Competent Leadership
I want mentally competent leaders, but more than that, I want competent leaders. Yes, the current moment seems to highlight the dangers of gerontocracy. Yes, mental competence is generally a prerequisite for “higher” forms of competence. Yet the furor over memory lapses, however justified, belies a widespread failure to subject candidates to the sort of practical scrutiny so central to plausible evaluations of efficacy.
To be clear, it’s not that we lack for quantity—the press and opposition researchers often surface even the most minute, obscure facts about candidates for high office. We also seem reasonably adept at and interested in debating matters of procedural competence (who can work across the aisle, whip votes, etc.). These issues are important and arguably necessary for competent leadership, but they tell us little about the “substantive” competence needed to develop rational policies in keeping with our preferences.
Imagine a mentally competent candidate who agrees with you about everything, has an unimpeachable reputation, and can get anything passed. Beyond idle curiosity, do you want to know anything else about that individual before handing them power? Your answer might be an enthusiastic “no!” in light of dissatisfaction with the current crop of politicians, and the two-party system seems to render much analysis moot. Nevertheless, I don’t think we’re wise to neglect consistent, rigorous evaluation of traits tied to policy-making and implementation competence.
Knowing that you’ve agreed on a destination and share some related values doesn’t tell you much about the journey or the likelihood of continued consensus. No matter their past successes or commitment to my health, I wouldn’t want a doctor confused by germ theory. Even the most ostensibly “unskilled” labor requires competence above and beyond that demonstrated by passing the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, so why do we seem so unconcerned with the practical, professional capabilities of candidates for some of the most challenging and consequential work? The rejoinder I hear most often is that, especially seeing as nobody can be an expert in everything, what really matters is the ability to take good advice. I applaud the recognition of a need for collaborative effort, but surely that ability itself depends on some baseline competence in identifying and ingesting good advice. Without that, leaders are liable to become capricious tyrants who frequently ignore good advice or, at best, lucky fools who serve as mouthpieces for competent, well-meaning advisors.
I’m not advocating for the adoption of some sort of litmus test, but I think we’d do well to encourage a culture of curiosity and intellectual humility where candidates voluntarily expose themselves to scrutiny. This isn’t an invitation to indulge in false equivalence or sacrifice accuracy for balance, nor should it further entrench the advantages of wealth. In fact, prioritizing the traits that allow for the development of competence should serve as a means of minimizing discrimination. The knowledge and acclaim enabled by accidents of birth are presumably weaker indicators of competence in future endeavors than empirical evidence about how someone would approach a problem today. If we agree that politicians must make policy about more things than they can fully grasp themselves, then an ability to recognize and cope with one’s own limitations seems vital to good leadership.
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The Prosocial Defaults
The interlocking hypotheses that underpin this site’s projects.
What follows are a series of interlocking hypotheses that underpin this site's projects. I refer to them as the "prosocial defaults" both because I think it highly likely that they are all currently true and because presuming their falsity may well prove disastrous for human flourishing. This is not to say that verification is undesirable, but given their relevance to the ways we structure society, we can neither meaningfully reserve judgment nor should we accept anything but the most robust research as cause to believe otherwise—thus the term, "prosocial defaults."
All-encompassing, empirically-grounded, preference-based consequentialism provides the only form of justification that is universally intelligible.
Our foundational preferences (the admixture of security, privacy, connection, novelty, etc. that contribute to wellbeing) are arational—the terminus of successive "why" questions. ("Why not" is not a meaningful justification.)
The policies we employ in pursuit of those preferences are rational or irrational to the extent they serve or harm the full constellation of implicated preferences, not just the primary stated goal.
Failure to identify foundational preferences and the myriad ways policy can impact them makes policy essentially arbitrary.
Conflating policy and preference obscures the extent to which our species shares the same goals, which exacerbates "othering."
The extent of polarization suggests rampant conflation of policy and preference, or at least incorrect inferences about others' preferences.
On the other hand, inadequate rigor/precision can mask disagreement (e.g., asserting genuine consensus just because people agree to nebulous statements about "the protection of public morals" or "dignity").
Productive policy debates are further undermined by inconsistent discussion of inevitability and contingency (varying levels of analysis, different assumptions about agency, etc.).
Consequently, people frequently speak "past" one another, and misunderstandings abound.
Teasing out our preferences and selecting optimal policy thus generally requires a broadly participatory yet expert-led approach.
Combating falsehoods is much harder than elaborating truth.
A desire not to be wrong conveys significant advantages over a desire to be right, especially in the age of AI.
The continued accumulation of knowledge increases the need for systematic organization and clarification, especially with regard to definitions, assumptions, and identification of key claims and their necessary/sufficient elements.
Effective democratic governance requires a well-informed and well-understood populace.
Consequentially-justified fairness is generally superior to "balance," which often amounts to little more than inconsistent assertions of a right to equal airtime.
Rigorous, collaborative, iterative, asynchronous efforts to "steel man" ideas and publicize them in a broadly intelligible manner are not the norm.
Most vocal and traditional written media are not well suited to resolving communication issues or forestalling cognitive errors.
In light of the above, I'm interested in creating something to further the sort of productive conversations I (optimistically) think are possible yet also (cynically) think people rarely pursue. To be clear, I don't see this as a panacea, nor do I wish to dismiss all the amazing work people are already doing. Rather, I wish to promote good work and engage in an iterative effort to increase the number, variety, and reach of high-quality arguments. I don't expect to be the ultimate arbiter of what constitutes "high-quality," but I hope to help the actual experts engage with one another in a manner that might more reliably make some of the best arguments about socially-significant issues broadly intelligible and accessible. Ultimately, my intent is to model and encourage the sort of communication and collaboration that seems so vital in a pluralistic society, not to foist my own preferences on others.
v1.0