Serbia just elected the world's brainiest parliament
Posted by input_sh 1 day ago
Comments
Comment by duke_sam 1 day ago
I really hope their success carries over into governance.
Comment by akie 1 day ago
There's definitely a chance of failure here.
Comment by necovek 1 day ago
Comment by miroslavr 1 day ago
Comment by chermi 16 hours ago
Comment by anigbrowl 1 day ago
Just as we should keep in mind that brainy academic types can get carried away in theoretical flights of fancy, we should also acknowledge that 'common sense people' are not composed exclusively of experienced and unselfish pragmatists, but also wilfully ignorant and cynical anti-intellectual types.
Comment by evek 1 day ago
Comment by Bombthecat 1 day ago
It must be like a pit fight, but with connections and half truths
Comment by skeeter2020 1 day ago
Comment by fsloth 1 day ago
The large blocks need to be able to move forward in legislation but the more uglier and tumultuous the backroom dealing are (within legal bounds) the healthier the democracy is.
Comment by necovek 1 day ago
Basically, academic tenure is opposite from democracy.
Comment by throwitaway222 1 day ago
Comment by tsimionescu 1 day ago
Comment by toyg 1 day ago
Most of the electorate doesn't really understand it, constantly clamoring for one or the other to be the only guiding principle, but you need both - and one has to find a way even when they appear completely irreducible. Democracy is beautiful in a very messy way, a bit like nature.
Comment by Danox 1 day ago
Comment by cvwright 1 day ago
Living easier, richer, safer lives than 99.99% of all humans who have ever existed?
Comment by SturgeonsLaw 1 day ago
Comment by shakow 1 day ago
From what I observed of my time in academia, I don't see any reason for academics to do any better than other groups. Like everywhere, the starry-eyed, altruistic ones always lose the fight against the political sharks.
Comment by fsloth 1 day ago
Different countries are very different.
You probably can name "the usual grifters" in your domicile but don't expect the same patterns to be transferrable to different regions.
Sometimes pathologies are portable like the the authoritarian state capture toolkit but even there _who are you doing it with_ can be quite different even though _how you are doing it_ may seem familiar.
Also by any metric the general unspecific list of countries "east and west" has lots of variance in life expectancy, happiness, poverty, literacy etc.
So I can only read this as pointless general venting or faux cynicism.
Comment by akudha 1 day ago
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Comment by Brendinooo 1 day ago
Comment by iLoveOncall 1 day ago
Comment by refurb 23 hours ago
Should be exciting
Comment by HPsquared 1 day ago
Comment by znpy 1 day ago
I was thinking the same.
This can either go incredibly well or it can go incredibly wrong.
Comment by cmurf 1 day ago
It is not always obvious how to lay ground work over a decade ... or four of them.
It isn't even mostly about fixing problems. But how to make government act as an expedient rather than as an impediment.
Comment by standardUser 1 day ago
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Comment by christophilus 1 day ago
Comment by palata 1 day ago
It very much is, but I don't believe it is the skill of "solving problems" or "making society better".
Politics is about getting elected. Convincing the people that it's all the others' fault, that you know better, that you will save the world. And then when they get elected... we naively expect them to solve problems. But we selected them for their capacity at being selected, not their capacity at understanding the big problems society is facing...
Comment by amiga386 1 day ago
Getting elected is table stakes and shows you have the soft skills needed to organise, campaign and convince. Which is the minimum you need to get disparate groups of humans to pull in the same direction and make progress in advancing the country.
Theres no consolation if you get experts to plan solutions to problems but 1) the people you need to implement the plans have their own opinions or priorities and 2) the public want focus in some other priority and are start rioting if they don't feel heard.
You need schmoozers as much as you need tacticians.
Comment by chunky1994 1 day ago
I don't currently have any data that says otherwise and the counterfactual remains unexplored (but it will be with this parliament!), but things that people do and say to get elected often are things that if implemented...would not solve the problems the populace that elected is having.
I don't think we need schmoozers, we need people who understand the problems of their populace and have the structural power to implement their solutions. We shall see if they need more than this, but this would be the first exploration of the counterfactual.
People who have their "own" priorities don't end up upsetting the apple cart when we make success in implementing those solutions the same as their success (which if we are effective problem solvers, should be possible. See Deng Xiaoping)
Comment by Danox 1 day ago
Comment by II2II 1 day ago
A lot of the problem can be attributed to voters accepting the blame game, overly simplistic solutions, and expedient absolutist views over debating a plurality of options.
I'm not saying that the political system isn't to blame here. At least where I live, it is structured in such a way that winner takes all and loyalty to the party is more heavily rewarded than representing the constituent. But, again, that is a system that we in some sense designed.
Comment by stinkbeetle 1 day ago
Western politicians and political parties incentives are to get elected while doing as much as possible for special interests (and by extension, as little as possible for the common good).
Comment by 6510 10 hours ago
Same goes for voters. That people cherish their ignorance isn't an excuse. You need minimum information. Approving something you didn't read shouldn't count. It's basic signal to noise ratio.
