No, I trust you with understanding the sense. (It's not a need, it just works in formulation.)

> You have to look at it and see.

And your vision is perfect, while everyone else's is flawed? How lucky for you. No need to present arguments, just let us know what you see, and that what you see is the "very hard obvious truth".

Have a little self-awareness man.

> How lucky for you

Yes, surely it is a very good position - but it's not just plain luck, it comes from lots of training.

> No need to present arguments

The argument is there, you missed it: "If you do not find X a «hard obvious fact», try arguing for the opposite".

Who gets to define what "ignorance" is, though?

Because to me it appears that you just give the "ignorant" peoples power to someone else, and if your goal is to keep being a democracy, then this sort of power redistribution is almost certain to screw your system over in the long term.

I would rather have someone "uneducated" than "educated" with wrong values. And I would much rather not fund "education" of people with values that are entirely antithetical to my own.

Of course for "education" I certainly did not mean "indoctrination".

In an education system people are taught to think, and given intellectual keys, and material for thought. The values imparted are the natural ones, consequential (e.g. "work, or no results") - not factioneries.

If you are imparting values, you are, in fact, indoctrinating — and I don't mind as long as it's strictly indoctrinating my values.

There is no rational process for deriving values and morality from first principles. Science is about what is, not about what should be. Democracy therefore can't be derived from facts of nature alone. You can only reason from true things to other true things, not from nothing to something. There is no reasoning your way from physics to how a state ought to be run.

No: indoctrinating was meant to mean "acritical instillation of ideas", and acritical instillation has no part in Education. Values are transmitted in a communication that shows their worth. I repeat: they will be shown.

Your mention of sharing the same ideas or not was already clear before, and it does not matter, because beliefs are lowly things hence not part of this game. You are talking about arbitrary ideas taken as "values" - no, those were not in topic.

You are clearly taking 'education' with a meaning that is completely different from the one intended.

Repeating: «In an education system people are taught to think, and given intellectual keys, and material for thought». The educated will assess, being enabled to an ability of properly assessing. This also means: there is no "doctrine", the educated has its own judgement. Whatever is doctrinal has no part in education, but for material for dissection.

And yes, there are «process[es] for [in some way] deriving values and morality from first principles». As explicitly mentioned before, students for example will be shown that results come from well spent effort: that "well spent effort" is a value. They may be brought to experience that persistence enables them towards results: that grit is a value. That such quality requires resisting cheap gratification: that control is a value. They will receive the information of ancient wisdom, from Gilgamesh on, through Aesop and on, and on, and on, and they will have the nourishment to form the basis of wisdom. It is very clear in some twisted behaviour that some people never met very basic ideas, that instead in some cultures correctly are told to children very early. You give people facts, they will learn from them - wisdom very much included.

(I will not discuss about Science for brevity, and I do not know why you would bring "Democracy" to the table.)

But anyway, the discussion over values was not original in the discussion, it was proposed. The original point was: people empowered to take decisions can make bad decisions, with catastrophic results. How do you protect people from people: you educate them, so that they can take better decisions through better intellectual qualities, hence better judgement.