8 of China's Top 9 Govt. Officials Are Engineers 403
kkleiner writes "Did you know that the president of China is a scientist? President Hu Jintao was trained as a hydraulic engineer. Likewise his Premier, Wen Jiabao, is a geomechanical engineer. In fact, 8 out of China's top 9 government officials are scientists or engineers."
political SCIENCE (Score:2, Funny)
and all of ours are scientists.
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Eh. India's current Prime Minister [wikipedia.org] is an economist, and used to teach at Oxford. And ironically enough, his son is an attorney for the ACLU (oops). However, the former President used to be a rocket scientist [wikipedia.org].
Re:political SCIENCE (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:political SCIENCE (Score:5, Funny)
And here I thought you were about to say that Lawyers are far more likely than biologists to become rats. Actually, that's about right too.
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Re:political SCIENCE (Score:5, Funny)
Politics has nothing to do with science. Else they'd have to appeal to an ethical board or try it on mice before fucking with us.
chemistry isn't a science either (Score:3)
you go into the lab, you follow the instructions in the book. if it doesn't work like it's supposed to, you do it over again until you get it "right".
Slavery (Score:2)
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So how would YOU take a billion people out of poverty? The fact is, when there are a billion people waiting in line for a job, wages will be low. Institute minimum wages you say? Say goodbye to companies who will setup their factories elsewhere. Give everyone a social safety net? How, when you have nothing to give? Because of China's economic policies, people are taken out of poverty every day.
Compare this to the current US government: tax cuts for the richest, bailouts for the big banks (TARP and the Feds
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So how would YOU take a billion people out of poverty?
Not having a 12 step plan to create a billion jobs doesn't disqualify one from criticizing human rights abuses.
Institute minimum wages you say? Say goodbye to companies who will setup their factories elsewhere.
I don't hear anyone saying "If China would just raise minimum wages, everything would work out PERFECTLY!!!" Hell, I think even morons on cable news would propose a more nuanced plan than that.
The fact is, when there are a billion people waiting in line for a job, wages will be low.
Citation needed. What's the critical mass of population at which you are doomed to have low wages?
Compare this to the current US government: tax cuts for the richest, bailouts for the big banks (TARP and the Feds ~0% interest rates), subsidies for the oil companies. This comes all out of the pocket of its taxpayers, to further enrich the richest.
I think there's a false dichotomy going on here. The US being screwed up does not make the Chinese good.
Re:Slavery (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yes, the "no regulation" that leads to sweatshops and companies like Foxconn having their employees commit suicide due to shitty working conditions.
Re:Slavery (Score:5, Funny)
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Of course, Foxconn's employee suicide rate is less than [businesspundit.com] that of the rest of the Chinese population taken as a whole, but don't let that derail your derp.
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Of course, the article you quote is written by a liberal arts major like yourself, and, like you, lacks basic understanding of statistics.
You can't really compare the average Chinese (who still lives in extreme poverty, is lacking education and prospects for the future) to the person, who is allowed to live in Shenzhen (where Foxconn's main facility is located). Shenzhen's population is very far from a representative sample of the Chinese population. People there are much, much better educated (1/5 of China
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Okay, the suicide rate in the US is 11.3 individuals for every 100,000. That would be 45.2 suicides for 400,000 people (city the size of Shenzhen), giving us a difference of almost 3-to-1.
Or are you going to question our average education and and prospects now? (And I don't believe the Foxconn PhD's were the ones committing suicide...)
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I'm guessing what GP intended to say is 400,000 is the population Foxconn employs in Shenzen... that is, 10 out of 400k Foxconn employees have committed suicide in the past year, vs 45 out of 400,000 Americans.
There are other factors, like age, that come into play here, but if the facts are fairly even, this is a non-story. I've worked at an American company with 3,000 employees, and one of them committed suicide in 4 years I worked there... If I'm doing the math right, that is the equivalent of 33 suicides
Zhao Lianhai (Score:3)
google it.
that kind of thing doesn't happen in any 'free' country.