I would force each election program down to a single page. Each voter gets two random programs and we remove the name of the party from it. They stay in the voting booth long enough to read both programs then they chose one. It gets +1 the other gets -1. Each party gets an equal amount of voters.
Then a new government department that reviews if an elected candidate or party is actually doing what they wrote in the election program.
When the election results are in voters provide an approval rating that they can change at any time. This can be a simple app. If they stay below some rating they get a warning and a chance to correct their mistakes, if the rating stays low for some time they are thrown out. The lower the rating the sooner they leave.
Other sensible metrics also lower the rating. Things like leaving the seat empty or being late for your job. Imagine how silly it is that this is even a topic. Not showing up for work?
If we don't count medical situations Nigel Farage is the absolute world record holder. He once missed 77 consecutive UK parliamentary votes over 11 weeks. He also had the lowest attendance records in the European Parliament. For the Fisheries Committee he attended 1 out of 42 meetings.
He provided us a great service by showing one can just do that. The EU created some weak 350 euro bonus system for each day the politician actually shows up. When they showed up only to have their name recorded then left the bonus was reduced by the % of absence.
If you are hired to do any job and chose to not do it you cant stay. If a garbage man doesn't collect the garbage at all they are fired the same day. If they collect [say] ~90% they are fired after a month. You could still pay them if you want but if someone is sick long enough you need to hire someone else or the garbage wont be collected.
Comment by Danox 1 day ago
I also don’t understand why the Pan American Highway or rail from Nome, Alaska to the tip of South America never got built. Nor can I understand why Oak Ridge, Tennessee Thorium Research Center and further development was left to rot. The Chinese are very close to throwing element 90 in our face.
Comment by scns 1 day ago
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Comment by Forgeties79 1 day ago
Comment by ninkendo 1 day ago
There's a lot under the umbrella of "politics" that happens after you get elected. If you want to accomplish anything after you get elected (heck, even if it's just personal enrichment) you have to be somewhat skilled at getting others to work with you, one way or another. As a politician you can have flawless convictions and be right and well-informed about all your decisions, but at the end of the day you're just one vote (to use legislators as an example) and it does nothing if you can't convince or work with others.
Comment by hibikir 1 day ago
The whole "you are just one vote" doesn't really apply there. As the 30th legislator on your party list, you show up and vote as you are told. And in systems like the one in the US, barring rare moments, it's also not all that different. The card that your party will abandon you, and that if you want a position of any importance you have to play ball means many a junior congressperson just votes as they are told, and spends time fundraising.
Comment by ninkendo 1 day ago
In such political systems where you essentially must vote the party line, what makes an individual "effective" (ie. what constitutes being "good" at your role)? I'd say it comes down to all kinds of political soft skills, ie. forging the right alliances, convincing the right people to change course, understanding motivations of others, etc.
All of these are generally called "politics", and are things that happen very much after you're elected.
Comment by hugodan 1 day ago
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Comment by t0bia_s 1 day ago
I hope more people will realize that voting for uknown politicians that offers empty promises for artificially made problems means givig up our responsibility and at the end, make things worse as we see in current democratic countries.
Comment by watwut 1 day ago
Comment by enaaem 1 day ago
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Comment by Avicebron 1 day ago
Comment by Danox 1 day ago
Comment by subscribed 1 day ago
They've been elected during a very special events. They know what's expected of them. Looks like compared to the previous powers this lot at least gives the country a fighting chance.
Comment by xandrius 1 day ago
Comment by chunky1994 1 day ago
Comment by crtified 1 day ago
Comment by subscribed 1 day ago
Seeing how many politicians are utterly corrupt and ignorant cunts certainly a parliament full of people who understand the importance of facts and capable of logical thinking is not worse than career politicians mostly skilled in the game for their team, nothing else.
Comment by cvwright 1 day ago
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Comment by eagleal 1 day ago
Imposing it top down requires oppression. Imposing or pressuring this huge layer from the bottom requires a continuously updated base so you can squeeze from the top and the bottom to enact the changes needed quickly.
It's impossible for leaders at the top, to personally vet the members of a village or city council for example.
I think I've never seen any of such concatenation of events and organization to have ever happened.
Comment by necovek 1 day ago
The pure ideal is to get a field expert who is good at management — but sometimes hard to attain!
The question then really becomes if — for a manager — a senior expert is better than an experienced manager who can detect exactly when to pull in the experts? A great manager would be great, but these are similarly rare (rarer than good experts in a field).
And this is probably always on a case-by-case basis: it completely depends on the circumstances, individual qualities, and supporting people around them to decide which is better for a given situation.
The same holds here: the best you can get is an expert with a wide grasp of the entire field they will be active in, supported by good, smart common-sense people to manage and guide their thinking and solutioning in the right way.
Comment by gojogs 1 day ago
Comment by meerita 1 day ago
Having highly educated people in parliament is one thing; actually governing a country is another. Political leadership requires negotiation, compromise, institutional knowledge, and the ability to execute decisions.
