Why would we want an ambassador to China that knows anything about China? They are just some little unimportant country like Iran. I agree the best indicator of competency is how well they espouse the party line.
Seriously! I used to keep a file on politicians who voted or advocated for the repeal of the 1st or 2nd law of thermodynamics. It was never explicit, mostly just voting to raise the efficiency of cars for example to exceed the Carnot limit or funding solar cell research in excess of the quantum efficiency. I had one where a senator was trying to force the patent office to grant a patent on a perpetual motion machine build by some guy in his state. The same goes for large corporations where some guy with a degree in English is appointed head of the research department because he’s buddies with the president.
Let’s be fair here; the elites often are elite at something, and often more than one thing.
Hypocrisy, for one; nobody, but nobody, does it better than they do, so they truly are elite in that.
Willful Ignorance, for another. In this, too, they are truly elite. This brings back memories of my college marine bio professor; he was prone to pontificate at length, in class, on a number of subjects that were irrelevant to the class curriculum. One of his favorites was, oddly, airliner design, about which he knew nothing. One of his favorite rants was that airliners would be far more fuel efficient if they had tiny, stubby wings like some fighters, because wings cause drag. He also said that airliners should stay out of the jet stream, even when it’s going in their direction, because all it does is cause turbulence. A student mentioned speed as a counterargument, which earned her a nasty look, plus caused him to explain how if a plane has a top speed of 600mph, it can’t possibly cover more than 600 miles in an hour even with a 300mph tailwind, because it can’t go faster than 600mph. Yeah, this is a guy who should be pontificating on the issue, right…
I don’t think I need to mention his political inclinations (one of his other favorite subjects to waste our class time with), as I’m sure all here can guess. He wasn’t even very good at his actual subject, Marine biology, but at least he knew something about it. And oh yes, he was one of the ‘elites’; arrogant as hell and narcissistic in the extreme.
And that’s another thing the elites do better than anyone; narcissism.
See? they really are elite in some ways. 🙂
This is fully in line with my observation that many judges are little more than failed lawyers with the political connections to get appointed or elected to the bench.
“Top. Men.”
Why would we want an ambassador to China that knows anything about China? They are just some little unimportant country like Iran. I agree the best indicator of competency is how well they espouse the party line.
Seriously! I used to keep a file on politicians who voted or advocated for the repeal of the 1st or 2nd law of thermodynamics. It was never explicit, mostly just voting to raise the efficiency of cars for example to exceed the Carnot limit or funding solar cell research in excess of the quantum efficiency. I had one where a senator was trying to force the patent office to grant a patent on a perpetual motion machine build by some guy in his state. The same goes for large corporations where some guy with a degree in English is appointed head of the research department because he’s buddies with the president.
Let’s be fair here; the elites often are elite at something, and often more than one thing.
Hypocrisy, for one; nobody, but nobody, does it better than they do, so they truly are elite in that.
Willful Ignorance, for another. In this, too, they are truly elite. This brings back memories of my college marine bio professor; he was prone to pontificate at length, in class, on a number of subjects that were irrelevant to the class curriculum. One of his favorites was, oddly, airliner design, about which he knew nothing. One of his favorite rants was that airliners would be far more fuel efficient if they had tiny, stubby wings like some fighters, because wings cause drag. He also said that airliners should stay out of the jet stream, even when it’s going in their direction, because all it does is cause turbulence. A student mentioned speed as a counterargument, which earned her a nasty look, plus caused him to explain how if a plane has a top speed of 600mph, it can’t possibly cover more than 600 miles in an hour even with a 300mph tailwind, because it can’t go faster than 600mph. Yeah, this is a guy who should be pontificating on the issue, right…
I don’t think I need to mention his political inclinations (one of his other favorite subjects to waste our class time with), as I’m sure all here can guess. He wasn’t even very good at his actual subject, Marine biology, but at least he knew something about it. And oh yes, he was one of the ‘elites’; arrogant as hell and narcissistic in the extreme.
And that’s another thing the elites do better than anyone; narcissism.
See? they really are elite in some ways. 🙂
This is fully in line with my observation that many judges are little more than failed lawyers with the political connections to get appointed or elected to the bench.