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If you're looking for a country ruled by engineers, one of the closest examples you'll find is... China. Jiang Zemin? Electrical Engineer. Hu Jintao? Hydrau
by DarkShikari 18y ago
If you're looking for a country ruled by engineers, one of the closest examples you'll find is... China.
Jiang Zemin? Electrical Engineer. Hu Jintao? Hydraulic Engineer. Wen Jiabao? Geomechanical Engineer. Zhu Rongji? Electrical Engineer.
You have to go back to the time of Deng Xiaoping to find leaders who weren't engineers. China's current party doctrine? "Scientific Development Concept," a seemingly engineering-inspired strategy, the concepts of which have Mao rolling in his grave.
One can see the results of this sort of engineering-driven government in projects like the Three Gorges Dam; the Party leaders did an engineering-style cost/benefit analysis, measuring the cost of displacing millions of people versus the benefit of the dam, and decided in favor of the dam.
For better or for worse, China has become the closest thing there is to a country run by engineers.
- sketerpot 18y agoI have a lot of sympathy for China's rulers. They have a tough situation, and any course of action they take will make them look like idiots or bastards. I think they could definitely stand to be more open, and that it's probably just insecurity and FUD that's causing them to go for a censorship-laden, heavy-handed method of social control, but they're doing a decent job. Maybe I'm biased because I swoon whenever I think of how easily China decided to build a new generation of nuclear power plants, while the Home of the Brave is still too terrified of miniscule or nonexistent risks.
- biohacker42 18y agoWhen I imagine a country run by engineers it's still a democracy. Having been born and raised behind the iron curtain, I can tell you there's A LOT to being in power in an authoritarian system that has nothing to do with engineering.