I'm curious to see how Serbia handles the transition from academic expertise to actual governance, especially without a conventional party leadership structure.
Comment by szundi 1 day ago
Comment by scotty79 1 day ago
As compared to what? A working group of 80 uneducated idiots?
If democracy doesn't work if you put smart, educated people in control then it doesn't work, period and we need to pay better attention to whatevere China is doing.
Comment by Danox 1 day ago
It also partially explains why they pursue are open to multiple solutions to a problem. And it certainly explains why they looked at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and that thorium research and built two thorium reactors and will probably build many more because guess what?
They figured out how to make it work and apparently solved that alloy molten salt problem, it took about 10-15 years but they are on schedule. to deploy many more reactors after 2029.
They also switched or are are in the process of switching from lithium batteries to sodium ion batteries which is something else they didn’t have to do, they could hung on to lithium through 2040 milking, but instead they are moving on, which is also something that can happen when you have a bunch of engineers involved in the decision-making as opposed to those finance/MBA people who have a tendency to want to milk people for as long as possible.
https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/markets/china-emerg...
Comment by billfor 1 day ago
Comment by scotty79 1 day ago
Comment by cvwright 1 day ago
Comment by vkou 1 day ago
In the long term, the US is far more likely to turn into China than not.
Comment by scotty79 1 day ago
To protest in most places in Australia you need a government permit.
Comment by scotty79 1 day ago
Comment by AllegedAlec 1 day ago
This is why people hate IT nerds.
Comment by scotty79 1 day ago
Comment by AllegedAlec 1 day ago
Comment by Brendinooo 1 day ago
Yeah, the thing that really strikes me is that their movement _did not exist_ in the last election. Went from scratch to power in three years. Whatever you want to say about their politics or their ability to lead...sure. But that's an incredible thing to do.
Comment by ric2b 25 minutes ago
Comment by ifwinterco 1 day ago
Comment by InsideOutSanta 1 day ago
The CIA sponsored extensive studies on this and came to the conclusion that democracies with a strong presidential role are associated with a greater risk of failure. It's not really surprising, and it can be seen in the US right now.
Comment by Barrin92 1 day ago
Matthew Yglesias wrote a prescient article about this roughly a decade ago:
Comment by qwytw 1 day ago
That system had to develop organically over many generations to be successful (in the case of Switzerland it was 500+ years with only a few significant interruptions) . In a centralized country with no traditions of communal and local politics it can just result in chaos.
Comment by kubb 1 day ago
Comment by qwytw 1 day ago
Comment by consensus1 1 day ago
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Comment by lossolo 1 day ago
That's correlation, not causation. Switzerland made enormous amounts of money from its banking secrecy system over many decades until the US pressured it to end it. And the trends are not looking good for Switzerland based on data. We'll see how stable it remains as the cost of living keeps rising, real wages decline, and unemployment goes up.
If you provide wealth and a good lifestyle to your citizens, then almost any system will be stable.
Comment by CMay 1 day ago
Comment by jeremyjh 1 day ago
Comment by CMay 1 day ago
Being less predictable makes it harder for our adversaries to calculate. We're still good people, but we're in bad times. You don't need to understand. Through most of history only a tiny number of people anywhere in the world truly understood what was going on and what was necessary to respond to the times. This is true in science as well. How many times in history was it only a few scientists that had a clearer picture? Everyone thinks their religion is _the_ religion. The same can apply to news and opinions.
If you think the US is about Trump's ego, you still don't understand.
Comment by jeremyjh 13 hours ago
Moreover, Trump has made public comments regarding treaty obligations and international law that makes it clear he has no respect for those things, and there are no principles he follows at all so no one can predict what he will do next.
Comment by CMay 4 hours ago
Renegotiating the deal around Greenland prevents the risk of Greenland becoming independent and falling out of NATO since it would not remain in NATO by default.
It's not normal to capture heads of state, but Maduro was not the head of state as he was not recognized as elected by the world. It's not normal to kill heads of state, like Saddam Hussein or the leadership of Iran, but Iraq and Iran have something in common. Both Iraq and Iran attempted to assassinate US presidents multiple times, not to mention the mass killing of their own people. When Iraq attempted to kill a past US president, Bill Clinton had Iraq's special services HQ obliterated and no love was lost eventually when Saddam was hanged by his own people.
Learn more about what China has been doing in their region, around the world and inside the US. China thinks they can break all of the rules and then feign cute innocence like everyone else is crazy as if they are the only one following international law, when it is nonsense. We're operating right at the edge of the rules for sure. You won't find me disagreeing about that.
Our current foreign policy is the most sane it has been in a while, yet it looks a bit more extreme as a result of being so far behind on it. This is mostly what catching up looks like, when being polite doesn't get the job done fast enough.
Comment by ric2b 41 minutes ago
The Greenland deal was always going to be renegotiated as it always has been, once again antagonizing allies was completely unnecessary.
