= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
fortyeridania comments on First(?) Rationalist elected to state government - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (54)
A good example is the PRC, where a clear majority of top officials have scientific or engineering backgrounds.
I recall reading that this was the result of PRC politicians picking up degrees because this helped them advance up the ladder? And that the degrees were mostly fake?
(Searching now I can't find anything on this, though.)
Yes, that is a problem. I believe it applies especially to advanced degrees, as officials are typically well past college age before they have the kind of pull needed to get themselves a fake degree.
As an example of a high official who got a STEM degree while still young and mostly unknown, take former president Hu Jintao, who got an engineering degree in the 1960s. (Source alert: It's the People's Daily. I assume they are trustworthy on this particular issue.)
But they are not elected, are they? So I don't think that's a very good example for this discussion.
Whether they are elected: They are not elected in universal suffrage elections, though they are chosen through a voting mechanism.
Assuming they are not elected, whether it is a good example: The comment to which I was responding used the term "public official" not "elected official." Second, all of the bullet points apply to unelected officials too. In the last bullet point, the constituents would be senior officials.