I’m not sure “brainy” people are that much more likely to think they can make good decisions than any other politician. So why do you feel this would exacerbate the hubris politicians already have?

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Sharlin 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Many if not most career politicians have education in their domain: law, civics, economics, political science, or similar. On the other hand it’s a common failure mode of STEM people in particular to assume their expertise can be directly applied to more "human" fields and indeed to dismiss those fields as unscientific hand-waving.

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roenxi 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Many if not most career politicians have education in their domain

They don't have "domains", they are career politicians. It is nice when a politician has some experience in the topic they're legislating on but the system works by having generalists who bow in whatever direction winds are blowing the most money from.

It is not possible to be an effective career politician by having firm principles or technical expertise. It requires a near total dedication to politicking. If they happen to have knowledge of a topic it is coincidence because the number of political topics is large and the number of politicians is comparatively small.

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master-lincoln 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That would be news to me. Which country are you referring to?

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xenocratus 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Can you remind me why Yvette Cooper [1], who's been trained as an Economist, is Secretary for Health and Social Care, after being Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary?

Literally the first name I clicked on from the UK government.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yvette_Cooper

	▲	lkjdsklf 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That one is pretty easy. Running NHS (or any other health care system) is literally an economics problem. Economics is a lot more than just money.

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psychoslave an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

But saying the conclusion seems out of touch, but it's not necessarily limited to STEM formatted people. Everyone and their dogs think they have the most apt representation and whoever disagree ever miss information or the ability to act accordingly.

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inertiatic 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Have politicians ever been voted en masse for their ability to navigate the domain they will be deployed to work on? It's a combination of popularity and (stated) opinion overlap.

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temp123477 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Maybe they are just less experienced in politics. I wonder if their education includes much about the problems they need to solve for society in that country. On the plus side a PhD is good at research and can probably get up to speed damn quick and read a lot. As long as they don't have the hubris!

	▲	hunterpayne an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Honestly, its not the hubris. Politicians are a pretty arrogant group of people. Its the lack of life experience and lessons learned from negative consequences that they lack. The hubris just makes it more galling and thus makes for better sound bites.