| ▲ | akie 5 hours ago |
| I love that they won and I love the hope and expectation surrounding their victory but MAN have you ever SEEN a working group of 80 academics? There's definitely a chance of failure here. |
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| ▲ | necovek 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| I laughed out loud at this — my dad is a retired Uni professor, so I know exactly what you are talking about — but I'd point out that the "student list" has around 140 seats in the parliament, so 80 academics hopefully still has another 60 common sense people who are not all about being right all the time, and who bring other perspectives too. |
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| ▲ | evek 43 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Umm, you might want to read a but on the (new) opposition, ex 12+ years of total unchecked control. |
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| ▲ | Danox 4 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| There’s a chance of failure in any human endeavor. but I am sick of lawyers, bankers, landlords, lobbyists and various other grifters hanging on currently in most western governments no one can say that they haven’t had their chance. There needs to be a wider variety of professions involved at/in the legislative branch. |
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| ▲ | Bombthecat 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I didn't, but I saw a friend go into a week long alcohol session because he wanted to leave academics and couldn't take it anymore... It must be like a pit fight, but with connections and half truths |
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| ▲ | skeeter2020 an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | "in academics the in-fighting is so vicious because the stakes are so low" - interesting to see what happens now that that stakes are just democracy and an entire country! | |
| ▲ | fsloth 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I mean the whole point of democratic system _is_ you want rotating cliques and infighting. Because defaulting to consensus isn't really that democratic. The large blocks need to be able to move forward in legislation but the more uglier and tumultuous the backroom dealing are (within legal bounds) the healthier the democracy is. | | |
| ▲ | necovek 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I believe this is also what colours our views of the general academic infighting — academics are rarely rotated out except in the lower ranks, so it's a different type of skillset of building long-term alliances that drives their progression through the academic field and available careers in a particular institution (not even talking about "academic points" through publishing in recognized journals, which is a different discussion altogether — even with that criteria satisfied, to move to the next rank of professorship, you need to be elected by your colleagues). Basically, academic tenure is opposite from democracy. | | | |
| ▲ | toyg 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The tension between effectiveness (cohesive decisions swiftly implemented) and representation (complex reduction of utterly disparate points of view to a workable compromise) is the main force at the core of democracy. Most of the electorate doesn't really understand it, constantly clamoring for one or the other to be the only guiding principle, but you need both - and one has to find a way even when they appear completely irreducible. Democracy is beautiful in a very messy way, a bit like nature. |
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| ▲ | skeeter2020 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| which is why one or more gravitate to academic administrator, eventually become a professional politician and we're right back to where we started. In the meantime either something exciting or absolutely nothing might happen! |
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| ▲ | runarberg 37 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| A group of 80 academics sounds like the level of dysfunction that can only be superseded by a group of 80 politicians. |
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| ▲ | Brendinooo 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| "Winning was easy, young man. Governing's harder." |
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| ▲ | cmurf 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| They need historians and political scientists, and maybe some politicians, to constantly remind them not to allow perfection to be the enemy of good. It is not always obvious how to lay ground work over a decade ... or four of them. It isn't even mostly about fixing problems. But how to make government act as an expedient rather than as an impediment. |
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| ▲ | iLoveOncall 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Seems pretty obvious to me that it's not going to be 80 academics debating everything under the sun, but instead dedicated groups focusing on their expertise area... |
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| ▲ | HPsquared 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Liable to get hoodwinked by "academic publisher" types. |
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| ▲ | scotty79 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > MAN have you ever SEEN a working group of 80 academics? As compared to what? A working group of 80 uneducated idiots? If democracy doesn't work if you put smart, educated people in control then it doesn't work, period and we need to pay better attention to whatevere China is doing. |
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| ▲ | vconnor 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Because a working group of 80 career politicians is more effective? |
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| ▲ | christophilus 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Maybe. Politics is a skill, and not everyone has a knack for it. It’s dirty, requires compromise, and a willingness to work with your opponents. Or, well, at least it used to. | | |
| ▲ | palata 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Politics is a skill It very much is, but I don't believe it is the skill of "solving problems" or "making society better". Politics is about getting elected. Convincing the people that it's all the others' fault, that you know better, that you will save the world. And then when they get elected... we naively expect them to solve problems. But we selected them for their capacity at being selected, not their capacity at understanding the big problems society is facing... | | |
| ▲ | II2II 33 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | That is an overly cynical view. A lot of the problem can be attributed to voters accepting the blame game, overly simplistic solutions, and expedient absolutist views over debating a plurality of options. I'm not saying that the political system isn't to blame here. At least where I live, it is structured in such a way that winner takes all and loyalty to the party is more heavily rewarded than representing the constituent. But, again, that is a system that we in some sense designed. | |
| ▲ | ninkendo 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Politics is about getting elected There's a lot under the umbrella of "politics" that happens after you get elected. If you want to accomplish anything after you get elected (heck, even if it's just personal enrichment) you have to be somewhat skilled at getting others to work with you, one way or another. As a politician you can have flawless convictions and be right and well-informed about all your decisions, but at the end of the day you're just one vote (to use legislators as an example) and it does nothing if you can't convince or work with others. | | |
| ▲ | hibikir 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | It depends on the political system. In many a parliamentary system, voting differently than what you are told means you will not be in the party list ever again, so for the day to day, there's very little convincing effort when you have the majority. And especially in systems where there is very little legal money in politics, the carrot is just ability to get access for not-so-legal money. So party leadership is a matter of having enough businessmen friends, and having will to power in a rather unclean word. The whole "you are just one vote" doesn't really apply there. As the 30th legislator on your party list, you show up and vote as you are told. And in systems like the one in the US, barring rare moments, it's also not all that different. The card that your party will abandon you, and that if you want a position of any importance you have to play ball means many a junior congressperson just votes as they are told, and spends time fundraising. |
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| ▲ | scns 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Democracy is a popularity contest | | |
| ▲ | dghlsakjg 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yes. That’s kind of the point. The words aren’t that far apart in etymology either. By Latin definitions the most popular (liked by the general public) candidate will be the democratically chosen (rule by the people) one. | |
| ▲ | Forgeties79 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yes but the hope is we can make the popularity center on the solutions and ability to execute them. |
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| ▲ | amiga386 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | CHA is not a dump stat. Getting elected is table stakes and shows you have the soft skills needed to organise, campaign and convince. Which is the minimum you need to get disparate groups of humans to pull in the same direction and make progress in advancing the country. Theres no consolation if you get experts to plan solutions to problems but 1) the people you need to implement the plans have their own opinions or priorities and 2) the public want focus in some other priority and are start rioting if they don't feel heard. You need schmoozers as much as you need tacticians. | | |
| ▲ | chunky1994 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | There are two largely non-overlapping skillsets when it comes to politics and governance.