The US is not operating at the edge of the rules, it is constantly breaking them and tearing down any respect that the world still had for the rules.
At this point I don't know why the world should even have a more positive view of the US than of China. China is far more peaceful and helpful.
Comment by HarHarVeryFunny 1 day ago
One of the ways they made this work was by assigning temporary powers to elected/appointed individuals appropriate and sufficient to get their job done, whether that was provincial governor, tribunus plebis, consul or whatever. A notable title was that of "dictator" (where the modern word derives from) which gave sweeping temporary powers to a general sufficient to execute a war.
Julius Caesar famously abused this system, effectively becoming the first emperor (despite no such position existing) by assuming the title of "dictator perpetuo" (perpetual dictator), although that did not end well for him. His successor, Augustus (whose adopted name later became the name of the office of emperor) initiated a more acceptable version of this by simultaneously holding multiple "elected" positions thereby having the power of them all.
Comment by consensus1 1 day ago
This became more centralized over time and as it did more executive power was needed at the top level. Augustus centralized the army under state control. Emperors in the late empire had nearly dictatorial authority and a massive state bureaucracy under their control.
Comment by qwytw 1 day ago
If you don't count the 80 years of off and on civil wars and political and social upheavals.
> and sufficient to get their job done
Well they were extremely successful military, internal politics were a mixed bag and it slowly turned into chaos and constant gridlock as soon as they ran out of external enemies to fight.
Rome had an arcane deeply adversarial political system which basically relied different powerful men in the elite competing and keeping each other in check while trying to amass as much wealth and political power they could get away with (Ceasar was hardly an aberration besides just being way more successful than countless aristocrats playing the same game).
> effectively becoming the first emperor (despite no such position existing) by assuming the title of "dictator perpetuo" (perpetual dictator),
Sula did that first, in many ways Caesar just emulated him (of course the decision to not murder all of this potential enemies came back to bite him)
Comment by peterfirefly 1 day ago
Comment by mikem170 1 day ago
Didn't the U.S. also have all those problems, despite having a president?
There was an assertion made in an ancestor comment that a committee without a leader can't function, but that doesn't seem proven by those problems in Roman history under their Senate, since the U.S. with a president had the same kinds of problems.
I assume other factors are at play, oligarchs for example. And I question the downside risk of having a strong presidency, cult of personality for example.
I agree that the term "did just fine" is subjective.
Comment by DrProtic 1 day ago
They will choose who will that be by a committee, but after that they have to function as usual.
Comment by vanderZwan 1 day ago
But I do find it hilarious that apparently everyone assumes it to be the former, and that is quite telling about how most of this site's visitors think the other visitors of this site look at the world.
Comment by ifwinterco 1 day ago
The same as every company I've ever worked for, large or small.
Some systems obfuscate it more than others, but at the end of the day somebody has to have the executive power to make a decision when the chips are down, or you just have chaos
Comment by stackbutterflow 1 day ago
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Comment by corroclaro 1 day ago
In many cases, the executives / politicians / directors just rubber stamp what a working group / committee has decided.
Also, see the Tomato guys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqUBdX1d3ok
Comment by geraneum 1 day ago
In Germany the focus is usually on the parties and not the figurehead for over 70 years now.
edit: for the election
Comment by WheelsAtLarge 1 day ago
Comment by betamagel 1 day ago
Comment by rightnutwingjob 1 day ago
Diverse? Over-educated university graduates is possibly the least diverse set of thinkers one could hope to find.
> Dozens of them come from the academic world, and more than half have a Ph.D. or M.D.
Lord help up. This is going to be demonstration of hubris and an exercise in arrogance.
Comment by pacija 1 day ago
Comment by InsideOutSanta 1 day ago
Comment by TFNA 1 day ago
Comment by InsideOutSanta 1 day ago
Comment by hunterpayne 1 day ago
Academics really are naive and out of touch people. In a weird sort of way, being an academic means sacrificing your personal growth for either a) a deep love of their area of research or b) love of teaching. This means that the wider life skills one gains as an adult, they never get. They get to avoid consequences for being wrong but at quite a price. One of the worst things I have seen are what happens to academics who leave for the private sector later in their career. When they can't make it in the private sector, it is pretty crushing to many of them.
That being said, one of the prices of being an academics is being very "out of touch" with the rest of society. And that will take away your ability to read political situations or govern things well. Academics injecting themselves into such situations will almost always be disastrous as a result. Its just a consequence of how academia works. It doesn't have to be that way, but unless academia changes profoundly, it will be.
Comment by TFNA 1 day ago
Academics do just fine picking up "adult life skills". Only a small minority of academics find academic employment from their mid-thirties or so on, so everyone moves to other sectors for the rest of their lives. It is not as if they are just hapless misfits or on the dole for the rest of their lives.
