Goodhart's Law states that "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure" Goodhart's law applied to political power gives us a corollary: Any useful concept eventually becomes a cudgel for authority.
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Concepts are tools and tools give us power. Power structures outside of a regime are threats and must be either crushed or assimilated. It's a waste to throw away a good tool, so regimes co-opt them if they can. Let's look at some examples.
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Science: Scientific inquiry is a very powerful force. It does not have an exclusive claim to knowledge, but its fruits are indisputably powerful, particularly in their technological applications. Authority naturally wants to claim science as its own.
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Replying to @kwamurai
Curtis Yarvin has been emphasizing the converse in his recent appearances; academia was great because it was powerless so everyone turned to academia to rule laundered through giving academic opinion then "base policy on academic recommendation" got Goodhart-ed
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Replying to @CovfefeAnon
works both ways. corruption through incentive once it becomes explicit director of policy + laundering of political directives through “studies” and “committees to investigate”
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Replying to @kwamurai
Yep; when you radically change the incentives for an institution the failure doesn't happen immediately because until the higher ups retire there's institutional memory of the old incentive structure.
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Not even just incentives but the old guard would be different types of people - those drawn to the old mission. The motivated new guard who replace them will have a different character - they'll be those who want to be on top of the new institution.
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