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Yes, the "no regulation" that leads to sweatshops and companies like Foxconn having their employees commit suicide due to shitty working conditions.
They've promised in writing not to do that anymore, and we've put up nets. Now get back to work before I beat you.
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Which gives an opening for the company to "suicide" someone, and claim that against next of kin.
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Yeah, those guys are slaves, with their no regulations and income tax rate half of ours.
Indeed. The regulations they often lack are for the workers' protection. And you have to have your head buried pretty deep in conservative propaganda to equate income taxes with slavery on any level. Actual slaves don't earn -any- income.
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Many traditions of slavery involve periodic payments from the master to the slave that the slave can spend as he wish or even save to buy his freedom one day. While the slave is ostensibly at the mercy of his master, in order to maintain face among his society, the master has to provide something to those under him. This is how it worked in ancient Rome, for instance.
Huh. Sorta like a .... job.
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No regulation? Ever heard of the "great firewall of China"? Falun Gong? Tienanmen Square? No regulation indeed.
Re:Slavery (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually I'm getting ready to accept a three year assignment in China. My tax rate rate (due to my income) will be 50%. Fortunately for me my company equalizes all of my taxes (a burdensome process in itself, described below), so I won't see the effects, but that's versus a net rate of only 26% (federal only) after my itemized deductions.
Tax equalization (I've been through this before when on assignment in Mexico): I owe 50% to the host country, and (say) 26% to my home country (only over about 90,000 when not in the USA). But because my company pays my foreign taxes, the USA regards that as income to me. So the company pays that back, which both China and the USA recognize as income to me. So that tax that, too. So the company pays that back, too, which is taxed by both countries.
In effect, I come out okay, the Chinese take well, well over 50% of my true, earned income, and the fact that the United States gets anything is just stealing from my company (every other modern country in the world doesn't tax overseas personal income).
Of course we all know the Chinese are communist in name, and in order to continue professing such they're socially obligated to tax us rich (compared to their workers) bastards at exploitative rates.
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In the US 8 out of 9 top government are lawyers. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In the US 8 out of 9 top government are lawyers (Score:5, Insightful)
>liberal democracy
But that's not what we have.
We have capitalist oligarchy neo-fascism instead.
Liberalism is a dirty word, don'tchaknow. It's been that way since 1980. Doing /anything/ that advances society overall and gets everyone a better standard of living instead of increasing the power of the ruling class is "bad." The oil companies /need/ that 20 billion dollar subsidy on top of their windfall profits. Because without it, the oil companies will stop delivering oil. Or something. Because the ruling class of the corporations knows better, for all of us.
We've even got an entire tv network spewing this garbage 24/7.
Fuck this country, for it is fucked.
The assholes at PNAC that got us into two wars should be swinging from nooses like the traitors they are.
--
BMO
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Uhhh ok fair enough. There is always emigration to China when it gets intolerably oppressive in the US.
Re:In the US 8 out of 9 top government are lawyers (Score:5, Insightful)
Doing /anything/ that advances society overall
bias.. the argument being that not everything progressives push for is any good for anyone but their social and economic (yes economic) lobbies. Same as the right. There are some differences on those lobby lists, but as you go up in donations, you start to see the same corporate interests funding both sides...funny eh? I wonder why that is?
The oil companies /need/ that 20 billion dollar subsidy on top of their windfall profits. Because without it, the oil companies will stop delivering oil. Or something. Because the ruling class of the corporations knows better, for all of us.
as opposed to an all-'knowing' government knows better? a government that routinely flouts the rules it expects everyone else to follow (unless they have lots of cash to buy them off).. sound familiar? it doesn't matter which party you support, you're supporting the same thing. the differences are becoming less and less relevant as time goes on..at least as far as solving today's issues goes..
Anyway, since neither party is doing me any favors, I'd like my freedoms back please. I don't need a bogeyman to keep me in line, nor do i want billions spent to fight it.
