5 ms·

About once a week I consider dropping out of the tech industry and becoming a politician just so I don't have to sit and watch by the sidelines as incompetent,

About once a week I consider dropping out of the tech industry and becoming a politician just so I don't have to sit and watch by the sidelines as incompetent, ignorant people, who studied humanities with not a drop a technical aptitude, bullshit their way through funding and regulating technology. They are never well informed enough to come up with any sort or coherent solution, because they're barely capable in actually grasping the issue in the first place. They're just not qualified enough to know who they should be taking advice from, and who are the obvious snake oil peddlers. I live in the UK. Our Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology is a woman called Michelle Donelan. She graduated with a BA in history and politics, and her career outside of being a career politician was in marketing, including a time working on Marie Claire magazine and for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). How in the world is she qualified for to run the nations tech initiatives? If she was appointed as CEO of a tech company, the stock would sink like a rock over night. Dare I even get started on Michael Gove, who originally wanted the role...

drumhead 4y ago
Show me a politician that is?
- Aromasin 4y ago
  Canada's Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry; François-Philippe Champagne. Ex Vice-President and Senior Counsel of ABB Group, as well as Strategic Development Director, acting General Counsel, and Chief Ethics Officer and Member of the Group Management Committee of Amec Foster Wheeler. Taiwan's Minister of Digital Affairs; Audrey Tang. Tang was a child prodigy, reading works of classical literature before the age of five, advanced mathematics before six, and programming before eight, and she began to learn Perl at age 12. On CPAN, Tang initiated over 100 Perl projects between June 2001 and July 2006, including the popular Perl Archive Toolkit (PAR), a cross-platform packaging and deployment tool for Perl 5. South Korea's Minister of Science and ICT; Lee Jong-ho. Professor of electrical and computer engineering at Seoul National University. He was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 2016 for contributions to development and characterization of bulk multiple-gate field effect transistors. Australian Minister for Industry and Science; Edham Husic. Husic worked as a research officer for the member for Chifley, Roger Price. Husic was first elected as a branch organiser in 1997. In 1998, he was elected as vice-president of the Communications Division of the CEPU. From 1999 to 2003, he worked for Integral Energy as a communications manager. That's just from a quick search of some countries other than Europe/US/China. I tried Israel and Singapore too, but neither of those ministers had a "technical" background per-se.
- satvikpendem 4y ago
  Representative Riggleman asks about Rust usage, why the company under testimony used unstable versus stable Rust and what risks there are, who their GitHub contributors are and whether they're about to contribute from regions like Iran due to sanctions, and so on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-ZTkCNW0w8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-ZTkCNW0w8
SanderNL 4y ago
To be fair I think being a good politician requires a lot of competency. Way more than we have available. Not unlike software, the field is riddled with people that do a minimally-OK job, but couldn't actually care less about what they are doing or are so incompetent they cannot even see it. In a soft setting you can get really far like that. Tech usually stops you sooner, because things just don't work if you mess up. Social settings don't share that property. I don't disagree with your general point that technical competency is a really, really good idea, but I don't share the I guess cynism. Lots of people don't have the capabilities of their subordinates and that doesn't stop them from being effective leaders. The leaders we look at are just incompetent. It's the job. It sucks. Nobody that is actually good would want to do it. It ends your life. Edit: it also doesn't help that these leaders are chosen either directly or indirectly by people - the general public - that have no idea what the job actually entails. To become a politician you have to endure the political equivalent of a modern code interview - being "popular" - without actually testing if you can do the actual job and have the required levels of competency for it.
- Aromasin 4y ago
  I don't think "leaders" need to be SME's by any stretch of the imagination. If anything, I think it would hold them back because it's easy to lose yourself in the details. I do think that they should have a basic grasp of the fundamentals of their field though, and most politicians honestly don't even have that. I don't want to put up walls to being a back-bencher MP, but there should be a bare-minimum barrier for entry for certain Ministerial positions, especially one like Technology minister. You can't have someone leading a team who needs every-single-concept dumbed down for them so they can only make decisions from basic abstractions.
- iso1631 4y ago
  > The leaders we look at are just incompetent. I think the problem with democracy is we ultimately interview and select leaders whos skills are in persuading a population, but we don't generally need those leaders to actually take the job, we need people who are good at distilling information and making appropriate judgements for the benefit of the population
vasco 4y ago
"The technocratic illusion is that poverty results from a shortage of expertise, whereas poverty is really about a shortage of rights." William Easterly. I too wish they'd know more about what they decide on, but really they should already rely on subject matter experts and otherwise I don't think the problem is lack of knowledge, as the quote indicates. It was said in the context of erradicating poverty but I think it applies to these discussions too.
- ur-whale 4y ago
  > William Easterly. Arguing from authority is nice and all (not), but the problem is not lack of technical expertise in decision makers (no one can reasonably expect a politician to understand modern AI tools), but rather about the decision making process itself. There should be an established process by which such a dumb decision, with - in all likelihood - negative economic implications for the entire country, could be put to rest via a democratic process.
- Aromasin 4y ago
  I'm not asking for all of our Ministers to be technocrats. They needn't be SMEs. They needn't even be a major player in the industry prior to becoming a politician. But in all honesty, a Technology Minister not having a technical background is like an Education Minister being unable to read or write. I'm not asking for some IEEE fellow with 100s of patent. I'm not even asking for a junior engineer with a couple of years in the industry. Hell, I daren't even ask for someone with a Math A-Level at this point. I'm asking for someone who can string a sentence about technology together, while also understanding a 10th of what they just regurgitated. It's embarrassing watching the leader that is meant to represent our industry go on stage and repeat a babble of buzzwords that they learnt about 4 hours before, in their latest think-tank meeting. That's not leadership. That's bull-shiting, and it stinks.
  - vasco 4y ago
    Of course more expertise is better when all else is equal, I thought the quote stood on its own to not be interpreted as asking for less expertise. Rather that the source of the problems is a disregard for people's rights and other more basic failures, than not understanding how an LLM works.
switch007 4y ago
It would be nice for ministers to be tech experts but politics is an art and a game too, and they also have to be good at that. I don’t have much of a problem with a minister who knows they’re not an expert but makes it a top priority to surround themselves with people who are, and to listen to them, who has good morals. That of course describes zero Tory ministers but one can dream.
dzhiurgis 4y ago
Maybe the problem is “career politician” as in - having to be politician entire life to get thru to a meaningful position?
nonethewiser 4y ago
I think that’s a feature though. The people who get into position of power are competent at politics. It’s a system that optimized for bullshitting. It takes a literal psychopath to not get frustrated/drained. You’re probably far too sane to make it.
Lio 4y ago
UK politics, IMHO, is blighted by a cabal of Oxbridge unqualified humanities graduates that cycle between journalism and some role in politics (MP, Private Sectary, think tank, "policy advisor"). As consequence both journalism and politics in the UK seem less about the truth or doing what's best and more about selling convincing short term rhetoric. We need a revolution where we hang the last Cambridge classics graduate with the entrails of the last Oxford PPE graduate[1]. 1. Hahahahahaha, I'm joking[2] of course! 2. Kinda...

