4 ms·

I’m not sure this is accurate, if attempting to compare US political figures with those of other countries. I don’t know if there is hard data on this, but I wo

I’m not sure this is accurate, if attempting to compare US political figures with those of other countries. I don’t know if there is hard data on this, but I would bet the US Congress has proportionally just as many graduates of top universities as any other legislative body in the world. If anyone wants to crunch the numbers, I would be excited to see the percentage of US Congresspeople with serious educational attainments vs Japanese, French, German, Canadian, or any other similar body.

einpoklum 7y ago
Graduating university does not an intellectual make.
- indecisive_user 7y ago
  Sure, at the individual level graduating from a top tier university or with a phd doesn't mean you're an "intellectual". But from a population standpoint, the two are certainly correlated. The number of congress people should be large enough to assume population level statistics unless there's some serious biases _against_ intellectuals running for or winning political races.
  - shsjdhsi 7y ago
    I disagree. After a certain amount of the pop. gets certain degrees, it’s just a cheapening of the degree. For example, despite having an eng PhD from a top 10 (5?) university in the US, I know I wouldn’t have been awarded one from a top 100 50 years ago. The standards were higher And you don’t cheapen what you treasure.
  - einpoklum 7y ago
    > The number of congress people should be large enough to assume population level statistics It's not a uniform sample. In fact, it's not even sampling from the same population - it's a set of samples of size 1...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- SoylentOrange 7y ago
  You are 100% right. However I was trying to respond to the parent commenter’s point about mediocrity. I was trying to craft a simple metric which would speak to mediocrity. It’s an imperfect metric for sure.

4 ms·

I’m not sure this is accurate, if attempting to compare US political figures with those of other countries. I don’t know if there is hard data on this, but I wo

by SoylentOrange 7y ago

einpoklum 7y ago
Graduating university does not an intellectual make.
- indecisive_user 7y ago
  Sure, at the individual level graduating from a top tier university or with a phd doesn't mean you're an "intellectual". But from a population standpoint, the two are certainly correlated. The number of congress people should be large enough to assume population level statistics unless there's some serious biases _against_ intellectuals running for or winning political races.
  - shsjdhsi 7y ago
    I disagree. After a certain amount of the pop. gets certain degrees, it’s just a cheapening of the degree. For example, despite having an eng PhD from a top 10 (5?) university in the US, I know I wouldn’t have been awarded one from a top 100 50 years ago. The standards were higher And you don’t cheapen what you treasure.
  - einpoklum 7y ago
    > The number of congress people should be large enough to assume population level statistics It's not a uniform sample. In fact, it's not even sampling from the same population - it's a set of samples of size 1...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- SoylentOrange 7y ago
  You are 100% right. However I was trying to respond to the parent commenter’s point about mediocrity. I was trying to craft a simple metric which would speak to mediocrity. It’s an imperfect metric for sure.