Comment by christophilus
1 day ago
Maybe. Politics is a skill, and not everyone has a knack for it. It’s dirty, requires compromise, and a willingness to work with your opponents. Or, well, at least it used to.
1 day ago
Maybe. Politics is a skill, and not everyone has a knack for it. It’s dirty, requires compromise, and a willingness to work with your opponents. Or, well, at least it used to.
> Politics is a skill
It very much is, but I don't believe it is the skill of "solving problems" or "making society better".
Politics is about getting elected. Convincing the people that it's all the others' fault, that you know better, that you will save the world. And then when they get elected... we naively expect them to solve problems. But we selected them for their capacity at being selected, not their capacity at understanding the big problems society is facing...
Politics is no skill, just for people who would not survive in the real world
CHA is not a dump stat.
Getting elected is table stakes and shows you have the soft skills needed to organise, campaign and convince. Which is the minimum you need to get disparate groups of humans to pull in the same direction and make progress in advancing the country.
Theres no consolation if you get experts to plan solutions to problems but 1) the people you need to implement the plans have their own opinions or priorities and 2) the public want focus in some other priority and are start rioting if they don't feel heard.
You need schmoozers as much as you need tacticians.
There are two largely non-overlapping skillsets when it comes to politics and governance. The soft skills being effective means you can get elected, that does not mean they are good at governing (and is often a detriment to having good solutions and governance).
I don't currently have any data that says otherwise and the counterfactual remains unexplored (but it will be with this parliament!), but things that people do and say to get elected often are things that if implemented...would not solve the problems the populace that elected is having.
I don't think we need schmoozers, we need people who understand the problems of their populace and have the structural power to implement their solutions. We shall see if they need more than this, but this would be the first exploration of the counterfactual.
People who have their "own" priorities don't end up upsetting the apple cart when we make success in implementing those solutions the same as their success (which if we are effective problem solvers, should be possible. See Deng Xiaoping)
The schmoozers/lobbyists aren’t working currently in America we need problem solvers and clear thinking.
That is an overly cynical view.
A lot of the problem can be attributed to voters accepting the blame game, overly simplistic solutions, and expedient absolutist views over debating a plurality of options.
I'm not saying that the political system isn't to blame here. At least where I live, it is structured in such a way that winner takes all and loyalty to the party is more heavily rewarded than representing the constituent. But, again, that is a system that we in some sense designed.
It's not an overly cynical view, it's a realist view. Every person and organization's behavior should be considered and predicted by its motivations and incentives. Deviation from that would be naive and non-scientific.
Western politicians and political parties incentives are to get elected while doing as much as possible for special interests (and by extension, as little as possible for the common good).
Absolutely. the first time I found out the Chinese have quite a few engineers involved in government. I said that explains all the infrastructure being built. Mind you no human endeavors are perfect. But there was a time in the United States not too long ago where there was more of a can do attitude, I don’t understand why high-speed rail is not a thing.
I also don’t understand why the Pan American Highway or rail from Nome, Alaska to the tip of South America never got built. Nor can I understand why Oak Ridge, Tennessee Thorium Research Center and further development was left to rot. The Chinese are very close to throwing element 90 in our face.
Democracy is a popularity contest
Yes. That’s kind of the point. The words aren’t that far apart in etymology either. By Latin definitions the most popular (liked by the general public) candidate will be the democratically chosen (rule by the people) one.
Yes but the hope is we can make the popularity center on the solutions and ability to execute them.
> Politics is about getting elected
There's a lot under the umbrella of "politics" that happens after you get elected. If you want to accomplish anything after you get elected (heck, even if it's just personal enrichment) you have to be somewhat skilled at getting others to work with you, one way or another. As a politician you can have flawless convictions and be right and well-informed about all your decisions, but at the end of the day you're just one vote (to use legislators as an example) and it does nothing if you can't convince or work with others.
It depends on the political system. In many a parliamentary system, voting differently than what you are told means you will not be in the party list ever again, so for the day to day, there's very little convincing effort when you have the majority. And especially in systems where there is very little legal money in politics, the carrot is just ability to get access for not-so-legal money. So party leadership is a matter of having enough businessmen friends, and having will to power in a rather unclean word.
The whole "you are just one vote" doesn't really apply there. As the 30th legislator on your party list, you show up and vote as you are told. And in systems like the one in the US, barring rare moments, it's also not all that different. The card that your party will abandon you, and that if you want a position of any importance you have to play ball means many a junior congressperson just votes as they are told, and spends time fundraising.
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great comment, poetic and to the point
As an engineer writing software and running a small team I'd flirt with the idea of "moving up". Then I'd really study what the VPs and CEOs actually did and realize that I didn't have any real desire to do that all day everyday. I could do it but it would require me to rewire my psyche and soul (not saying it's bad, just not for me).
In some clusters, senior academics are exactly like that.
And in many others they’re small czars of their own kingdoms. However it’s always nice to refresh parliaments with new educated people, with new progressive political movements, shatter old alliances and practices.
That's an understatement...
Competence of democratic politicians is to be liked and get most votes. Usually it means to be without values.
I hope more people will realize that voting for uknown politicians that offers empty promises for artificially made problems means givig up our responsibility and at the end, make things worse as we see in current democratic countries.
As opposed to voting for Vucic here? T
The “skill” of career politicians is mostly loyalty and appointing people based on loyalty is the worst criteria.
In my lifetime, it has been a skill of procrastination. and milking the public…
We'd be living in a better world if politics was a skill and our politicians were good at it.
I think he means polticians lying, being trecherous, compromising until nothing gets done and no ones career is hurt, etc is a skill. It would be better for the people if people with these skills were not in public office. Anything that takes away from being a servant to the constituents and become self-service needs to be removed from Politics.
I would assume PhD holding people are smart enough to understand their limitations and strengths.
They've been elected during a very special events. They know what's expected of them. Looks like compared to the previous powers this lot at least gives the country a fighting chance.
Ehhh, that's the flaw in the logic. Holding a PhD doesn't necessarily make you better at anything other than strictly the topic of the PhD (and sometimes not even that), maybe only following arbitrary orders from senior figures.
Holding a PhD at the very least means you can spend a sustained long amount of time on (potentially) intractable problems and try to arrive at solutions for them. That's a good skill to have when...you've been elected to solve problems.
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I agree, my thinking was orthogonal to what you're saying (or the other way round).
Seeing how many politicians are utterly corrupt and ignorant cunts certainly a parliament full of people who understand the importance of facts and capable of logical thinking is not worse than career politicians mostly skilled in the game for their team, nothing else.
Clearly you’ve never been to a faculty meeting :)
You should see the skill level of politicians that were there till now, I'm not even sure whether calling them politicians is fair - maybe something closer to criminals, I'd say. Serbia (like the majority of the planet) needs honest and unspoiled people in governance. Educated or not, academic or not - these folks made the personal sacrifices and didn't earn student trust easy. Time will tell... But please spare me of the politics as an amazing unique skill, I saw where that led. Let's begin with being more fair.
One could even say politics is also a science.
One does tend to talk alot doesn't one
I'm not sure if it used to be like that, but the skill required to politicians now is to get themselves elected, and that largely means the ability to lie well