drumhead 4y ago

Show me a politician that is?

Aromasin 4y ago
Canada's Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry; François-Philippe Champagne. Ex Vice-President and Senior Counsel of ABB Group, as well as Strategic Development Director, acting General Counsel, and Chief Ethics Officer and Member of the Group Management Committee of Amec Foster Wheeler. Taiwan's Minister of Digital Affairs; Audrey Tang. Tang was a child prodigy, reading works of classical literature before the age of five, advanced mathematics before six, and programming before eight, and she began to learn Perl at age 12. On CPAN, Tang initiated over 100 Perl projects between June 2001 and July 2006, including the popular Perl Archive Toolkit (PAR), a cross-platform packaging and deployment tool for Perl 5. South Korea's Minister of Science and ICT; Lee Jong-ho. Professor of electrical and computer engineering at Seoul National University. He was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 2016 for contributions to development and characterization of bulk multiple-gate field effect transistors. Australian Minister for Industry and Science; Edham Husic. Husic worked as a research officer for the member for Chifley, Roger Price. Husic was first elected as a branch organiser in 1997. In 1998, he was elected as vice-president of the Communications Division of the CEPU. From 1999 to 2003, he worked for Integral Energy as a communications manager. That's just from a quick search of some countries other than Europe/US/China. I tried Israel and Singapore too, but neither of those ministers had a "technical" background per-se.
satvikpendem 4y ago
Representative Riggleman asks about Rust usage, why the company under testimony used unstable versus stable Rust and what risks there are, who their GitHub contributors are and whether they're about to contribute from regions like Iran due to sanctions, and so on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-ZTkCNW0w8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-ZTkCNW0w8

