

Did you know that China is run by engineers?  I didn't. - mtraven
http://omniorthogonal.blogspot.com/2010/10/i-for-one-welcome-our-new-chinese.html

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est
Chinese here. Did you know that China is run by assholes with an engineering
degree? Seriously, Chinese officials tend to buy a degree to make themselves
look more educated.

~~~
whatajoke
Indian here. There are a few leaders in India who can't speak one coherent
sentence in english, even though they have a masters degree in english,

~~~
skowmunk
I second that. India desperately needs better quality leaders.

(me injun)

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darwinGod
Singapore's rise as an economic power is also something to be marveled at. The
country was nothing till 1965 when they achieved independence, and separated
from Malasia.

I dont remember where I read this- Singapore government had a similar policy
of choosing extremely qualified people as their top level politicans- Look at
what they have achieved in such a short time!

Would love to learn more about what shaped Singapore politics and their
economic miracle-Please post links, if you have any.

~~~
alizaki
having lived in Singapore for 6 years now, i can tell you its a fascinating
story.

Start with this book: [http://www.amazon.com/Conversations-Lee-Kuan-Yew-
Singapore/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Conversations-Lee-Kuan-Yew-
Singapore/dp/9812616764) \- It's basically a free ranging interview with Lee
Kuan Yew, the man who essentially engineered Singapore.

if you dont want to get the book, just google him and read. Lots of very
interesting articles.

~~~
gbog
Never lived in Singapore but read about it. The trick is apparently to keep
the Confucean culture alive and open it to new technologies. It is exactly
what Chinese reformists wanted to do one century ago, but failed. China is a
bigger stone to roll than Singapore...

Confucianism is not very cool: it's all about respecting your parents, your
spouse, your boss, your friends, and educating well your kids. Not a trendy
form of gouvernment, as it may not allow open rebellion against authorities,
but it worked not so bad for nearly two millenaries, before collapsing under
its own weight. In China they would like to get it back somewhat. NB:
Confucianism is only very remotely related to Confucius' actual teaching.

~~~
drinian
I think that Pa Chin's classic novel _Family_ is a pretty good exposition of
the cruelties of Confucianism, as practiced in the Chinese middle class last
century. Highly recommended.

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DanielN
There was an article in the economist a few years ago about the dominant
professions of government leaders for various countries. I couldn't find it,
but the basic gist was it is more a reflection of the most accessible prestige
positions in a given country rather than the values of that country. If I
remember correctly the study was inconclusive as to whether this actually
effected governance in any meaningful way.

I'm disappointed I couldn't find the article cause it was interesting to see
the dominance in various countries: engineers in china, businessmen in japan,
lawyers and legacy wealth in the us, lawyers in the uk, teachers and doctors
in france, etc.

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fhe
it merely reflects what professions attract the smartest students (or at least
the most ambitious) in the different countries. (by the way, Chinese here,
living in China). In the States, 30 years ago, the most ambitious kids went to
study law; in china at the time, the most ambitious/intelligent studied
engineering. A friend of mine from latin america pointed out that in there,
political leaders tend to be medical doctors.

at any rate, I certainly have no problem with china rising, but i sure hope
the China model doesn't gain credit and acceptance, with economic growth at
the expense of sacrificing the environment and personal liberty. I don't know
if the US was anything like this at a comparable stage of economic
development, but lving in beijing for just a couple of days and you'll realize
the heavy environmental toll that the Chinese are paying.

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BvS
" We're run by a combination of lawyers and lunatics; how could a society run
by wise engineers not surpass us?"

Well, first of all the "lunatics" running the US (and for that matter almost
all democracies) at least don't kill their own citizens for disagreeing with
them. Quite an accomplishment in my view.

Besides you have to put Chinas growth in perspective. They started with an
economy that was closer to the mid-ages than anything. Growing from this base
makes it much easier to get high percentage growth rates over the years. The
GDP per capita ist still more than 12 times higher in the US than in China
which as a whole is still a developing country (according to the IMF).

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teyc
America isn't exactly a Taliban with nukes. Just yet.

Hoover was an engineer, but that was a long time ago.

I think a country needs more historians at the helm. They might take a
slightly longer view.

~~~
shykes
I disagree. Historians are over-specialized, and seem to always recognize the
particular pattern they did their thesis on, no matter what the subject at
hand.

The same goes for foreign policy majors, who actually run our country.

~~~
teyc
> seem to always recognize the particular pattern they did their thesis on.

That'll only be true if Hoover ran the country like a mine, or Reagan ran the
country like a movie set.

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shykes
The sentence you quoted was about historians. I'm pretty sure your reply makes
no sense at all.

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devmonk
"Presumably a society run by engineers will at least not neglect to invest in
infrastructure like we do."

Are you considering all of China? I'm pretty sure the U.S. overall
infrastructure is still better than theirs. They wouldn't build up anything
that wouldn't profit the state.

Maybe eventually that will change.

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c1sc0
Maybe not now but it certainly _will_ be in a few years for the simple reason
that they rebuild everything from scratch and can leapfrog technologies. China
doesn't care about being backwards-compatible: they'll just tear down &
rebuild whole districts every few years. And they still have the cheap labour
to do it at a far faster pace than _any_ public infrastructure project in the
western world.

