On Socionomics and Directors

[Pedant]

There is one thing that puzzled me about Against Peace And Freedom, namely the lack of socionomics under Kumari's regime. Certainly, there seem to have been tendencies to use socionomic principles (something I think Morgan comments on in the book), but the actual practice seems to have been discouraged by at least a few members of the Peace Party. Was this entirely Kumari's choice, or would it not actually be possible under socionomics to create and modulate a functioning autarchical society the same way that in theory a capitalist anarchy can be modulated on worlds like Homeland? If in turn socionomics is limited in scope only to democratic or semi-democratic societies, doesn't that kind of limit its potential in analyzing historical civilizations as Morgan suggested it could be?

[zompist]

The best analogy I can think of it with modern vs. premodern medicine. Could a society choose to use modern medicine, only throw out the practice of antisepsis? Of course. It could still make use of modern knowledge of anatomy, surgery, genetics, drugs, etc. Only, lots of people would either die from disease, or get infections that would put enormous strain on the other parts of the package, like drugs and surgery.

As to why anyone would make such a choice, well, people are people. Kumari & co. reject modern science because they personally benefit from not doing so... at least, till the chaos they cause comes back to bite them.

Socionomics isn't magic— it could be more insightful about (say) ancient Rome than modern economics can be, but it can't manufacture statistical data that isn't there, so its analysis would certainly not be perfect. (Though it does get a chance to look at what happens on Maraille.) But it has 3000 years of data on advanced economies, where economics only has about 200.

[Pedant]

In which case one must ask: what features can one remove, and which can one merely change the specifics of? Given the vast variety of cultures and governments across the Incatena, including a number which by any standards would seem considerably removed from the governments we tend to associate with democracy (Mars' AI/census-based system, for example, with parliament slowly decaying), what would be the dividing line between democratic and non-democratic institutions? If a government were based on, say, a planet-wide examination system, and voting rights were determined based on one's aptitude and area of specialization within that examination system, would that be considered undemocratic? Or a planet like Homeland, where the Zoist groups are considered legitimate enough to hold the Incatena membership for the world in question, but which are based off of monastic orders with a definite non-democratic hierarchy?

[Mornche Geddick]

The best analogy I can think of it with modern vs. premodern medicine.

Not such a theoretical idea. We have got anti-vaxxers today and they have caused e.g. measles to come back.