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Sharlin • today at 12:00 PM • 4 replies • view on HN

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.


Replies

roenxi • today at 12:49 PM

> 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 • today at 1:42 PM

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

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xenocratus • today at 1:26 PM

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

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psychoslave • today at 2:20 PM

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.