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Comment by prof-dr-ir | Hacker News Reader

As a former inhabitant of England, I always thought that those in charge suffered from a uniquely wide 'competence gap' which I would like to define as the difference between someone's self-perceived competence and someone's actual competence. (The term is probably useful more broadly...)

Maybe it is the historically class-based society alluded to in the article, but it always stunned me how those at the top, and in particular politicians, were pushing through policies without even a modicum of consultation. See for example the 'kamikwasi' budget of last month: in which other European country would this have been done so thoughtlessly?

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I personally think that the problem is that our political class consists almost entirely of humanities-educated politicians. People (who presumably have humanities degrees) will say things like "politicians don't need to be experts" and the even more facile (well, I am really paraphrasing here) "why do you need an understanding of the subject matter to decide what actions to take".

If you look at COVID-19 and climate change you really understand that politicians really don't know how to raise a number to the power of the other (i.e. understand exponential growth). I still vividly recall the ludicrous argument a friend (now studying philosophy at Oxford) attempted to advocate to me, which is that "we should not do anything now so that if we need to fight it later the economy is strong enough" (they did not understand exponential growth). Simple mathematics suggests that if you have some crisis which is going to get exponentially worse over time, and you can mitigate or stop now it's probably better to do something now, rather than later.

Ex-minister Rory Stewart said that (paraphrasing from memory) ministers don't know what they are doing because they don't stay in the job long enough. By the time they get to the point they start to understand what they need to do they are either sacked or promoted to another ministry.

Reminds me of CP Snow: [1]

"A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare's? I now believe that if I had asked an even simpler question – such as, What do you mean by mass, or acceleration, which is the scientific equivalent of saying, Can you read? – not more than one in ten of the highly educated would have felt that I was speaking the same language. So the great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the western world have about as much insight into it as their neolithic ancestors would have had."

[1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures

A competence gap is a very polite way to put it. In Britain we live in an inverted meritocracy which rewards smug stupidity, elevates bullshit, while punishing and marginalising our most talented people.

I thought this was going to be another cynical Economist hit piece like the earlier "Europe not pulling its weight" [1] but was surprised how on-the-money it is. Some well chosen quotes;

"A family with the wrong members in control" wrote George Orwell of the English.

Or, a country that "institutionalises lying" ruled "by chancers and cranks" sums it up nicely. We've had a profound leadership crisis in Britain for several decades now, and it's not just party politics. It's endemic to all institutions and industry. We positively celebrate corruption because we mistake it for power.

We keep selecting incompetents to lead, in all areas, because we confuse their psychopathic cunning with "leadership". I believe that the recent visibility of "imposter syndrome" is tactical smoke to distract from the fact that there really are an extraordinary number of actual imposters in charge everywhere. Are they're getting scared? Exposure is coming.

George Carlin put it best I think. He said the definition of real terror is waking up in mid-life and realising that all those pricks you went to school with are now running the country. But yes, it's our fault. We built a system that selects for them. And we continue to allow it to stand.

What worries me is that, if tomorrow our country came to its senses and asked genuinely competent people to take the helm, it would already be far, far too late.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=33992393

From the outside, the most painful part of UK politics to watch is this instinctual reaction of "well, that didn't work, so let's do anything else." It takes a lot of luck to do that and land on a good idea.

Again, from the outside, the UK looks like a country that has a lot to lose but it's acting quite desperate and it's hard to see why.

> What worries me is that, if tomorrow our country came to its senses and asked genuinely competent people to take the helm, it would already be far, far too late.

I agree with much of the post, but it's this kind of statement that worries me. I think there is a lot of room for incremental improvement in the UK, the dull work of growing in competence, but the appetite seems to be for sweeping measures.

> worries me... the appetite seems to be for sweeping measures.

Yes that is concerning. Desperate voters will follow any crazy with bold promises.

> I think there is a lot of room for incremental improvement in the UK

Way I see it, I've lived through about 30-40 years of decremental decline, so if we started "incremental improvement" tomorrow, we'd be back where I started in the 1970s just by the time I die. I suppose that's better than watching ones country decline through all your life, like for Russians. Or disintegrate, as for ex-Yugoslavians for example.

However, in the era of climate crisis, and myriad other threats, a sense of urgency is in the air which we cannot ignore. Unless rational and courageous minds take the lead someone else will.

> the dull work of growing in competence.

Knowing where to even start... how to counter the conditions that are causing us to lose competence... we need to plug the holes in the ship before charting a new course.

> George Carlin put it best I think. He said the definition of real terror is waking up in mid-life and realising that all those pricks you went to school with are now running the country.

Not too worried about that; didn't attend Eton. :D

Pretty sure if you went to school with folks running a country, you're probably in the big club he talks about regular people not being in, so you're unlikely to wake up in terror

He means it a bit less literally than that.

I'd call it the Biff Tannen (AKA Trump) effect.

That jackass kid who would stick a compass in his hand for giggles, set fire to cats or drink a bottle of antifreeze is now, by pure devious guile and rotten luck for everyone else, the mayor of your city.

You studied hard, went to college, served your nation, designed a better widget, raised a decent family, bought the dream... and have fuck-all say in what goes.

