And of course, if anyone's too good at making rules, it's the EU.
Of course China is obsessed with rules just like many countries are, and it's pretty clear it firmly polices its laws.
The difference is that after the death of Mao in 1976 Deng Xiaoping consciously and openly embarked on a task to pull China into the modern technological era, and to do that he deliberately set out to populate China's Politburo with highly educated engineers and like. (I gave references to this in a HN post a short while ago.)
Thus, for nearly 50 years China has been run by the best brains available rather than those who've the gift of the gab and promise the electorate whatever it takes to get them elected.
Sure that's not democracy and many of us in the West find it irksome. However, like it or not, over the last 50 years China's rulers have run a command economy and worked an economic miracle.
Deng Xiaoping's insight of getting the best and brightest to run the country was brilliant, unlike most dictators he chose a course of action that actually benefited China. There's no question about that, the evidence is there for all the world to see.
It's not exactly controversial to generalize HN's sentiment that the US would be better off with more engineers and experts in elected office, which all other things being equal, implies that the US should be more like China.
Despite what I said that's very true. Throughout history we've seen many dictators who've had both some degree of benevolence and the best interests of their states at heart only to be followed by tyrants or idiots (right, Rome's one example).
As you say, it’s not a good model for long-term governance. Unfortunately, benevolent dictators are a rare breed.
With China, the key question for the world is whether the country will become increasingly authoritarian and all that's likely to entail, or over time settle down and become more benign without major disruption, revolution and or war. The fact that authoritarianism seems to be on the rise generally doesn't bode well, methinks.
Would you be okay with companies near you just dumping toxic waste into the local rivers?
https://www.yahoo.com/news/disastrous-figures-show-poverty-i...
> Runoff and soil erosion continually pour dangerous chemicals into bodies of water statewide. The pollution starves fish of oxygen. It causes organic material to grow that threatens to sicken humans unless drinking water providers spend huge sums on decontamination. It similarly makes water unsafe for recreation. This spring’s heavy rainfall ended years of drought — and it also, as predicted, led to levels of nitrates in rivers above or near the highest on record.
This is just misinformation. This is an international board. Many readers will take this as fact. There are courts and there are laws on the books, and yes many cases are enforced. Not "enough" for some, "too much" for others.. it is a "Goldilocks Problem" .. comparing the situation across the USA does not make a lot of sense either, since State's Rights historically have played a big role.
got it, I definitely did not say that, or mean it.. I do not claim those statements, not at all... we agree!
Most of the senate are lawyers and it’s the most frequent occupation of a legislator.
The last time the United States had a presidential figure with any kind of STEM background was probably Jimmy Carter (bachelors of science and served as a navy nuclear engineer) - nearly 50 years ago.
I think it's pretty related on the cultural side. If you look at how Taiwan succeeded, it's basically two fold. On the population's side it was willingness to follow orders, wear masks, get tracked using a smartphone app if you were sick and they were pretty damn strict about this. In particular mask wearing is a common courtesy in much of East Asia long before covid.
On the tech/politics side they were lucky to have people like Audrey Tang. But let's put it that way the chances that the US put a trans hacker who writes Perl implementations in Haskell for fun in a top cabinet position and for Americans to accept East Asian levels of collective discipline is well, not looking to good to put it mildly
Fine, let's accept it.
But here's my pet theory and here why I think we see cracks forming up in this "greed is good" mantra (which, frankly, hurts common sense of anyone living in a judeo-christian culture, because, well, isn't greed a sin?): this only works in a world of expanding EROEI (Energy Return On Energy Investment).
This cheap energy is basically a giganormous pool of energy slaves. As long as there are slaves to capture, greed is good because it's good for everyone to capture and distribute as many slaves as possible.
When that pool dwindles, greed stops working as well as it did for the advancement of public good and it begins cannibalizing on it (the public good). It still gets accepted as a truism today, but it will soon go back to sin territory.
How is saying America should have more engineers in positions of power anti-American?
That's exactly what's happening. Like, it's happening before our very eyes. Right now.
Hubris, arrogance, and entitlement led us here and the world is taking your suggestion to heart.
bigyabai•5mo ago
JumpCrisscross•5mo ago
...how does building more and putting more engineers in positions of power mean deregulation?
To the extent the article has a position on this, it's for deproceduralisation. Not deregulation per se.
yetihehe•5mo ago
Deregulation implemented by lawyers|engineers makes good environment for lawyers|engineers.
Deregulation implemented by politicians or laypersons doesn't make good environment for engineers or lawyers. So yes, not all deregulation and not all regulation will be good for engineers.
Putting engineers in positions of power will mean that engineers will make and remove laws that are good for engineers. When engineers are happy with rules, they can FINALLY go do what they want which typically results in engineering products, which most people like after lawyers say things like "no, a steel sword is not a good educational toy for children". Reality is not simple.
aspenmayer•5mo ago
I see similar things in sports, where leading competitors intentionally lower their performance in qualifying rounds so that they get a better seed advantage and easier competition going forward in the bracket.
Have you seen this before on HN or online generally? I’m seeing it more online lately.