Comment by aleyan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aleyan | Hacker News Reader

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> Even now, engineers are not held in anywhere near the same regard in China as they are in the West.

I have to respectfully disagree with the author on the esteem of engineers in China versus the West. I am not Chinese, nor an expert on their culture, but I do live in the West so I understand half of the equation.

Current President of China, Xi Jinping was educated as a chemical engineer[1]. His predecessor Hu Jintao was a hydroelectric engineer[2]. His predecessor Jiang Zemin was an electrical engineer[3].

Compare that with recent American presidents like Obama (JD), Bush(MBA), Clinton(JD), Bush Sr(BA in Econ), Reagan (BA in Econ). These are only a few points, but seems to me it is in China where engineers rise to the highest echelons of power. We have lawyers.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Jinping#Early_life_and_educ...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hu_Jintao#Early_life

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiang_Zemin#Background_and_asc...

They were not elected for being engineers, but because of their careers in the party (just as Angela Merkel wasn't elected because of her PhD, politics don't work like that). Article, at least as I understood it, is about the respect that society gives to an ordinary engineer. Is it considered prestigious to be engineer by common people or they view it as just a little better than being a technician or factory worker. I'm not very familiar with China, but I live in an ex-communist country and this resonates with me a lot. Here, back in time of socialism, your mom wouldn't impress any of her friends with your engineering diploma, but for instance if you were a doctor that was a big deal, you were a respected member of society. Have no idea why, I guess it has to do something with the whole "working class" idea of communism that insists on all workers being treated as equal.

AFAIK in the USSR attractiveness of a profession was largely determined by two factors. First, is it possible to take bribes. Second, can one get hands on products that are in short supply. Doctors fall into the first category. Shop workers and sailors (two highly desirable professions in the USSR!) fall into the second. Engineers seem to fall into neither.

That's what they were educated as, but unless I'm mistaken they didn't practice those fields for very long.

To end up as president, you have to go through many promotions in the government bureaucracy. Probably stop actually doing engineering work (or whatever) pretty early on. Similar to rising through management ranks in a company.

So the author's point could still stand in the context she present it in: where you are not the boss.

This is because China is not a democracy. In a democracy, someone who speaks well is likely to win - and lawyers by definition must be able to speak very well. In China there is a merit-based system which as every merit-based system, has a lot of flaws - so someone able to work through the top of it must be a real hacker. Engineers win hands down over lawyers.

What? Communist party power dynamics are similar to ones in a gang - i.e. you have someone from the party who managed to seize power and lots of other top party members silently forming cliques and waiting for you to slip, so that they can deliver the blow. The country's people are only chips in the game, if that (often, rulers are toppled not over their policy but over some bullshit doctrinal dispute).

Nothing particular to communists, there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_Parties_(book)

isn't that how any political party works?

More or less; but I think the point is, that by denying the power-struggle dynamic and punishing people who talk about it, communist structures in fact amplify it.

So in a democracy, there's all that behind the scenes tussel, but there's also an important aspect of public advocacy and decision testing. None of that in China; the politburo says what it's going to say, and then does what it's going to do.

> None of that in China; the politburo says what it's going to say, and then does what it's going to do.

Thats not what happened in China. In China government invest heavily in propaganda and mind manipulation, they do not automatically push anything and everyone just follow blindly.

Yes, but at the end of the day it's the voters that decide whether you get actual power or not. Imagine if it was the Republican National Committee that appointed the President of the United States. Not just now, but always.

Voters decided too in China. Electoral system and people's representatives are about the same level.

My wife is Chinese. None of my Chinese relatives has ever had a vote for anyone in government.

> Electoral system and people's representatives are about the same level.

Actually everyone got to vote for people's representatives. Of cuz, no one cars that much, like many people were not bother to vote, so DNC thought their presidency is already in bag, then many decided to actually vote.

Couldn't it just reflect the base rates? I wonder if the explanation could be found from making a comparison of the statistics from when the respective presidents entered university on how many people in upwardly mobile families studied to become engineers / lawyers in China vs Western countries. I suspect in China 20 to 30 years ago engineering was seen as the route to success because of booming manufacturing industry whereas in the US service industry has been taking over for decades. I don't know the statistics for China 20 or 30 years ago but I hire from top graduate schools in India today which is like China around year 2000 in many respects. Most of the students I see studied engineering at undergraduate level.

A good lawyer is a good hacker - they know how to hack the legal system and find novel solutions to laws.

Lawyers are advantaged in a democracy where you rise by convincing people. Engineers are advantaged in a meritocracy or in a system that sees itself as a meritocracy as we are probably better at optimizing for an important metric.

If you think the communist party doesn't have politics, you are gravely mistaken. Lest we forget the rapid rise and fall of Bo Xilai, or the purging of Zhao Ziyang, or hell even the Gang Of Four and it's on-again-off-again relationship with Deng Xiaoping.

I am not saying they are lacking politics. I am saying that they have less relevant public elections

It's no secret that levels of Worker-Peasant-Soldier students were usually inferior than those of who went through merit-based exams.

It's the technocracy! I also think that's what Americans didn't like about Hillary Clinton (among other things). She seems to look at governing much more like an engineer.

HRC is the farthest from an engineer you will ever see. I'm not sure how anyone with a professional background in engineering could suggest this.

Deeply deeply disagree (and my background is CS/Software Engineering+Public Policy).

She has way more attention to minute policy detail than anyone who has been elected president in the past few decades. And the knowledge of detail is a double edged sword, because it's hard to sell what you know to be an oversimplification (which almost everyone here can relate to).

She was the furthest from an engineer except for all the other candidates in the field. As I remember, our "real engineer" presidents were Carter and Hoover, both famously ineffectual politicians. So, yeah, I think it's safe to infer a kind of trend.

Mr jiangzemin had a paper on the roadmap on it in 2008. In that paper he said the country should invest in GPU and ml&ai. Mr jiangzemin is a true engineer with a huge leadership vision.

Why this is down voted? The report on this is censored because of political fight.

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