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But you're not going to find it if you are panicked or outraged. Panic and outrage is how people manipulate
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I think you missed your parent's point. The US doesn't need to be the world's paragon of liberal democracy in order for his point to be valid. The US is categorically more liberal and more democratic than China, and that makes the choice of under whom one would wish to be ruled a very clear one indeed.
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Bull Shit. If you want to see a neo-fascism, go to Russsia. One company, Gazprom, in Russia controls all monopolies. It uses the state to intimidate any up-and-coming companies into selling majority stake to Gazprom. The state officials hold positions in Gazprom while holding public offices (not after under big secret like its done in the US). The only equivalent in the US would be if Haliburton owned all of S&P 500 companies. Oh, and the current President of Russia is an ex-CEO of Gazprom.
Don't
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Re:In the US 8 out of 9 top government are lawyers (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not immediately clear why those things should have to go together. Maybe because analytical, honest people tell us things we don't want to hear? Carter was drummed out of office for telling us energy was finite, and that we needed to buckle down and tighten our belts a bit for a while. He got railroaded by an actor who told everybody whatever they wanted to hear and put us firmly on the path of financial irresponsibility.
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Reagan was happy. If you find people who really like Reagan, and get to the core of why they like him, it is usually something like this. They didn't like all his policies, but he was inspiring.
Surprisingly, similar in many ways to Obama.
Re:In the US 8 out of 9 top government are lawyers (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't speak for what it was like during the Carter or reagan admins, as I Wasn't born for the former and was too young for the latter; however, I am interested enough to ask those whom were around during that time why Carter was such a bad president and why Reagan is idolized. To sum it up, Carter was too scientific while Reagan was a charismatic leader. But there are only a few people in the world who can be both a scientist and a great leader.
Americans in general tend to ignore science because only a few understand the concepts. While those that do understand it outshine the rest of the world, the rest of the country are too confused by scientific discussion and, unfortunately, fall prey to skepticism of scientific results. What is really daunting is that scientific understanding is lacking at all levels of society. /. Frequenters are in a minority and a lot of our discussions are often logical and methodical. Slip an average American in these forums and their heads will start hurting in about thirty minutes, slip several /.'s in an American Idol discussion and we would probably have the same headaches. Carter simply fell in the wrong time to be a president. Methodical thinking takes too long to be effective in a political environment that wants instant gratification. Reagan seemed more of a shoot from the hip and ask questions later kind of person, and average Americans could cling more easily to someone they think is like them. It's one of the reasons Clinton, Bush, and even Obama are adored by the American public.
Having an expectation that one day we will have scientist at the highest level of authority is wishful thinking. Science isn't the American way. Profit is the American way, science is just a means to obtain it. Once you realize that people don't care that your scientific discoveries have saved lives, time, and made their lives more bearable, then you'll understand that the only thing people care about is the amount of money in your pocket at the end of the day. It's a sad but unfortunate truth.
Interesting. (Score:5, Insightful)
Surely China is lacking in a lot of areas, but I do find this interesting.
I grow really weary of western leaders being almost completely lawyers, polsci majors, bankers, economists, and the like.
It would be nice to have some ministers that actually come from the field they are in charge of more often than now, at least. Lawyers and bankers make laws for bankers and lawyers, go figure.
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Well my congressman is a physicist [house.gov], neener neener.
I'll take that over somebody who believes that some big invisible guy in the sky is controlling everything.
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I said it a few comments down... but I will take lawyers, polisci majors, bankers, and economists who support liberal democracy in a heartbeat over scientific leaders who endorse prison camps, massive censorship, brutal suppression of political dissent, for some reason want to crush the most non-threatening [wikipedia.org] people on the face of the planet [wikipedia.org], and who (at the very minimum tolerate) endorse forced sterilization [time.com]!
Re:Interesting. (Score:4, Insightful)
Because, obviously, all engineers and scientists will do this - given power - right?
I'm not saying the west needs a government like China, far from it. In fact my comment really has nothing to do with China, other than the fact that they coincidentally have some non-lawyers in charge. A stopped clock reads correct twice a day and all that.
