North Battleford Comprehensive High School
Run Time 60:00
North Battleford is a waypoint on the long drive between Edmonton and Saskatoon. It’s not unlike many such towns along major freeways in the U.S. prairie states, except, perhaps, moreso. I had low expectations — for the hotel, for the run, for dinner. I’m happy to report that all were above average.
The run started out with a gravel road. I saw the school track on the map, but it was a 44-minute walk, so I wasn’t sure that it was close enough to run there and have enough time to get in a few track laps in the middle of the run, but it turned out to be about the same as my weekday home track, so it worked out fine. There were a lot of walkers and a few runners at the track, which is always encouraging in these rural towns.
On the last leg of the drive, I listened to a Rationally Speaking podcast from 2017 with Jason Brennan, who wrote a book called Against Democracy, and the discussion of the book’s main points was interesting. I gathered that a large part of the book consists of reasoning why democracy does not work. I’m inclined to agree with most of his points, and even if I were to assert that democracy is the best political system we’ve come up with so far, I’d have to admit that it doesn’t work well enough.
I was hoping that Brennan would offer up a few truly innovative options that have not been put into practice, but he puts forward only one alternative to democracy: epistocracy, which basically means government by the knowledgeable. In his examples, voters would have to pass a basic political knowledge test to qualify to vote, or voters who knew more about government and economics might be given extra votes. I was disappointed in this option, and also disappointed that there was not more than one untried system put forward.
It’s possible that Brennan discusses other alternatives to democracy in the book, and they did not have time to discuss them on the podcast. What worries me about epistocracy is that knowledge is not enough to make someone trustworthy. Ever heard of the evil genius? Or the greedy one? I would rather, at this point, that all political candidates were women. How about taking it one step further: all candidates are women, and only women can vote.
I think it’s worth trying for, oh, say a few thousand years. Then we can reassess and compare it to the current state of our planet. Also, how about we lower the voting age to 8? I think you could take almost any block of 8-year-old girls and ask them to vote for the last group of candidates, and we’d see better outcomes. If you let a girl vote at age 8, just imagine how savvy she’d be at age 18. In a way, this would be a form of epistocracy: just substitute wisdom for knowledge. One good thing about wisdom? It has ethics embedded in it. And I happen to think that, in general, women are wiser than men. You wouldn’t even need a test.
As soon as the sun went down during my run, I noticed mosquitos landing on my arms and legs. I had just finished my last lap on the track and the third block of 10 minutes of running, and I had started 5 minutes of walking before the last stretch of 10 minutes of running. And then there were 5 more minutes of walking after that. There were still a lot of other people on the track and walking on the sidewalks. Were they all sprayed up? Do the Canadians vaccinate to repel mosquitos? I didn’t notice anyone else swatting their arms and thighs.
I reasoned that the mosquitos could not get a fix on me while I was running, which is why I was be targeted as I walked. Before I completed the 5 minutes of walking, I decided to hell with it, and I started running again. Mosquito bites are no bueno. And I kept right on running after the final 10 minute stretch, all the way to the hotel. Sometimes you have to change your pattern to escape peril.
