untermensche
Contributor
It is not that politicians do not know the truth.
But they serve people who do not want to hear about it.
But they serve people who do not want to hear about it.
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Do politicians actually know the state of the nation?
- Thread starter BH
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Like the robot thread there's a big definition problem here.
What does "know the state of the nation" comprise?
Do they know it's in the middle of the northern continent in the old world? Certainly.
Do they know the exact population? Certainly not.
Where exactly to draw the line is very subjective and will likely change the answer.
What does "know the state of the nation" comprise?
Do they know it's in the middle of the northern continent in the old world? Certainly.
Do they know the exact population? Certainly not.
Where exactly to draw the line is very subjective and will likely change the answer.
How about this:
Do politicians know enough objective criteria about the economics, environment, legal system of their country, and what's needed to guide it into a long-term prosperous future?
There should be an objective answer to that question, or at least politicians should have a tendency to move toward it.
barbos
Contributor
Sorry, but bright and competent have no chance at becoming a president
untermensche
Contributor
Politicians are put into power mainly through TV commercials.
That is all most voters know about them.
To expect anything better than what we get, or to expect them to understand anything, when that is how they are chosen is foolish.
bilby
Fair dinkum thinkum
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It's possible for a diligent and intelligent leader to have a good handle on the state of the entity that they lead, but it's not easy, and while the exact situation is almost always unknown, the direction and magnitude of trends can usually be ascertained with some degree of accuracy.
As entities increase in size and complexity, the job of understanding what is going on gets harder; The owner of a ten employee business can likely know pretty well what's happening in his business, most of the time, while the leader of a nation of 300+ million people needs to be a lot more savvy and to understand that most of the information he is presented with is woolly at best - and downright wrong much of the time - Although again, trends in the information will usually tend to be fairly accurate, particularly over a long enough time-frame.
If GDP growth (for example) is said to be 5%, then it's a good bet that the economy is growing; and if it has been negative for several consecutive quarters, the economy is likely contracting. But if reported growth is 1% this quarter, it would be a foolish president who was confident that the economy was not, in fact, contracting.
The reason that it's so hard to understand what's going on is simple - as Dr House says, "everybody lies".
All figures are fudged at every level; all information is distorted by almost every person who passes it on. People lie (or tweak the numbers, or fudge the figures, or apply 'adjustments', or request 'corrections' from subordinates, or cheat, or commit fraud) for a bewildering array of reasons, some immoral, some well intentioned, some unavoidable.
Everyone has a different idea about what the objectives are for their organization, and how much the objectives they believe their organization to have should impose upon (or be modified by) their personal objectives, or upon the objectives they think that the organization should have. And everyone re-interprets the information the pass up to their bosses, rulers or leaders, based on their assessment of those objectives.
None of the information driving the information age can be considered 100% reliable. But an intelligent and diligent leader, who understands that each datum is unreliable, can aggregate data in ways that allow him to have a fairly good grasp of what is likely to be happening.
To expect better than that is delusional. Many leaders (both in business and government) really truly believe that the numbers, data, intelligence and information that their aides present to them is the truth. Such leaders are known as 'idiots'.
Intelligent leadership requires the rare ability to determine how 'hard' or 'soft' a particular datum is, and to weight the data he has so as to reach the best supported interpretation of it, while maintaining an understanding that it may well be wrong, and a grasp of the most likely ways in which it could be wrong - all while keeping an awareness of the likely biases not only of his sources, but also of himself. This skillset is very rare. Most leaders don't have it, and it is even rarer in the subset of 'leaders' that we call 'politicians'.
So the answer to the OP is 'Usually not. but a handful of the most able probably have some idea, some of the time'.
As entities increase in size and complexity, the job of understanding what is going on gets harder; The owner of a ten employee business can likely know pretty well what's happening in his business, most of the time, while the leader of a nation of 300+ million people needs to be a lot more savvy and to understand that most of the information he is presented with is woolly at best - and downright wrong much of the time - Although again, trends in the information will usually tend to be fairly accurate, particularly over a long enough time-frame.
If GDP growth (for example) is said to be 5%, then it's a good bet that the economy is growing; and if it has been negative for several consecutive quarters, the economy is likely contracting. But if reported growth is 1% this quarter, it would be a foolish president who was confident that the economy was not, in fact, contracting.
The reason that it's so hard to understand what's going on is simple - as Dr House says, "everybody lies".
All figures are fudged at every level; all information is distorted by almost every person who passes it on. People lie (or tweak the numbers, or fudge the figures, or apply 'adjustments', or request 'corrections' from subordinates, or cheat, or commit fraud) for a bewildering array of reasons, some immoral, some well intentioned, some unavoidable.
Everyone has a different idea about what the objectives are for their organization, and how much the objectives they believe their organization to have should impose upon (or be modified by) their personal objectives, or upon the objectives they think that the organization should have. And everyone re-interprets the information the pass up to their bosses, rulers or leaders, based on their assessment of those objectives.
None of the information driving the information age can be considered 100% reliable. But an intelligent and diligent leader, who understands that each datum is unreliable, can aggregate data in ways that allow him to have a fairly good grasp of what is likely to be happening.
To expect better than that is delusional. Many leaders (both in business and government) really truly believe that the numbers, data, intelligence and information that their aides present to them is the truth. Such leaders are known as 'idiots'.
Intelligent leadership requires the rare ability to determine how 'hard' or 'soft' a particular datum is, and to weight the data he has so as to reach the best supported interpretation of it, while maintaining an understanding that it may well be wrong, and a grasp of the most likely ways in which it could be wrong - all while keeping an awareness of the likely biases not only of his sources, but also of himself. This skillset is very rare. Most leaders don't have it, and it is even rarer in the subset of 'leaders' that we call 'politicians'.
So the answer to the OP is 'Usually not. but a handful of the most able probably have some idea, some of the time'.
barbos
Contributor
People who can govern can't get elected, people who can get elected can't govern.