I'd merely like to see a little more heterogeneous group in power here, with some scientific minded types involved.
Re:Interesting. (Score:5, Interesting)
An ex work mate of mine was a Chinese nationalist, he expressed his opinions on these matters.
He said china considers the Tibetan leaders to be exploiting its people, the tibetan people didnt have much, and they should have to give it to their leaders. China was trying to 'liberate' the people of tibet. Its the same excuse the US used to to invade iraq.
Falung-Gong is considered to be a font for the pro-democracy movement. Remember how the US persecuted communists and anyone associated with them, well, same thing.
Of course two wrongs dont make a right, and these reasons probably justify such actions in the eyes of most westerners, but its wise to at least consider the opinion of the other side rather than just listen to the biased media of one side.
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woops, meant to say
"and these reasons probably DONT justify such actions in the eyes of most westerners"
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He said china considers the Tibetan leaders to be exploiting its people, the tibetan people didnt have much, and they should have to give it to their leaders. China was trying to 'liberate' the people of tibet. Its the same excuse the US used to to invade iraq.
Falung-Gong is considered to be a font for the pro-democracy movement. Remember how the US persecuted communists and anyone associated with them, well, same thing.
Of course two wrongs dont make a right, and these reasons probably justify such actions in the eyes of most westerners, but its wise to at least consider the opinion of the other side rather than just listen to the biased media of one side.
To say these things are comparable because similar words were used to describe them is absurd:
* The US invaded Iraq in 2003, deposed a brutal dictator, handed the government to the Iraqi people who select their own leaders (who often oppose US policy), and now is leaving within 10 years. China conquered Tibet in 1951, imposed a Communist dictatorship ruled from Beijing in which the Tibetans have no power or representation, even took over their religion, and claims Tibet will be eternally part of Chi
Re:Interesting. (Score:5, Informative)
I dont believe that democracy in China would work better if it would be managed by the Chinese banker and lawyers and political majors.
Having lived in Germany i can say that the last professions where the culture was strongly influenced by Nazi ideology are the lawyers(/courts) and the philosophical sciences. The law system in Germany took 40 years to begin to reflect on its own role during this time. And some of the banks never reflected where their money came from.
This is because *by definition* being part of the legal system requires you to "be on the side of the state" in sense of your ideology. If at a single time this field adheres to the Idea of a "strong state" in the negative sense, that is a state consisting of the people in power (chosen by god, by money, or as some kind of elite), not of the people in general, then its very unlikely that the legal system will give up this view very quickly - the people in power will understand how to use this legal system.
This usually involves that people who oppose in some sense are declared to be "enemies of the state" and therefor have less rights. You can observe this idea nearly everywhere, and i would think that the western world, where the US are discussing if torture is ok again for suspected terrorists, and the European union not sending help to refugees on the Mediterranean sea and letting them drown, where its only 25years ago that the French secret service sunk the Rainbow warrier as enemies of the state, should be a little more humble when claiming ideals.
If you look closely to china you see that many, if not most of the human rights violations are *not* a centrally controlled act from Bejing (I exclude the question of Tibet, which is purely driven by the fact that the West wants a stick to poke China from time to time and China need to prove itself exactly because of that reason). Many things happen because locally (on the province-and city-level) the local officials actually dont want to have the central government and laws invading into their personal business, and the police and courts etc. also are - effectively - controlled by them.
If i look at China i am actually amazed that they managed to progress so well, despite that a large class of people in their system would profit from the situation staying constant. Looking at other parts of the world with a similar starting point, i can say that the human rights situation in China seems to be slowly improving, with bumps, and sometimes not in the direction like the West expects it, but the police and law system seems to get more and more stable.
The Chinese which i know (most of them are scientists) are usually well-informed, capable of critical thinking and confirm this view, and they overall feel that the things develop to the better.
