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Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

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Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#171

Post by smsm42 »

grecy wrote: post #153
Duff wrote: post #136

Americans don't elect scientists for a simple reason: scientists by their nature lack the skills necessary to succeed as a popular politician. Singapore isn't a democracy in the same sense as the US or Britain. China is a not a democracy at all. So comparing the education levels of elected officials isn't really an apples-to-apples comparison. In the US, a person's charisma, ability to relate to and attract the atten…

>In the US, a person's charisma, ability to relate to and attract the attention of voters, ability to build a political organization .... define your success as a politician. Exactly. In the US, being a successful Politician is a popularity game, much like Hollywood. Unfortunately, it has little to do with intelligence or if that person will actually do anything good for anyone.

Elections can not be anything but the "popularity game" by the very definition - one that is most popular, i.e. appeals to the most people - wins the election. The only way to avoid it is to abolish the elections and the democracy. Now what constitutes the basis of this popularity - is it good looks, smooth talk, shiny awards or ability to promise most appealing bribes to the least moral populace - can differ. It would be nice if everybody would be so educated as to use only the "right" criteria to choose the most appealing candidate - the only wrinkle is nobody has any idea what those right criteria are and what makes one a successful manager on the scale of millions of people. We do know that many of the criteria in popular use - like spousal fidelity 30 years ago, formal education degree, or ability to successfully fake sincerity - are pretty bad predictors, but since we have very short supply of good ones, people have to do with what we have.

Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#172

Post by tirrellp »

sbierwagen wrote: post #94

I’ve visited Singapore a few times in recent years and been impressed with its wealth and modernity. I was also quite aware of its world-leading programs in mathematics education and naturally noted that one of the candidates for president was Tony Tan, who has a Ph.D. in applied mathematics. Tan won the very close election and joined the government of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who also has a degree in mathemat…

Sbierwagen, as a white male living in Seattle, whats with the offensive faux-ebonics?

Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#173

Post by tirrellp »

moldbug wrote: post #138
sbierwagen wrote: post #94

I’ve visited Singapore a few times in recent years and been impressed with its wealth and modernity. I was also quite aware of its world-leading programs in mathematics education and naturally noted that one of the candidates for president was Tony Tan, who has a Ph.D. in applied mathematics. Tan won the very close election and joined the government of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who also has a degree in mathemat…

I think a Singaporean would be amused to hear this comment emanating from (or at least served by) a nation that contains Detroit, Oakland, etc. I've visited Oakland a few times in recent years. I haven't been impressed by its wealth or modernity. No capital punishment, however. And as for drug possession - woo-hoo! The labor laws are quite strict as well, I'm told. Tolerance of other cultures isn't just a slogan to b…

Why the f' does everyone keep saying nigga? Is there a meme that I don't know about?

Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#175

Post by pragmatic »

I guess this is why China is in such great shape socially and environmentally. The engineers and scientists have created a utopia.

"One needn’t endorse the politics of these people or countries to feel that given the complexities of an ever more technologically sophisticated world, the United States could benefit from the participation and example of more scientists in government. "

You can't make a claim "scientists make better leaders" then in the very next paragraph, state the outcome of this leadership doesn't matter.

Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#176

Post by ashconnor »

mynameishere wrote: post #143
ashconnor wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just got Marxism mixed up with the dictatorial regimes of the 20th century, such as the Soviet Union. Please read the Communist Manifesto before you lambast it with an uninformed critique.

This is called the "No true Scotsman" fallacy, and it's one of the sloppiest fallacies you can commit. It's astonishing how many people cling to it with regards to Marxism. The same thing can be said of anything . The Nazi regime wasn't really fascist. Obama isn't really a liberal. Bush wasn't really a conservative, etc, etc. All of those statements are true. And no true conservative would start a war of aggression.…

This isn't the case. Marx differs from other ideologies in that it was Karl Marx himself that wrote The Communist Manifesto.

I can't do the same for most other ideologies; there's no Conservative Manifesto as it were.

With that in mind we can take Marx's book and compare it against history in these countries. If you do this then you will come to the conclusion that these regimes were not Marxist and in fact not even close to socialism.

Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#177

Post by dalke »

cdavid wrote: post #145
dalke wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that essay says what you described. There was a bureaucracy before the US - how did the British, French, and Spanish Empires run without a bureaucracy? And of course the Chinese bureaucracy was established long before the Americas were settled by Europeans. It looks more like it's saying the US started with a distrust of bureaucracy, which it inherited from experience with the European empires, which ca…

This may be a syntax error of my part: I meant that the US existed as a nation before a bureaucracy existed in the US . Obviously, bureaucracies elsewhere predates the US declaration of independency.

I still don't think his essay says that. Before the US independence, the colonies were part of the British Empire, with local legislatures in each colony. How did the British Empire manage the 13 colonies without any sort of bureaucracy?

Instead, the essay you pointed to suggests that the bureaucracy existed, but the new Americans were distrustful of it.

Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#178

Post by ckg »

sidww2 wrote: post #169
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's more interesting is how successful intellectuals have been in this country They've been successful at delivering concrete, immediate results. Fundamental science at the highest levels is usually done elsewhere.

That used to be the case in the past. However with the increased government expenditure on basic science in the wake of the cold war, more of the fundamental science did happen in the US (foundations of CS, foundations of Crypto, lot of AI & ML, string theory, lot of work in Math, etc.). Now with the decreasing focus on the funding of science, fundamental research (especially in high energy physics but in other areas…

I wonder if this has anything to do with the shifting of industrial jobs to other countries as well? Maybe when more tangible goods were being produced in the US there was a higher respect for science/engineering, which is in large part a study of the tangible (or physical). Now that many jobs in the US are financial, legal, etc. there's more of a disconnect between what people see as the basis of the economy and what scientists are studying.

Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#179

Post by dhume »

larrydag wrote: post #107
eftpotrm wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't they want to enter politics though? If we drew up a hypothetical list of attributes for a scientist, how many could cross over into politics? Significant intellect and a desire to exercise that in significant work? Yes. Deep interest in a field and a wish to explore that further? Yes. (In the sense that many such people seem capable of maintaining multiple such interests.) Interest in complex work and abili…

One of the most failed "experiments" of science and politics was Robert McNamara as U.S. Secretary of Defense under JFK. He used a lot of scientific methods to evaluate his political decisions with war and intervention. All of his evaluations pointed out that the U.S. should intervene in Vietnam and look how that turned out. In politics there are too many variables at play. Perhaps politics is good for the "intellect…

How many tests did he run? What confidence interval did he establish? What factors did he control for and how?

Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#180

Post by twstws »

lmm wrote: post #149
twstws wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This attitude is frustrating and sadly widespread. Basically, you're saying that you can trust someone with some scientific training, but only up to an arbitrary limit. You assume this is a zero sum game, that it is impossible to learn a lot about biology without simultaneously acquiring some compensating deficiency. Or that only the deficient personality would pursue a Phd. How is it anything but anti-intellectual t…

I can only trust someone with substantial experience outside of academia. While there are people who have this and also have a PhD, they're a vanishingly small minority compared to those who have that experience and an MSc.

There is an important distinction between not trusting someone without non-academic experience, and not trusting someone with too much academic experience. I agree with the first, but was refuting the second.

In my experience, as someone who completed a Phd after a few years working, phds often have richer real-life experience than the 'average' person, and almost always richer than the common stereotype inferred in the comment i responded too.

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