SanderNL 4y ago

To be fair I think being a good politician requires a lot of competency. Way more than we have available. Not unlike software, the field is riddled with people that do a minimally-OK job, but couldn't actually care less about what they are doing or are so incompetent they cannot even see it. In a soft setting you can get really far like that. Tech usually stops you sooner, because things just don't work if you mess up. Social settings don't share that property. I don't disagree with your general point that technical competency is a really, really good idea, but I don't share the I guess cynism. Lots of people don't have the capabilities of their subordinates and that doesn't stop them from being effective leaders. The leaders we look at are just incompetent. It's the job. It sucks. Nobody that is actually good would want to do it. It ends your life. Edit: it also doesn't help that these leaders are chosen either directly or indirectly by people - the general public - that have no idea what the job actually entails. To become a politician you have to endure the political equivalent of a modern code interview - being "popular" - without actually testing if you can do the actual job and have the required levels of competency for it.

Aromasin 4y ago
I don't think "leaders" need to be SME's by any stretch of the imagination. If anything, I think it would hold them back because it's easy to lose yourself in the details. I do think that they should have a basic grasp of the fundamentals of their field though, and most politicians honestly don't even have that. I don't want to put up walls to being a back-bencher MP, but there should be a bare-minimum barrier for entry for certain Ministerial positions, especially one like Technology minister. You can't have someone leading a team who needs every-single-concept dumbed down for them so they can only make decisions from basic abstractions.
iso1631 4y ago
> The leaders we look at are just incompetent. I think the problem with democracy is we ultimately interview and select leaders whos skills are in persuading a population, but we don't generally need those leaders to actually take the job, we need people who are good at distilling information and making appropriate judgements for the benefit of the population

vasco 4y ago

"The technocratic illusion is that poverty results from a shortage of expertise, whereas poverty is really about a shortage of rights." William Easterly. I too wish they'd know more about what they decide on, but really they should already rely on subject matter experts and otherwise I don't think the problem is lack of knowledge, as the quote indicates. It was said in the context of erradicating poverty but I think it applies to these discussions too.

ur-whale 4y ago
> William Easterly. Arguing from authority is nice and all (not), but the problem is not lack of technical expertise in decision makers (no one can reasonably expect a politician to understand modern AI tools), but rather about the decision making process itself. There should be an established process by which such a dumb decision, with - in all likelihood - negative economic implications for the entire country, could be put to rest via a democratic process.
Aromasin 4y ago
I'm not asking for all of our Ministers to be technocrats. They needn't be SMEs. They needn't even be a major player in the industry prior to becoming a politician. But in all honesty, a Technology Minister not having a technical background is like an Education Minister being unable to read or write. I'm not asking for some IEEE fellow with 100s of patent. I'm not even asking for a junior engineer with a couple of years in the industry. Hell, I daren't even ask for someone with a Math A-Level at this point. I'm asking for someone who can string a sentence about technology together, while also understanding a 10th of what they just regurgitated. It's embarrassing watching the leader that is meant to represent our industry go on stage and repeat a babble of buzzwords that they learnt about 4 hours before, in their latest think-tank meeting. That's not leadership. That's bull-shiting, and it stinks.
- vasco 4y ago
  Of course more expertise is better when all else is equal, I thought the quote stood on its own to not be interpreted as asking for less expertise. Rather that the source of the problems is a disregard for people's rights and other more basic failures, than not understanding how an LLM works.

switch007 4y ago

It would be nice for ministers to be tech experts but politics is an art and a game too, and they also have to be good at that. I don’t have much of a problem with a minister who knows they’re not an expert but makes it a top priority to surround themselves with people who are, and to listen to them, who has good morals. That of course describes zero Tory ministers but one can dream.

dzhiurgis 4y ago

Maybe the problem is “career politician” as in - having to be politician entire life to get thru to a meaningful position?

nonethewiser 4y ago

I think that’s a feature though. The people who get into position of power are competent at politics. It’s a system that optimized for bullshitting. It takes a literal psychopath to not get frustrated/drained. You’re probably far too sane to make it.

Lio 4y ago

UK politics, IMHO, is blighted by a cabal of Oxbridge unqualified humanities graduates that cycle between journalism and some role in politics (MP, Private Sectary, think tank, "policy advisor"). As consequence both journalism and politics in the UK seem less about the truth or doing what's best and more about selling convincing short term rhetoric. We need a revolution where we hang the last Cambridge classics graduate with the entrails of the last Oxford PPE graduate[1]. 1. Hahahahahaha, I'm joking[2] of course! 2. Kinda...