Is this the point at which you realise you are being a hypocrite?
You’re against “change because a handful of academics think they know how to guide society better than these natural forces would do”, and “ego-maniacal experimenters and theorists that think they know better than how the culture has developed over time”, yet whether or not one is to dub you ego-maniacal, your theories and practices are in line with your judgment that you know better than how culture has developed over time… which has forever been shaped by people who think they know how to change things for the better! I would even say that culture cannot even exist without people pushing their various ways that they think are best, like you are doing by saying there is some natural way other than the way that nature has presented us with so far.
Your argument only makes any sense if you’re either simply disparaging “academics” and/or the “ego-maniacal” (but everything else in those sentences is fine), or you’re trying to distinguish between people acting according to how they think they know best so long as it is to have effect over only themselves vs. people acting according to how they think they know best when it has effect over others.
In the latter case, you’re simply arguing for a society and/or economy founded only on negative liberties aka. Libertarianism.
…but you say “I’m not a libertarian”.
And what a ridiculous ideology it is anyway, with which you deny acquaintance - one that either ideally suggests that a society/economy of agents ought to live freely from the unwanted effects of one another, as though such a practically impossible scenario could be called society/economy, or it realistically knows that such an idealisation of freedom ends in people impinging on the freedoms of others and thus it can only pre-emptively contradict itself by ensuring that this cannot happen. Lol. You say you are against “enforcing the ideal” so there’s no way you could be affiliated with a doctrine solely founded upon an ideal.
So let’s just say I’m missing something here, rather than jumping to conclusions that you simply haven’t thought this one through. What would that be?
By observing outcomes and how well they fit in with my knowledge of people vs. other people’s knowledge of people - in terms of both quality of prediction correlation with these outcomes and quantity of accurate predictions - in the eyes of others as well as in my own.
Towards the end of your post you accused me of being a Marxist because I reluctantly forced a simple answer to an admittedly vastly complex question. I don’t really feel like doing it again - not because of the association with Marx but because I have no time for ridiculous irrelevant accusations and your contempt and hatred for strawmen.
Not really, people who squander their abilities are going to act in ignorance with or without any electoral system. With one, they contribute heavily to an outcome dominated by political parties that are equivalent to tabloid media in the way in which you describe. Without one, they contribute heavily to something indistinguishable.
To address your slant to Socialists, they are revolutionary, and revolution isn’t a process of indirectly democratically voting on who to have in power like we have now. It literally forces an outcome. Within the Socialist framework, democracy is hugely emphasised at all levels, which become increasingly independent as Communist principles become established and people eventually realise how much better they are and turn away from Capitalist principles by their own accord. Thus the State withers away, giving way to Communism, which is equally democratic. Only the democracy of both Socialism and Communism is free of the opportunistic deception and manipulation and you’re rightly against - it’s simply open, transparent and factual.
This is the kind of thing that I’m talking about when I refer to “what Socialism actually is”, as opposed to the nightmarish distortion that everyone seems to associate it with - as inspired by corrupt and/or Totalitarian governments adopting the name simply because of its good reputation, and dramatic media representation.
Socialism isn’t about forcing people to play nice, it’s about prohibiting people from playing mean when it comes to peoples’ means to live. The former would be a terrible thing, but the latter certainly is not.