Comment by rainsford 1 day ago
Although in reality it probably doesn't make sense to talk about the private sector as some homogeneous representation of the rest of society in the first place. Many people outside of academia famously struggle to adapt their presumably well developed "wider life skills" to significantly different environments, like switching industries or going between large companies and small ones. There's really no universally applicable life skills or experience that everyone except academics pick up.
Comment by InsideOutSanta 1 day ago
> Academics really are naive and out of touch people
That's a hilarious juxtaposition of sentences.
Comment by rightnutwingjob 1 day ago
The first sentence seems to suggest: you are naive.
The second sentence indicates the writer believes many academics are naive.
Where is this contracts you allude to?
Comment by InsideOutSanta 20 hours ago
Comment by BoingBoomTschak 1 day ago
If most people realized that, we would have much less problems: academics are often shrouded in an aura of virtue and wisdom they don't deserve in the least. Like what you see in this thread, that their narrow (or worse, illusory) knowledge will somehow help them being good rulers/leaders.
Comment by rightnutwingjob 1 day ago
However, scorn and ridicule are also reasonable at times. And it started a conversation.
Comment by rainsford 1 day ago
Obviously being a truck driver is different than being a physics professor. But I'm not sure there is much of a coherent argument supporting the idea that the former exists in the real world while the latter does not.
Comment by jeremyjh 1 day ago
Comment by watwut 1 day ago
It is absurd claim. Academia is part of real world. It is not an isolated island cut off from everything else.
It is no more divorced from real world then any other group of people. No more divorced then rural farmer are divorced from it, businessmen are divorced from it, sports fans are divorced from it. They are all having limits of understanding other groups.
Tech workers as likely more divorced from average person even.
Comment by rightnutwingjob 1 day ago
Comment by watwut 1 day ago
And I dont know what your remark about rural farmers is meant to be. My point was, they are in general fearful of cities and are out of touch with cities where majority of people live, academia and basically any not-rural-farmer subculture.
Comment by MentalM 1 day ago
The problem is not in that they are divorced from the real world. The problem is in the model that science get financial support, which leads to the existence of filtering that eliminates from the science anyone who is not far-left loyal dog and supporter of the "current thing".
Comment by jeremyjh 1 day ago
Is this how a 60-day old account has negative karma?
Maybe the problem is that your ideas don't withstand any academic scrutiny, since they aren't based on sound research or well-reasoned arguments.
Comment by MentalM 1 day ago
My ideas do withstand the reality. Unlike their so called "sound researches" or "well-reasoned arguments".
So negative karma? I was banned on several platforms simply for saying that all available to me evidences point out that covid was developed in the lab, while ALL the scientist licked the communist China's boots and said that it is SCIENTIFICALLY impossible. So what does the karma means in front of the truth?
Comment by ric2b 32 minutes ago
Yet you seem to be convinced that you have been proven correct that it was developed, so show it.
Comment by jeremyjh 1 day ago
Comment by mikem170 1 day ago
I don't know that I'd characterize the military industrial complex, especially the private parts, as being made of up far-left types.
It seems that funding has become much more political lately, the problem getting worse.
Comment by watwut 1 day ago
Comment by rightnutwingjob 1 day ago
Not the wet lettuce straw man usage posited by the other comment.
Comment by OroPla 1 day ago
Everything looks like a nail if you are a hammer and all that.
Comment by simsla 1 day ago
We also shouldn't forget that the vast majority of politicians today are lawyers by education. To whatever degree your assumption holds, it is true of the status quo today as well. Even in that case, having a more diverse set of "masters of one" would be an improvement.
Comment by OroPla 1 day ago
Unfortunately, eventually one of the people selected for being less capable get to be at the top and continue the whole play again, getting rid of anyone that is not less capable than themselves.
This is one disadvantage democracies have over monarchies, for a king can surround himself with more capable people all he wants as they are not direct competitors.
Comment by simsla 1 day ago
For the US, 32% of the house and 47% of the senate holds a law degree.
Comment by consensus1 1 day ago
Comment by hippogod 1 day ago
Just like “Master” before electrician or “Captain” or “PIC” for airline pilots.
Comment by skew-aberration 1 day ago
A quick search suggests the economists associated with this movement are fairly 'mainstream' institutionalists of the type that's popular with government these days in the west. I don't think there will be big changes soon beyond dealing with corruption/nepotism.
Later on, I imagine they will push for faster EU integration on possibly slightly worse terms. Serbia may become marginally less independent in terms of fiscal policy at least and the markets might become even more exposed/beholden to foreign capital. This process has been in motion for years now and I don't expect the student movement to care - the upsides are broadly popular with younger people globally. Personally, I think it is deeply ironic that in the age of tariffs and huge government spending by the superpowers, small countries like Serbia are still signing up to be bound by the 'free market' consensus which is rapidly disintegrating globally.
Comment by robotresearcher 1 day ago
She had a honors bachelors degree. An Oxford MA is awarded three years later on application, and is not an earned master’s degree. Unusually for a politician, it was a science degree (chemistry), and she worked in a lab at school and after school briefly, but she got a law degree later, which is a typical politician thing.
