Steve Smith wrote:
Yes, and it is not surprising that we would "evolve" personality types to fill this niche.
[..]
The closest thing I have to an answer (for myself) is to realize that anyone in power is by definition a salesman... they will say and do what it takes to get us to buy their product (themselves, their policies) but we should not mistake this for them truly knowing what is best for us, and offering it to us out of the goodness of their heart. The myth of the "public servant" is an empty one, as much as we want to believe in it.
If it is evolution at work, then perhaps the good cops and the bad cops are in some sense the good guys, and it is everyone else that is making the market (so to speak), inefficient. All this talk about ignorance means so much nothing at the end of the day if it doesn't change who is in power. The world is complex and mysterious and we will be forever mostly ignorant of it. Trying to distinguish the ignorant from the informed is in this way a dead end.
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