Here you assume that both engineering and politics are purely objective sciences, where one's cultural background is irrelevant, but that is true in neither cas

Here you assume that both engineering and politics are purely objective sciences, where one's cultural background is irrelevant, but that is true in neither case. The fact that silicon valley is mostly white men of a certain age and economic status has a big effect on what gets built, and what doesn't get built -- think about elon musk's obsession with tunnels and car transportation and disdain for public transit. Regardless how you feel, tht isn't just an objective rational problem, the fact that Elon isn't someone who has ever taken or relied upon public transit matters. The same is true if social policy -- it's easy to look at the voting decisions of people without college degrees as "stupid" and "uninformed", but I would challenge you to think about how their actions are just as informed and reasoned as people in your demographic, they just come to a different conclusion because of their economic and cultural background. "Education" is often a proxy for race or class in political discussions. I would argue that policy (and engineering) is much more about values than knowledge -- is housing a human right? Is healthcare a human right? Should the United States acknowledge and repair the damages of slavery and systemic racism? Should we accept asylum seekers? Everyone may have compelling, reasoned arguments to these questions, but it is naive to say only college educated specialists have the correct ones.