My personal opinion is that there are dangerous paths down the road for China, and the west should try to help China to master these problem as much as we can - the best way to do this IMHO is to invite as many Chinese as we can into the West to work and stay for some time or longer, so they can look at it and hopefully the best (not the worst) of what they see and what can work there back with them.
This does not mean we should not mention where we think something is going wrong, actually we should, but i think it would be more productive to keep political interests out of it.
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The alternative is worse: laws that have good intention, but end up having good economic reaction only in short term. While in the long term the reaction would be completely reversed, making the consequences the opposite of what was intended. This is quite common in economics.
And most western politicians (Score:2, Interesting)
Chinas economy is growing without having to steal oil
Americas economy is falling even after stealing oil.
i see a pattern.
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Chinas economy is growing without having to steal oil Americas economy is falling even after stealing oil.
To be fair, we didn't steal it nearly as cost-effectively as we could have, and the economic failings weren't directly related to religion, a lack of scientists in government, OR the stealing of oil.
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america is not alone in that pasttime..
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Chinas economy is growing without having to steal oil
lol yeah, they arrest people [wikipedia.org] to push down the price of iron ore. Then they steal technology for high speed trains [wsj.com]. Then they sell poisoned baby food [wikipedia.org]. But those are minor issues, you missed the most important points.
The main difference between China and the US, economically speaking, is that Chinese officials are trying a managed economy. They reward companies they like, and punish companies they don't like. They try to steer economic growth. Whereas the US has a more traditional approach of not interferi
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On stealing high speed train tech... I figure I read that story some time ago. My recollection is the chinese had a unifed negotiation team whipsawing the different western vendors against each other. No stealing, just real clever hard ball. We are not even talkng MPAA pirating here. So what exactly is the criticism that generates "stealing".
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There is a huge difference between what China is doing, and what USSR did.
There were no companies in USSR - not independent, not even semi-independent. It was truly a planned economy, where all movement of money and of goods was fully planned ahead from up above to form one grandiose scheme. This broke down because the complexity was beyond anything manageable, and because the incentive become corrupt in such a system is very high.
Chinese tried that and it worked no better for them. Now, they've transitione
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to that I'd reply that Chinese Confucianism is just as dogmatic and anti-liberal as any religion in the West, and the acuteness to which Chinese citizens acquiesce to nepotism just as damning to their future.
That explains everything (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey fellow geeks, tell me what you think about population control.. are you fundamentally opposed to involuntary sterilization or do you think it might sometimes be the right solution?
Some of the scariest social policies that I've ever heard have come out of the mouths of engineers. We're inherently heartless bastards who consider ourselves intellectually superior and so should have the right to sweep aside individual rights for what we consider to be the greater good.
For many of us, it has taken years of deprogramming to free ourselves from the "our kind know better" mindset.
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so, engineers are like Borg?
Yes, population control makes sense (Score:2, Insightful)
Has it ever once occurred to you that there is a hard, cold reality outside of whatever "politically correct" bullshit you like to think about. Sure, millions of Americans think that population control is wrong. Mostly for religious reasons.
But even if every human being on the planet were opposed to it, there is a REALITY we live in. And in that reality, there is finite living space, farmland, and resources available for a given level of technology. (granted, technology gradually lifts the limits but po
Re:Yes, population control makes sense (Score:4, Insightful)
Go look at Africa to see what happens when there's no control.
Funny thing is, the problems in Africa have absolutely nothing to with the population. Hell, they have a low population for the amount of arable land on that continent. Their problems stem from the thugs and olgiarchs and kleptos running the various governments in Africa, If you could get good leadership, the population on that continent could greatly expand with out harming the land.
Try again with a better arguement
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Go look at Africa to see what happens when there's no control.
Funny thing is, the problems in Africa have absolutely nothing to with the population. Hell, they have a low population for the amount of arable land on that continent. Their problems stem from the thugs and olgiarchs and kleptos running the various governments in Africa, If you could get good leadership, the population on that continent could greatly expand with out harming the land.
Try again with a better arguement
In other words the problems in Africa have everything to do with too weak governments or with no government at all (think Somalia).