If that bachelor’s degree was in humanities, like almost all elected officials, no one would refer to her as an academic.
In contrast, Merkel earned a PhD, and some of these newly elected Serbian reps are long-time professors.
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Comment by MentalM 1 day ago
Are you sure? After the covid and position of the scientific community on it's origin it is evident that most scientist are ready to do the exact things that corrupt career politicians are doing, but for free, purely for the love of the game.
Comment by dmantis 1 day ago
At least these guys might be honest about their hubris and arrogance and won't smile to you while slaughtering your future or robbing your family.
Comment by whoanoway 1 day ago
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Comment by hunterpayne 1 day ago
Academics don't have a great track record in politics or governance pretty much anywhere at anytime in history.
Comment by FLHerne 1 day ago
Most surveys, either of experts or the public, rank Wilson above average.
Worst are generally Buchanan, Johnson, Harding and of course Trump.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_preside...
Comment by tensor 1 day ago
All these people have been been at the forefront of b ringin freedom, democracy, and well being to their populations. If anything, the "fun facts" show that academics can make great leaders.
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Comment by hedora 1 day ago
Wikipedia says he's generally regarded as above average, and the most successful progressive until the New Deal. He was certainly much better than any president the US has had in the last 73 years. JFK is arguable both ways - no one after that is.
Here's a survey of stack rankings of US presidents:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_preside...
The worst score Woodrow Wilson gets across all the rankings in the survey is 15. The best rating a post-Regan republican gets is 18. If we ignore Regan (still rated much worse than Wilson on average), we have to go all the way back to Dwight Eisenhower to find a Republican whose best score is better than Wilson's worst score.
The Democrats fare better. Truman and FDR clearly ranked better. If we ignore them, the next democrat is... Woodrow Wilson. Put another way, of the last 20 presidents, Wilson is ranked 3 or 4.
On the other hand, Trump is a Doctor of Business and a Doctor of Laws according the Liberty University. Surely, the poster meant Trump. They're a great school. The best schools.
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$500K+ NED funding listed here: https://www.ned.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Europe-Grant-...
$2.9M USAID->CRTA https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_72016923CA00002_0...
$10M USAID->Trag Foundation (Inspire2Action) https://2021-2025.state.gov/reports/2024-investment-climate-...
Comment by ric2b 28 minutes ago
Comment by jephs 1 day ago
Source: The Russians paying me.
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Comment by DataDaoDe 1 day ago
I see this often in many areas. Perhaps they'll be lucky and have a few behavioral psychologists among them to maintain intellectual humility.
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Comment by roenxi 1 day ago
They don't have "domains", they are career politicians. It is nice when a politician has some experience in the topic they're legislating on but the system works by having generalists who bow in whatever direction winds are blowing the most money from.
It is not possible to be an effective career politician by having firm principles or technical expertise. It requires a near total dedication to politicking. If they happen to have knowledge of a topic it is coincidence because the number of political topics is large and the number of politicians is comparatively small.
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Comment by xenocratus 1 day ago
Literally the first name I clicked on from the UK government.
Comment by lkjdsklf 1 day ago
Running NHS (or any other health care system) is literally an economics problem.
Economics is a lot more than just money.
Comment by sobani 23 hours ago
"The science that studies how a society uses their limited resources to meet its needs."
Which sounds a lot like the main problem of any healthcare system.
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Comment by ivell 1 day ago
Best case would be multi-talented persons who have both IQ and EQ and good character. Just IQ is not enough.
Comment by inertiatic 1 day ago
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Comment by vanderZwan 1 day ago
I've heard stories of friends working in (say) such a niche part of fluid dynamics that there's two professors and a few dozen PhDs in the entire world who get it, and the professors refuse to work with anyone who ever cited the other in one of their papers.
On the other hand, I've worked as a programmer for molecular neurobiologists who were working on multi-million dollar research projects mapping out all cell types of the brain using single-cell RNA sequencing, and collaboration seemed much more common there.
The stakes don't get much higher than running the country you're from.
EDIT: Also, the city of Groningen elected a city council of young students and put a 24 year old in charge of the city’s traffic and urban development policy. We still brag about being one of he most bike-friendly cities in the country that was the result.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre's_law
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jul/29/how-groningen...
Comment by brabel 1 day ago
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Comment by palata 1 day ago
Comment by sparkie 1 day ago
Both government and academia know how to navigate this well - by avoiding accountability.
Comment by psychoslave 1 day ago
Apart bare nude citizen and end of chain operator, there are not much people not playing such a dodge game it seems.
Comment by inglor_cz 1 day ago
Also, the US academy specifically cares about your race a lot.
Comment by ACCount39 1 day ago
Intelligence is a tool - one that can be put to use against any problem. "Get diverse people to come to the table for compromises" is no exception.
Comment by michaelt 1 day ago
Intelligence? Problem solving? Understanding statistics? Speaking in front of rooms full of people? Communicating complex ideas clearly? Useful for both jobs.
