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Comment by tormeh | Hacker News Reader

This. No self-preserving politician wold have reacted early to this. And you don't get to that level without being self-preserving.

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Taiwan's leadership, ahem. Only 50 or so cases and their approval rating has soared.

Same in Singapore. Helps having well paid experts run your government and a PM who definitely understands Math (Cambridge Senior Wrangler)

Does help when an effective leader is filling an otherwise poorly-occupied leadership position.

I guess anything less would be a dummy.

You don't have to be a mainstream follower to appreciate a high-performance leader

>who definitely understands Math

In future centuries we will look back and recognize this leadership characteristic is what has always been most advanced compared to all other outstanding choices.

Especially at times when the stakes get unusually high.

Organizations, communities, citizens, civilizations, and populations have always gone by the numbers.

And there's always a mainstream of some kind, with attitude being a thing among the moving weighted moving averages.

Seems like those furthest from the mainstream can also be most sensitive by nature to an _idiot-in-charge_ across various types of idiocy, and multiple levels of government, corporations, and other organizations.

Strongarm conformance and/or manipulated populism are some things that can give rise to a mainstream with ineffective recognition & response to dummy leaders and their destructive outcomes.

Since even a slightly above average problem-solving ability can make relatively genius moves compared to a slightly below average performer, it's tragic when there's not enough mainstream force to elevate the most mathematically competent leaders to handle high-stakes responsibilities.

Even more tragic when the mainstream is less-aware, and settles on preference for the dummy ones.

Clearly self preservation stops at simple math.

We need to confront the fact that democracy in the West by now elects people who sell the most comfortable lies instead of people who help adaptation to reality.

Political leadership being self serving while convincing people that they are not has been true throughout history, and will continue to do so in the future. There is no way to stop this without modifying human nature itself. I cannot blame the voting populace, yet at the same time, I cannot blame the politicians either. They are part of a larger system of incentives.

Then perhaps we need a better version of democracy. Or a better system of government altogether.

I am hopeful that human civilization and ingenuity can invent or discover that. I am just not confident that it would be anytime soon.

The solution I think would be to somehow get people to lead who have no desire to do so. Politics attracts sociopaths and psychopaths due to the power involved. Competent and compassionate people have no time and patience for the power jockeying while sociopaths live for it. Thus you end up with a government by sociopaths for themselves. But how to make politics unappealing to sociopaths? Beats me.

There are enough honest, intelligent scientifically-minded people who want to be government leaders. They don't get elected. Current political system favors demagogues.

The trouble is that these people need to compete against a subset of people who want power more than anything else. These honest people decide it's not worth it, and get selected against and never make it to a position where they can affect change.

Alternatively, they do, and the process of getting there makes them less likely to do the things they wanted to do.

Bring back sortition!

It's not just democracy, it includes all forms of human organization, whether it be democratic or dictatorial. I believe it will only change once we genetically engineer people to be less self serving. Barring that, I don't see how one can solve this problem.

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