The soft skills being effective means you can get elected, that does not mean they are good at governing (and is often a detriment to having good solutions and governance). I don't currently have any data that says otherwise and the counterfactual remains unexplored (but it will be with this parliament!), but things that people do and say to get elected often are things that if implemented...would not solve the problems the populace that elected is having. I don't think we need schmoozers, we need people who understand the problems of their populace and have the structural power to implement their solutions. We shall see if they need more than this, but this would be the first exploration of the counterfactual. People who have their "own" priorities don't end up upsetting the apple cart when we make success in implementing those solutions the same as their success (which if we are effective problem solvers, should be possible. See Deng Xiaoping) |
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| ▲ | hugodan 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | great comment, poetic and to the point |
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| ▲ | t0bia_s 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Competence of democratic politicians is to be liked and get most votes. Usually it means to be without values. I hope more people will realize that voting for uknown politicians that offers empty promises for artificially made problems means givig up our responsibility and at the end, make things worse as we see in current democratic countries. | | | |
| ▲ | ykonstant 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | In some clusters, senior academics are exactly like that. | | |
| ▲ | blks 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | And in many others they’re small czars of their own kingdoms. However it’s always nice to refresh parliaments with new educated people, with new progressive political movements, shatter old alliances and practices. | |
| ▲ | 331c8c71 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | That's an understatement... |
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| ▲ | enaaem 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The “skill” of career politicians is mostly loyalty and appointing people based on loyalty is the worst criteria. | |
| ▲ | subscribed 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I would assume PhD holding people are smart enough to understand their limitations and strengths. They've been elected during a very special events. They know what's expected of them. Looks like compared to the previous powers this lot at least gives the country a fighting chance. | | |
| ▲ | xandrius 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Ehhh, that's the flaw in the logic. Holding a PhD doesn't necessarily make you better at anything other than strictly the topic of the PhD (and sometimes not even that), maybe only following arbitrary orders from senior figures. | | |
| ▲ | chunky1994 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Holding a PhD at the very least means you can spend a sustained long amount of time on (potentially) intractable problems and try to arrive at solutions for them. That's a good skill to have when...you've been elected to solve problems. |
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| ▲ | ryu2k2 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | We'd be living in a better world if politics was a skill and our politicians were good at it. | | |
| ▲ | Avicebron 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think he means polticians lying, being trecherous, compromising until nothing gets done and no ones career is hurt, etc is a skill. It would be better for the people if people with these skills were not in public office. Anything that takes away from being a servant to the constituents and become self-service needs to be removed from Politics. |
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| ▲ | dghughes 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | One could even say politics is also a science. | |
| ▲ | g-b-r 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I'm not sure if it used to be like that, but the skill required to politicians now is to get themselves elected, and that largely means the ability to lie well |
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| ▲ | eagleal 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Management is basically 99% people's relations/network. It doesn't matter how good the technical implementations are at the top, if they don't have the knowledge and capacity to enforce it downstream from middle layer to the base. There's so much people involved whose interests are farmed by your competitors. Imposing it top down requires oppression. Imposing or pressuring this huge layer from the bottom requires a continuously updated base so you can squeeze from the top and the bottom to enact the changes needed quickly. It's impossible for leaders at the top, to personally vet the members of a village or city council for example. I think I've never seen any of such concatenation of events and organization to have ever happened. | |
| ▲ | necovek 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I believe this is the usual tension that's present even in private companies: are professional managers better than field experts at managing work? The pure ideal is to get a field expert who is good at management — but sometimes hard to attain! The question then really becomes if — for a manager — a senior expert is better
than an experienced manager who can detect exactly when to pull in the experts? A great manager would be great, but these are similarly rare (rarer than good experts in a field). And this is probably always on a case-by-case basis: it completely depends on the circumstances, individual qualities, and supporting people around them to decide which is better for a given situation. The same holds here: the best you can get is an expert with a wide grasp of the entire field they will be active in, supported by good, smart common-sense people to manage and guide their thinking and solutioning in the right way. | |
| ▲ | gojogs 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Before you ask, Gyúcsány was better | |
| ▲ | meerita 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | This is an interesting experiment, although I wouldn't call it a technocracy just yet. Italy had technocratic governments under Mario Monti and, to a lesser extent, Mario Draghi, with mixed results. Having highly educated people in parliament is one thing; actually governing a country is another. Political leadership requires negotiation, compromise, institutional knowledge, and the ability to execute decisions. I'm curious to see how Serbia handles the transition from academic expertise to actual governance, especially without a conventional party leadership structure. |
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| ▲ | szundi 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
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