Imagine rising to the ranks of prime minister of one of the most influential countries ever and for your legacy to be a head of lettuce out-survived your reign.
That the Queen literally died the day after meeting you.
Unbelievable.
That the Queen literally died the day after meeting you.
Unbelievable.
At this point, we can just randomly pick a citizen to be President or PM. We might have better chances that way
If you can't, teach, and if you can't do that, go into politics.
I on the other hand - my starting salary matched his last salary. I have nothing to show achievements wise - all I have done is attend meaningless meetings and write CRUD code for soulless companies.
While the government job situation today is much worse that it was during my dad's time, I still think one can do a lot of good as civil servant than as a highly paid developer for a wall street firm.
I agree with you on the topics of politics though.
Because a person is a person through other people.
Because despite the rhetoric of cynics, good governance is both possible and valuable.
Because one is not content to merely be critical of current governance from the sidelines.
Because one supports the mission; it is necessary.
Because the mission is challenging.
Because one values service to their fellow citizens.
Because their fellow citizens value that person's talents and service.
Because even if someone believes that everything is fungible and nothing matters but themselves, it's possible to find challenging, well paid, highly regarded work in government.
One example HN might be familiar with is the smartphone-based Covid contact tracing app in this country. When the government was going with an app that didn't use Google and Apple's contact tracing framework, the BBC focused hard on the inherent problems with not using it and made it sound like no-one other than the government thought that decision had any advantages at all. Then the government U-turned and literally they day the new app launched, all of that was forgotten and the BBC suddenly discovered the fundamental, well-documented disadvantages of that framework they'd ignored before and found some experts who made it sound like that was worse than the original app. They've been doing it with almost everything though.
There are many such examples.
Then there are Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley type politicians who are definitely smart, but say/do insane stuff because it serves their needs.
Then there is Mitch. Very smart but very scary, in a league of his own.
Overall the issue is that this career route does not pay well. E.g. in my country a mid-level developer earns as much as parliament member. Specialised constructions workers can make as much too. Why the hell would you pursue career in politics if you can easily make as cushy living with much less stress? You must be either narcissist or... not that bright to make a living in other ways.
Sort of like clothing. Now people want to be comfy and go in tshirts. Previously people were much more invested in community functions.
I have a wild idea. What if we try to select people based on their respective expertise in an area, rather than based on just popularity? If they have a science/knowledge background, even better.
Since it's based on skill and governance, we can call it something like "tekhne kratos", taking inspiration from the Greeks because why not.
It will probably work out better for the citizenry, but I don't see how we'd ever end up there short of a violent revolution - the current system is self-serving first and foremost and will never allow itself to be replaced even if that is the true will of the citizens.
Oh woops we're back where we started.
turns out we don't have that many smart people in the UK
This is squarely on the Blair/Bush party of big government and tax cuts, which is a deeply unpopular position in reality.
1) People have a kind of illusion that their rulers are (or at least should be) good. But historically speaking, this was almost never the case. Most of the time the rulers thought only about themselves, how to keep power, how to benefit from it and so on. Even most of the things they were commanded on were done of selfishness, too.
2) The people who should actually go into politics never will. Some of them are very active in their local communities, though, but have no desire to participate in this ridiculous show trying to sell themselves to millions of unknown people. Moreover, they have the humility of knowing they can't promise the crowds anything - the opposite of what the crowds expect.
I think if somehow true democratic voting was magically implemented world wide, then a lot of assholes would be voted out and quickly. Even in countries where people are electing sociopaths.
I know it is fairly popular on HN to say that any party that is coded ring-wing is terrible. But, I genuinely think that there isn't a single person with enough nuanced knowledge of even 3 of those countries at the same time to make any kind of sweeping political statement about them.
What makes you think that countries or opposition parties with less spotlight have more competent leaders? Name a country of any decent size and I'm sure citizens of those nations will flock to the comments talking about how messed up their political system is. Politics is messy, by definition.
> dumbest end up in positions of power
The hubris of us highly-educated workers to think that degrees or 'elite coded appearance' are what define intelligence. The likes of Boris and Modi are political geniuses with carefully cultivated identities and a keen understanding of the landscape.
> randomly pick a citizen to be President or PM
I know you mean this in jest, but political power doesn't come merely from titles. They'd just end up manipulated by the same 'powerful politician' anyway. I picked on this strawman because it demonstrates that politics is not a vice that can be eliminated from positions of power, it is the very mechanism by which struggles for power function.
Exactly, when I was a young lad, I used to think, if only well educated people got into politics. But now I understand, it is those who are connected on the ground to people's issues or at least have an understanding of them are the ones who get elected. Being educated or not is immaterial. In fact the more educated you are, the more you may not understand people's issue.
No it's not, HN is definitely biased conservative.
Over time the two systems would converge, and it's much harder to exert undue influence over the candidates when it really could be anybody.
It's one of those ideas that's worth taking seriously even if it's never implemented anywhere.
> > dumbest ..worst of the worst
Modi maybe worst, but dumb he is not.
He didn't have a college degree, but from nobody to becoming a pm with a full mandate for two terms in a country of billion is not something a dumb person can achieve.
I like the hot take that historians a couple of centuries from now will see that the Queen died and a couple of days later the currency crashed and say "even in the early 21st century the monarch had immense covert powers and the death of one was an existential crisis for these democracies."
Whoever thought of this (not I) was brilliant. Seems almost certain to happen, probably because of (not despite) the sheer volume of contemporary commentary.
I would feel very poorly about the tory gang in London if I were say from the North Irish area or Welsh, or Sottish at the moment.
This isn't good for European stability either. Hopefully the money and support continues to flow without issue to Ukraine.
Unfortunately, if you want to shake things up and introduce even moderately radical policies, you better have the stamina and political will and skill to push them through and keep at it.
Britain's first female prime minister had that. The third one didn't...
not bankrupting your country also helps.