A thug running a diamond business, monopolizing a country's institutions is not 'government', it's a thug running a diamond business who managed to kill or control all other thugs and thus managed to monopolize. Dictatorship is the ultimate end game of free-for-all archeo-capitalism: the big fish has eaten all the small fish.
Is that the model of society you envision for Americ
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I'm ok with population control. if we don't do something, we WILL have to implement involuntary sterilization in order to survive. I'd start with tax incentives... first two kids get an education on the state..after that, you pay.. how about reforming the welfare system so that it doesn't reward people with no money from getting married and pumping out the kids. just for starters..
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So I rather choose that some generations are allowed to have one child (and some to have three) than letting people starve or starting wars for water and food. Call me evil.
For even thinking that it is or should be your choice, I do call you evil. Did no-one ever explain to you the concept of convincing others through argument? Even if your intentions are good, immediately reaching for the stick to force others into your view of the world is what makes you evil. Thinking that you're entitled to that power is what makes you evil. The assumption that you know better is what makes you evil. I really wish I knew why so many of my fellow geeks suffer from this hubris. It shou
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I don't think I personally know better. But that is an altogether different argument.
As an atheist, I recognize that all morality is the product of our own society. It cannot be applied to situations where the society itself crumbles. I can easily imagine several possible scenarios where forced population control would be necessary for survival of the group. In such a situation, if I were in a position where it would be up to me to decide to implement population control by force, or not do and risk the demi
Minor quibble... (Score:5, Informative)
> Did you know that the president of China is a scientist? President Hu Jintao was trained as a hydraulic engineer.
So, he's not a scientist, he's an engineer. That's not a slam against engineers (or scientists) but I believe that the two outlooks are very different.
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>Did you know that China doesn't have a "President" in any meaningful sense [wikipedia.org] of the word? President Hu Jintao is an "organ of the state" who is a figurehead for the National People's Congress, a largely powerless body selected by the Chinese Communist Party [wikipedia.org].
So, he's a figurehead not a president. That's not a slam against presidents (or figureheads of repressive oligarchies) but I believe that the two outlooks are very different.
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Now, that does not mean he is a good leader, which is probably a bigger problem.
8 out of 9 ... or not...? (Score:3)
The slashdot headline says "8 of China's Top 9 Govt. Officials Are Engineers." The slashdot summary says, "8 out of China's top 9 government officials are scientists or engineers," in a link to singularityhub.com. Singularityhub says "In fact, 8 out of China's top 9 government officials are scientists," in a link to forbes.com. Forbes.com doesn't say anything about 8 out of 9 anything.
So we have some possibilities: (a) 8/9 are engineers (slashdot headline); (b) 8/9 are scientists (singularityhub); (c) 8/9 are scientists or engineers (slashdot summary); (d) none of the above (original source, forbes.com).
This stuff about comparing the US's science and engineering to China's is just plain dumb, and not only is it dumb, it's getting really, really old. Didn't we have enough of this in the Sputnik era?
Some reality checks: (1) Science is not a zero-sum game. If someone in China publishes a really good scientific paper, it makes the US better off, not worse off. (2) The US is a capitalist country, where labor is a market, and the value of a particular skill is set by supply and demand. If employers are having trouble hiring enough scientists, they'll offer higher pay for scientists. Ditto for engineers. (3) Chinese higher education sucks to high heaven. US higher education is the envy of the world. (How many US college graduates do you know who go to China for grad school?) (4) Science and engineering are two different things.
That's also why they are not great leaders (Score:2)
While we here in this forum respect engineers and scientists (because we are one of them,) they don't necessary make great leaders by any mean. So far, these 8 Chinese top officials, like the 8 preceding them, are just following the game plan set up by the early true leaders Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, neither of whom are engineers but career generals and politicians. You can even claim the current leaders are "better" because they have not committed massive wrongdoings such as Great Leap Forward or Cultu
Re:That's also why they are not great leaders (Score:4, Informative)
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Please! We got you beat easily (Score:4, Informative)
100 out of 100 are laywers in the US and not the attractive altruistic 22 year old laywers that you see on TV.