~~~
gbog
Yes, I second that (living in China, they redo ring roads overnight here). I
also heard that in China in one year they currently build more kilometers of
_bridges_ than in US they build kilometers of highways. (No link to back that,
just a hearsay.)

~~~
mrtron
Does China have have many American style highways? When I visited Beijing and
area - the multilane roads weren't connected with overpasses and ramps like
the American system. This resulted in incredibly slow traffic. Also results in
things like the 100km+ traffic jam they had this summer.

Their subway system in Beijing was very large and well connected but was still
overcrowded to the point of being unusable during rush hour.

Such a large population - must be an engineers dream.

~~~
gbog
I had the same feeling when visiting New-York. Their highways have overpasses.
What you saw in Beijing is probably not highways, it is just the normal
8-lanes roads that squares the city. Traffic is a mess in the city, for sure.
I heard they sell 1000 new cars everyday in Beijing, so it is not an easy task
to dissolve the jam. They have a law forbidding every car one day per week,
based on your plate number, so wealthy people buy two, and less wealthy use
public transport or bike once a week at least.

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johannchiang
It is great for building up the hardware side of nation, but not "software"
side. The cultural advancement is lagging behind the infrastructure
improvement planned by engineers.

~~~
mr_twj
Technocrats understand that technology is the only thing that reduces cultural
lag, _more or less_. _On the other hand_ , artificial scarcity keeps it going
strong. These two processes are inversely proportional in respect to time,
meaning the effect of artificial scarcity will eventually become trivial in
effect on cultural progression as it follows the rate of technological
advancement.

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skowmunk
Responding to all the comments saying "engineers are better" or "historians
are better" or someone is else better, I think all those arguments are just
moot.

To effectively lead big nations or corporates, doesn't one need to be able to
comprehend and deal with issues much beyond just ones education or work
background?

Wouldn't it require an engineer who understand the non-engineering aspects or
vice-versa?

Once, I got a list of CEOs of fortune 100 companies compiled with their
education background researched. The education column was half full, my
contractor could not find the education of all (nor I think, I could). Of
those, whose education we could find, it was all over the place, engineering,
psychology, accounting, law, chemical and what not.

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skowmunk
I read an article last year or the year before (could have been in Time or
Fortune). It was about China's Politburo - the 10 men council at the very top
of their administration. They literally set the direction and policies for
their country. Some 6 out of 10 of them had Ph.Ds in Engineering/Science.

That was definitely very admirable, for a country in their position, where
they have to bring out large masses of people out of poverty, as quickly as
possible, you need such leadership.

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arst
This is about to change. Due to the way seniority and retirement ages are
respected by the Chinese leadership you can track very clear generational
shifts. In 2012 the fourth generation is going to mostly give way to the fifth
generation, which has a much wider educational background. There will still be
plenty of engineers in charge, but also many with majors in the social science
-- e.g. Li Keqiang, expected to be the next Premier, has a PhD in economics.

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lionhearted
The relative starting points of China and USA are very far apart. Post-WWII,
the United States has had top notch science, commerce, inventing, trade,
entertainment, and been a very desirable location for emigration to. China
went a little differently.

The Japanese attacks ravaged a lot of the wealthiest parts of China, then the
Chinese civil war destroyed a lot more infrastructure, and then the cultural
revolution killed millions of talented people. Deng Xiaoping inherited a real
mess, very little, and it's amazing how he turned it around. Probably the
greatest statesman of the last 100 years, Deng Xiaoping.

The United States is still ahead of China, but USA is trending slowly
downwards where China is trending moderately quickly upwards. Still a lot of
advantages for the United States, and it could get turned around. But yes, a
government run by lawyers and lobbyists is not a sustainable governance model.
We'll see though, things could get turned around pretty quickly in America.
Still the best place in the world for technology, inventing, entrepreneurship,
and research, which is huge. China seems to have emerged as a legitimate world
power though, no doubt about that.

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anamax
A fairly large fraction of "terrorists" are engineers. Do the same predictions
apply to them?

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bluethunder
The rise of China will most likely prove the communist model to be the best
model of governance.

The growth that China has seen over the last 20 years has surpassed anything
that any other country has ever achieved - even the US.

And if a country throws up a George Bush for 10 years and then an Obama who
doesnt seem to deliver much, democracy has already lost. Similarly with India,
democracy simply does not work, and Singapore where communism has done
wonders.

Somehow I have always seen an American corporation as having a communist
structure and rarely experimented (mostly unsuccessfully) with a democratic
one.

~~~
drinian
China is not a Communist country, and is not following a "communist model."
Not to mention Singapore -- who on earth are you?

Moreover, China's growth is nothing compared to Japan's economic miracle. The
fact of the matter is that China has far better national resources than Japan
ever did, and should have succeeded decades ago. It was the early leadership
that held it back.

~~~
mrtron
Another Asian tiger, Taiwan is democratic and had one of the fastest and most
sustainable growth stories from the 60s onward.

Their government picked some key industries like semiconductors and invested a
lot of resources towards training a workforce and stimulating business. It has
paid off in huge dividends. All done democratically.

Additionally their recent environmental push is driven by local people and
very democratic - individual recycling rates have skyrocketed. It will be
interesting to see if they can do the same with renewable energy.

~~~
simc
Taiwan's first election was in 1996, though there was very gradual political
reform from 1978 onwards. Before that the Guomindang Party ruled Taiwan using
the sort of party-state capitalist Leninist system that the Chinese Communist
Party rules mainland China with today.

~~~
drinian
A good model, perhaps, for the Beijing government?