But an academic can be bookish, shy or haughty. Pursuing your own ideas is actively encouraged. There are arguments - but the main audience for the debates are other academics. They needn't collaborate on research with anyone they don't want to, and when they do collaborate everyone has the same destination in mind even if they disagree about the route to get there. When dealing with students, they've all chosen to be there, passed exams and paid money. The work is mostly low-medium stakes, with time to get important things right. And of course they have excellent job security.
Politicians, though? Gotta love campaigning and talking to voters. Gotta all get together behind the party's national platform. Even colleagues in your party are rivals because everyone wants the top job. 'Debates' all about playing to the audience and getting 3-second soundbites for social media, not engaging with the substance of arguments. No choice in who you collaborate with, including people with deep-seated disagreements about things like tax, debt, spending. Gotta represent voters many of whom hate you. Do well at the job and high stakes things you didn't even do get blamed on you, like train crashes and oil markets getting expensive. Oh, and every 4-5 years you're fired and get to re-apply for your job.
Comment by ninalanyon 1 day ago
There's no shortage of haughty politicians either.
Comment by michaelt 1 day ago
An academic can be an ivory tower type who thinks sports matches, superhero movies, social media and star musicians are a waste of time.
But politicians who think the Superbowl is a waste of time, that star wars is for children, and that Taylor Swift's music sucks pretty quickly figures out sharing those opinions loses far more votes than it gains.
Comment by ivell 1 day ago
Comment by justin66 1 day ago
It's a pity this disclaimer cannot be made to serve as a header for about 99% of the comments here today, because, holy shit...
Comment by sparkie 1 day ago
* Everyone is quick to make judgement on something they don't know all the details of.
* There's not much agreement - mostly people disagreeing with each other.
* Everyone's opinion is important - they're smart so obviously, they're always right.
* Unrelated politics - my pet issue must be talked about.
* Anything is better - it's impossible for things to get worse.
* I disagree with this opinion so it must be a Russian bot.
Anyway, I wonder what will happen if you get together a bunch of intellectuals in government.
Comment by techcode 1 day ago
Situation has been so bad with Vučić and his political party SNS - systematic corruption, private profiteering with iron grip on media and legislation, security services... etc.
So in that sense - even doing nothing would probably turn out better than continuing with the previous levels of intentional corruption.
And while there might be some things done by previous government that (accidentally) turned out good and are worth keeping.
For a lot of things (e.g. various institutions that lost their independence in the last ~20 years) - the rough WIP roadmap/plan can be as simple as "Undo or do the opposite from what the previous government did".
Comment by scbrg 1 day ago
I don't know how large the HN reader base is, but at the time of writing there are 309 comments on this story. I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the HN reader base is quite likely significantly larger than 309 people, presumably by several orders of magnitude. As such, the vast majority of readers ("overwhelmingly intellectuals") have indeed decided not to make a any judgement on this thing they don't know all the details of.
Comment by palata 1 day ago
Definitely a risk, but politicians are professionals at being overly confident. With this selection (there are not only PhDs, and not only academics), there is actually a chance of... actually trying to understand the problems?
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Comment by pwdisswordfishq 1 day ago
One of them selfawarewolves.
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Comment by subscribed 1 day ago
Being ruled by the career politicians is NOT an advantage, and the innumerable examples from all around the world will prove that.
Comment by 317070 1 day ago
Keep into account that the baseline for governing Serbia is low. As long as they can lower the corruption, they can do a lot wrong and still come out ahead.
Comment by itisit 1 day ago
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_and_the_Brightest
Comment by soulofmischief 1 day ago
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Comment by rayiner 1 day ago
I’m also reminded of Ashraf Ghani, the last President of Afghanistan, who was a professor and wrote a book “Fixing Failed States.” He ended up fleeing the country like a coward as it collapsed.
It’s notable that students played a major role in the 1979 Iranian revolution that ended up putting the Ayatollah in power. In fact to my knowledge, student-led revolutions have never produced a long term positive outcome. Any examples?
Comment by atombender 1 day ago
The mass protests that toppled the military regime in South Korea in 1987 was also led in large part by students and faculty members, who later became prominent leaders. [2]
This has also happened twice in Serbia now. Milošević was defeated in 2000 thanks in large part to Otpor, a student-led organization [2].
[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8363827.stm
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_Democratic_Struggle#Stude...
[3] https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/bringing-down-dictator#1
Comment by kakacik 1 day ago
The only reason it wasn't ended quickly by army in bloodshed (and army leaders all declared that they stand fully behind government and tanks were ready) was that ruling party politicians at power were not hardcore fanatics and understood it would be often fathers fighting against sons, or childhood friends against each other... civil war. It was allowed to happen from above, however non-romantic this reality is. It was also happening in times when iron curtain was visibly falling apart all around including Soviet union, 5 years before it would be crushed like nothing.
Its fine to have romantic view on the world, but for better understanding of the actual world out there and humans living in it, where we come from and where we go this isn't very helpful.