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Yes look at Obama
Also, nine out of nine (Score:2)
Scoff at the concept of democracy or freedom of information.
Not a surprise (Score:2)
The Chinese consider science and technology extremely important for the development of their state. There are many, many universities in China which focus SOLELY on producing Engineers. Not a surprise they'd prefer those sorts in people positions of power than the Western world, who for some reason prefers lawyers.
When did these leaders study? (Score:2)
People daily propaganda (Score:5, Interesting)
Firstly these are not scientists, they are politicians with engineering degrees.
Secondly, they are also all second and third generation Communist Party Members, their parents were all big CCP players, what makes you think they had to do any work to get their qualifications? Every one of them was virtually guaranteed to get a degree no matter what their ability.
Third, even if they did their work, have you even been to any Chinese universities? All but the very top two are shockingly terrible, and I teach at a Chinese university, the standard here is.....shocking, cheating is so rife that it makes nearly all tests worthless it doesnt even compare to the crappest community college back home.
Fourth, have any of these people actually worked as engineers or have they been politicians all their life?
Fifth, what makes you think an engineer would be better at running a country than anyone else?
This smells like something put out by the people daily.
Your point? (Score:2)
How many constitutional law professors, human rights lawyers, or social scientists do they have in top government places?
Engineers serve valuable roles and are certainly well qualified in many respects, but running a country that's both successful and treats its people well requires wisdom that no college degree can ever confer. I take it that kkleiner meant to imply that China has set the standard in some way, and that other nations do themselves a disservice by not having as many engineers in top decision
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Peru has had a series of generals and lawyers running the country, and one engineer. The country progressed more under the Fujimori government than the previous three decades, and most of the last decade has bee
So is AQs. So what is the point? (Score:2)
We are doomed (Score:2)
I'm an engineer, not a scientist. (Score:2)
I'm an engineer. There's no way in hell that I ever pretend that I'm a scientist. We're practical. We execute science, not discover it (generally speaking).
Different expectations (Score:5, Interesting)
I've seen this story before, and my response is the same now as then: this is because of different expectations of the nations' leaders.
The Chinese government has full control over everything in its borders: laws, people, economic output. It's leaders can direct the entire nation however they see fit. That means the best leaders have to be able to cope with the things they can't control: the immutable limits of physics and economics. The job of any engineer (which, I might add, is not the same as scientist) is to solve problems in the best way possible with available tools under the available constraints. The Chinese toolbox is wide open, so the constraints are all physical, and an engineer's knowledge is directly applicable.
In the U.S., the people have chosen a different route: the government does what we specifically tell them they can. The constraints are primarily legal, because the government (relatively speaking) is allowed to do very little. A lawyer's ability to navigate the mine field of who is likely to be affected, who is likely to sue, and what is likely to be shot down in court is more useful to the high-level bureaucrat. Actual problems of a sort an engineer or other knowledge worker would face are the responsibility of others. There jobs are derived from a very small part of the very small leeway we give the government. (This abundance of lawyers in government is also why the American people put a premium on military experience, since it's the government department most steeped in harsh, broad-focus, real-world logistics.)
Both of these can be compared to, say, France, where the government is the nexus of the economic, legal, and even social circles. It controls industry more directly at times than the U.S. government, so businessman represent a larger share of leadership (about a third). The legal issues are similar to the U.S., but with the government fundamentally allowed more direct intervention. Hence lawyers and former lower-level bureaucrats each take about another third of the leadership roles.
Explanation (Score:3)
I wrote my previous post in haste, so I didn't get to explain why China's government has so many engineers.
