[blfr]

The quality of leadership has really declined. Western countries seem to be run exclusively by petty managers.

There's almost no "we shall fight them on the beaches" or "not because they are easy but because they are hard" and way more process, lawsuits, committees, etc. As it turns out, you need some charisma and vision to effectively do things.

[rvieira]

I honestly don't understand your comment.

"we shall fight them on the beaches" is war-time motivational speech. We live in peace-time (in Europe at least). In a stable, peace-time society, disputes are solved in courts.

[blfr]

An acute crisis requires a different mindset. When you shut down half of your economy, introduce curfew, try to keep people in their homes, and plenty of people are also dying, you're not at war but it's not quite peacetime either.

https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2021/04/06/scientists-against...

[rvieira]

"we shall fight them on the beaches" was not about metaphorical war. I was about real war, with real bombs falling and real enemy boots ready to invade.

The above post is about a contractual dispute, for which a lawsuit is the obvious path. I still don't understand what you'd expect.

[fighterpilot]

I got the spirit of the comment. At the beginning of the pandemic, there should've been overwhelming support for therapeutics and vaccines.

Multiple countries should've been preparing manufacturing facilities well in advance, and those that couldn't should've been scrambling to order from every vendor just in case. A "war effort" if you will. Instead we got a very inward and reactionary response (lockdowns etc) but lacked that longer term visionary response which required foresight of only six months.

The following is my speculation, but - it's probably a consequence of having mostly lawyers in charge, and having elected representatives rather far removed from a direct democratic vote as in the case of the EU (although non-EU countries mostly responded in the same way by ignoring therapeutics and vaccines too)

[rvieira]

> we got a very inward and reactionary response (lockdowns etc) [...] it's probably a consequence of having mostly lawyers in charge

I disagree. Lockdowns were not proposed by lawyers or politicians, but rather the scientific community. In fact, in countries were the scientific advice was ignored, you had the fewest restrictions.

Also, "At the beginning of the pandemic, there should've been overwhelming support for therapeutics and vaccines." shows what the problem really is.

This is the politicians POV, in my opinion. A kind of mythical man-month for science. Long-term investment must be made in fundamental science so we can have nice things like mRNA vaccines. The politicians mentality of "pour millions in research" and they'll come up with something in two weeks is a real problem. Pure and fundamental research must be supported continuously, which is something politicians typically don't.

[fighterpilot]

Look, I'm not trying to argue that lockdowns were a bad idea or what have you. Just that they were the easiest cognitively for non-technical politicians.

The hard, longer-term work of building out local vaccine manufacturing and distribution wasn't done because it required way more foresight, executive planning ability and basic scientific/medical knowledge.

The other contributing factor is that politicians don't want to be embarrassed if they create some expensive manufacturing facility which ends up being unused. Better to just not make it at all and you'll be safe - after all, that's what everyone else did.

Lack of spending on science research is one thing, but couldn't they have at least imported a little talent to create redundant vaccine manufacturing facilities to deal with just this one acute crisis? It seems like the only person thinking about that was Bill Gates? Why can't our elected leaders show the same leadership? The only country that I'd expect to have this kind of technocratic vision and execution would be China.

[rvieira]

Lockdowns _did_ have a non-technical interpretation. The main purpose was to avoid everyone getting sick at the same time so that hospitals wouldn't run out of beds.

I think the main problem with politicians was that they hesitated because they wanted to have two contradictory things: lockdowns to slow down the pandemic (until vaccines were ready) and keeping the economy going "as normal". IMO you can't square that circle.

[rsynnott]

> Multiple countries should've been preparing manufacturing facilities well in advance

They _did_. The only reason that production has gone as well as it has (particularly with Pfizer and Biontec) is massive public and private investment in facilities.

[turbinerneiter]

Just look at how the "leaders" in place got there. Backroom deals instead of elections. Von der Leyen did not achieve a single thing in her career except for hiring consultants.

Our politicians are mostly lawyers, the job they and their staff do is all about laws. And even at that they suck, as is evident by the long list of laws they pass which are then denied by the supreme courts as unconstitutional.

We still don't have a good way of finding the best leaders and putting them in the potions where they are most effective, neither in politics nor in the economy (although there are positive examples of people and mechanisms in both).

I think we are super complacent with our representative democracy and we are failing to develop it further and make it better.

[rsynnott]

> There's almost no "we shall fight them on the beaches" or "not because they are easy but because they are hard" and way more process, lawsuits, committees, etc.

Are you... suggesting dealing with AZ's failure to deliver by storming their offices, or something? Like, what is the actual actionable thing that the EC should be doing here, other than legal action?

[mschuster91]

> The quality of leadership has really declined. Western countries seem to be run exclusively by petty managers.

Most Western countries are either run by Conservatives (as their voters don't vote for the Conservatives but rather against "communists") or by populists who rose to power because people were fed up too much (e.g. Macron, BoJo).

The problem with voting for a party only because the other party is worse is that it places no pressure on the "not as bad" party to improve and keep themselves accountable.

Another cause, especially in Eastern Europe with Hungary's Orban but also in Germany with BILD or Fox "News" in the US, is media that is either directly controlled or massively influenced by government politics. A constant barrage of propaganda will always keep voters for the Conservative parties.