[ClumsyPilot]

You are missing historical perspective - listen to recordings of western political leaders from the 70’s - whether good or evil, left or right, it is obvious they are clever, talented people in their prime years.

To have someone like Trump, Biden or Boris Johnson I charge would be unthinkable. We are governed by low calibre people that should already be in retirement.

Core of the problem is that talented people no longer go into governance in the West, it’s now low-status career. (You age to consider all career paths, not just becoming president).

In China it’s a high status career, and the results speak for themselves.

Until we have high-calibre, ambitious and talented people go into politics again, we will continue this muddling decline.

[Gormo]

And then you wind up with the mirror-image problem of ambitious and avaricious people using politics as a path for their own advancement at the expense of others.

Why not both, if both were on the table? I.e. incentivizing competent people to seek office, while decentralizing power and properly constraining the reach of any single office.

[fallingknife]

And they never will because they insist on paying peanuts. The government is stuck on a lots of stupid people model when they need to be on a few smart people model. That's why they can't execute on complex projects and need to always contract it out to the private sector.

[Bluestein]

>> We are governed by low calibre people that should already be in retirement.

>> Core of the problem is that talented people no longer go into governance in the West, it’s now low-status career.

>> Until we have high-calibre, ambitious and talented people go into politics again, we will continue this muddling decline.

I very much resonate with this. Also, with concerns that the opposite might just be as bad: I could name en European, western country of several dozen million people governed by (downright) a career, borderline pyscho narcisist career politician. How do we keep -that- from happening?