To wrap up this in a nice (hopefully) trilogy, I finish on a philosophical note. Why do we bother sticking with democracy when it may not even be the most effective method? I light-heartedly said in the introduction that an ethical oversight committee is a spooky thought, however it belies the more serious note: there's just something right about democracy that is missing from technocracy. I don't want to delve particularly deeply into the basic philosophical rights and wrongs of democracy but the fact remains that a population without a feeling of autonomy is a deeply unhappy and rebellious one. Maybe a clever government which gave the illusion of freedom would provide the greatest possible total happiness but I still don't like the idea (interestingly Asimov touches on this topic a few times in his short stories about the three laws). What the reality is and what we think ought to be are distinct questions, yes one informs the other but we cannot move freely between the two.
On the same theme, perhaps the splitting of is/ought is key to an effective governance. Some questions are descriptive: are humans significantly affecting the earth's climate? The answer to this question has nothing to do with ideology or morality. The question: "what should we do about the answer to the first question?" Is answerable only with a system of morality combined with some evidence. Striving toward a system where experts answer the first question and a properly informed general public answer the second is probably the least worst realistic option.
Further Reading: A better explantion of is-ought comes from Hume
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