Today's top leaders are in their mid to late 60s, some even in their 70s, which means they began their higher education in the 1960s and 1970s. That was a time before the Economic Reform era, and China was still a planned society with a planned economy, which meant that post-secondary education and later career were assigned centrally. You took your national college entrance exam in high school, and your score determined which university you went to and what piece of the workforce quota you would later fill. Engineering was a tough field then as it is now, and what do you know the higher you scored the more likely you were assigned to an engineering school. These bright kids joined the party, went into politics, and carried their degrees along with them. One should not make the mistake of assuming it was because of those degrees that they have succeeded in China's political environment, nor to assume that they are better leaders due to that engineering degree above some other had they had the freedom to choose.
Engineering Efficiency (Score:2)
Engineers Managing Their Engineered Society (Score:2)
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Wait, that's what it was like in the US during our golden age? WTF!? Didn't they know that we can fix any problem by just throwing tuition money at it to the point that colleges feel the need to build waterparks with lazy rivers an every campus?
Re:Worthless degrees by equally worthless schools. (Score:5, Informative)
That's a good one. Yes, let's forget all the people in that "golden age" that only made it into colleges due to their parent's wealth.
Re:Worthless degrees by equally worthless schools. (Score:4, Informative)
I do hope you all don't think this way.
Don't be fooled by the Faux News view of China.
One day you'll wake up and it'll be too late to do anything about their world markets domination.
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Re:Worthless degrees by equally worthless schools. (Score:5, Informative)
One day you'll wake up and it'll be too late to do anything about their world markets domination.
China's got a buttload of problems coming up fast, like:
Re:Worthless degrees by equally worthless schools. (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article:
Thirty-four countries were assessed in all by the PISA test, considered to be the most comprehensive of its type. Out of those 34 the U.S. ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math.
China’s 15-year olds also took the test. They ranked 1st, 1st, and 1st.
Is your point that the PISA test is either a useless measure or intentionally slanted to favor China ?
Your signature seems to imply a view that anything that casts the US in an unfavorable light in comparison with the rest of the world, including self introspection as to how we could be better, is suspect.
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Your signature seems to imply a view that anything that casts the US in an unfavorable light in comparison with the rest of the world, including self introspection as to how we could be better, is suspect.
Given how faddish and unthinking this sort of thing tends to be, yes, it should be questioned. Given that China's 15 year olds supposedly beat not just the US (which frankly is an easy target) but everyone else including Japan and the whole of Europe, then I wonder how, not if, they gamed the test.
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This test was administered to only students living in Shanghai, and as such was not representative.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/education/07education.html [nytimes.com]
The fact is that away from the coastal cities China is still very backward.
Re:Worthless degrees by equally worthless schools. (Score:5, Insightful)
Part of the problem though is this is viewed as a China vs US issue and creates arguments (see other posts here) about China's political flaws or the test's flaws. The US scored below the average of all countries, whether China was 1st, 4th or dead last is somewhat immaterial.
We can't improve as long as our gut reaction is to take any criticism, either internally or externally generated, as a personal affront.
PISA is quite flawed as a test (Score:2)
A few questions:
How many of those people took that test in each of those countries?
What is their admissions criteria for access to education?
What determined the sets of people who were able to access the test?
How voluntary was participation in taking the test of individuals?
With that, PISA can easily be fooled by presenting only the set of people who are good at taking that kind of test. Second, the admissions criteria for PISA-level education is less rigid in the US than many other countries. It favors p
Re: (Score:3)
I have a point to make, but first I'll give you sweet, sweet data. Here's [wikipedia.org] the relevant Wikipedia page, you can backtrack the direct sources from there. These are the 2009 PISA results:
Math: China (#1), Finland (#6), United States (#30)
Reading: China (#1), Finland (#3), United States (#17)
Sciences: China #1), Finland (#2), United States (#23)
= = = = = =
And now, the average cost to teach a child (Primary/Grammar/Elementary School Source [nationmaster.com], Secondary/High School Source [nationmaster.com]) For Primary School and High School:
Pr
Re:Worthless degrees by equally worthless schools. (Score:5, Insightful)
Then you'd have to include Japan in that. And England. And most other nations that realize that there's nothing wrong with vocational schools, and that some people are better off going to one of them instead of college.
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Cultural Revolution what?