It's nothing to do with elite schools, prominent families or money. That's what makes it even more horrifying. The race is not to the quick etc... How arbitrary it is. I think that's Carlin's point.

I'd like to suggest you take a look at almost everything done in power by George W. Bush, Donald Trump, François Holland, Paul von Hindenburg, Silvio Berlusconi, Brian Cowen, Jair Bolsonaro... the list could go on... and compare and contrast and then ask if this is subjectively a phenomenon truly unique to the UK.

Bad leadership of the type you describe has shown itself in every country in the World at some point.

the Kamikwasi budget was the end goal of a section of the Tory party who had been planning every single part of it for well over a decade in think tanks, dinner parties and meeting rooms across London and party conferences. Truss told everyone in the party what she was planning to do as part of her campaign for leader. They voted for it because they believed it was the right thing to do for the country. She and her chancellor then went ahead with executing it, and the markets told them to get it in the bin, pronto.

To paint it as a uniquely insane thing to do based on the class system playing out is an odd thing to do to me. It was a political ideology that was planned, plotted, wargamed and ultimately voted for.

It all points to a need for the UK to be rid of the Tories for a generation or two, but I can't see the relationship to a unique and rabid myopic stupidity evident in it that you seem to.

I would like to stress that the gap I speak of is not about stupidity or competence in itself; instead it is about being oblivious to one's own incompetence.

For example, I think that people like Trump, Berlusconi, Cheney, etc. are not in the same class. They are certainly bad leaders, but largely because they are selfish grifters who care little about their country. On the other hand people like Cameron, Rees-Mogg, Johnson and Truss seem to really believe that they are destined to lead the country (to greatness) and that, for them at least, it "cannot be that hard".

So I sense a real difference here, and introducing the "competence gap" was my way to try to make it precise. But maybe there is a better way to formulate it. Arrogance perhaps? (And of course such personalities are not unique to the UK, but I did find them more widespread there.)

Sorry, Trump cares little about his country? Say what you want of him, and he definitely has a big ego to say the least, but I can't think of a more patriotic world leader of late than him. In fact, he's rightly aligned with the nationalist trend in politics that Brexit can be argued to take part in. "America first", remember?

Trump cares about Trump, the rest is window-dressing.

I want to be clear about the argument you're making, as I think this is where our difference arises.

You think Trump, Berlusconi, and so on are selfish grifters but do not believe they are truly destined for greatness?

And you think Cameron, Rees-Mogg, Johnson and Truss are _not_ selfish grifters but are in it for the "greatness"?

I think you should do more research on both groups. Trump and Berlusconi (and many others I mentioned), seem to choose their actions based on self-interest fiscally and for their ego. They are over-confident in their ability to make good decisions because they feel they have been "chosen", and are "special". Their distaste for due process and the rule of law is evidence of this, I feel.

But so are the British leaders. Go do some digging, find out how they made their money and built their relationships in Parliament. Find out about the Bullingdon club, find out about Rees-Mogg's money, find out about the Institute of Economic Affairs, and more. You'll find every single one of the British leaders you named had the exact same profile of grifting and ego-driven self-belief that Berlusconi, Bolsonaro, Trump, W. Bush, and others have shown.

Your argument that there is something unique to Britain about this is weak to my mind. I can find identical behaviours of corruption, idiocy, grifting, ego and incompetence in recent history of every G20 country, every NATO member, every EU state, every democracy.

Writing this makes me feel cynical, but the good news is that there is plenty of evidence of competence and "greater good" style leaders around everywhere too - in Britain, as much as anywhere else.

What would be a politician's ideal outcome of a stint in politics?

I think that Trump and Berlusconi and Cheney and Netanyahu all aim for maximal wealth (and minimal imprisonment) for them and their buddies - and they do very well on this front! So are you sure they are unable to make "good decisions" from that perspective?

On the other hand, I think that people like Macron and Merkel, but also May, Truss and probably even Johnson, are more motivated by their legacy and truly would like to improve the status quo of their country - and they believe that that is their path to greatness.

So I think this sets apart the UK politicians from the "real" grifters. But at the same time I think they are also easily distinguished from people like Macron and Merkel and even Von der Leyen, because the British leaders are just so spectacularly bad at it. Starting at least with Cameron's referendum decision we have witnessed a remarkable sequence of massive unforced errors by UK politicians, the likes of which I have not seen in other "Western" countries or the EU (despite your insistence to the contrary).

Maybe "terrible governing by people who nevertheless care" captures it well.

So I guess where you see "evil" I see "haplessness" as a defining factor among UK leaders. A competence gap was my way to explain its origins.

If you think the referendum was an unforced error, I’m not sure you realise the factors that led to it. Grifting writ large for all the players, including Cameron and Osborne, but especially Rees-Mogg who was forcing the hand somewhat.

I don’t think they’re any more or less money oriented than others or any more or less hapless.

Even Johnson was about the wealth, the Churchill allusions were a sideshow.

>It all points to a need for the UK to be rid of the Tories for a generation or two

Bollocks to that. I hope this will be the Last Tory Government.

> kamikwasi budget First time I heard that, love it

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