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Comment by kamyarg 1 day ago
This is inaccurate and misleading.
The revolution was hijacked.
Various political groups that were against the monarchy did the revolution and in the months following the revolution they were hunted down, executed or assassinated.
Comment by rayiner 1 day ago
"Muslim Students of the Imam Khomeini Line,[1] was an Iranian student group that occupied the U.S. embassy in Tehran on 4 November 1979. The students were supporters of the Islamic Revolution who occupied the embassy to show their support for Ayatollah Khomeini and their outrage that the ex-Shah of Iran was admitted to the United States for cancer treatment, instead of being returned to Iran for trial and execution. The occupation triggered the Iran hostage crisis where 52 American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for 444 days."
Students can certainly be Islamists, as both are generally aligned on left-wing and communitarian economics. E.g. in Bangladesh in 2024: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/jamaat-student-wing-wi...
"The student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami won a landslide in Dhaka University’s student body election, marking the first time the Islamist group has taken control of the influential union since Bangladesh’s independence in 1971."
Comment by kamyarg 1 day ago
Where did I claim otherwise?
The 79 revolution was done by multitude of groups. Most of which did not support the ayatollah. Ayatollah still, with the help of his supporters, did end up leading the country.
So your claim I quoted is misleading. It reads as if all of the people taking part in it wanted this current situation. It is disrespectful to the people that following the revolution, opposed khomeini take power, were hunted down, went through brutal torture and some gave their life.
Comment by master-lincoln 1 day ago
Alfred Nobel did not name economics in his will and it only started to be given out 70 years later by a bank in memory of Nobel.
Putting a single person in charge will always corrupt them
Comment by tngranados 1 day ago
Comment by fps-hero 1 day ago
Huh, now that you mention it, what is actually going on with the “cockroach movement” in India? It seems like you only ever find out about the driving force behind a movement 5 years after the fact when all the truth is laid bare, for better or worse.
Comment by rayiner 1 day ago
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Comment by joe_the_user 1 day ago
Meh, no amount genius would have helped someone fix Afghanistan given that it was controlled by drug dealers abetted by the US state. I had a friend who was an urban planner, went Kabul on a grant and advised the state to put in sidewalks. Sure it would have improved things but naturally it didn't happen 'cause the state had corruption to do instead.
Comment by justsomehnguy 1 day ago
Comment by SV_BubbleTime 1 day ago
Comment by justsomehnguy 1 day ago
You would be quite astonished by the fact what I do not actually saying that. More so, I don't even imply it. But thanks for thinking and speaking instead of me.
Comment by mirko22 1 day ago
Google Aleksandar Vućiċ Voja Nevolja meat grinder…
Vučiċ is successor of people that assassinated Zoran Ðinďić, a Serbian prime minister. Basically drugs and arms dealers from either mafia, secret service or special forces.
Even if this government ends up being corrupt the level of moral lows they would need to hit to reach previous regime is staggering.
So people justifiably think it can’t get worse… but that only the time will tell…
Comment by deepsun 1 day ago
The only positive example I've seen is Georgia 2003-2013 (with strong western money support that surprisingly wasn't all stolen).
Comment by mirko22 15 hours ago
In my opinion this is a great experiment. And if it acutely works, surrounding countries will not be happy as it will give their people a good role model so new Serbian government might have extra pressure from the outside that they might not have had in the past.
At least it will be interesting few years in Balkan in any case, at least for us here.
Comment by el_psy_congroo 1 day ago
I think it's inevitable that the "leaders" will just appear from the student list, then the student list gets destroyed, those leaders form their own parties and we'll elect another radical idiot who's not from the student list
Even now a few days after winning the election, you already have people from the SL who have a "brand", and who get idolized
Also people in our country are accustomed to corruption in our country, and if the new government starts beating down the corruption, the people will start hating the new government
Comment by randysalami 1 day ago
Comment by deepsun 1 day ago
Comment by SV_BubbleTime 1 day ago
My form of government is conscripted politicians that don’t want to do it.
Anyone that wants it, needs to be kept far away from it.
Comment by grujicd 1 day ago
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Comment by bongofizzbuzz 1 day ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5F1vfgA6XI
I wonder why hasn't Google banned this guy's channel.
Comment by IslandRebel 1 day ago
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Comment by IslandRebel 1 day ago
I never mentioned any particular politicians and was making a general observation that if you haven't had to deal with unsavoury characters, dishonest actors and quasi-crooks, you will lack the experience of how to deal with them. These people exist in all walks of life.
The person I was replying to was playing team sports, which I find tiresome, because every post about everything has to become about Trump or whoever the current villain of the week is. It is quite frankly moronic.
Comment by techcode 1 day ago
Not just that you need experience in order to deal with these unsavoury/dishonest/crook characters.
But that you even need to deal/compromise with them at all, that doing so would lead to a better outcome ...etc.
And also not to mix up the other meaning of "dealing with".
The biggest thing that the Student movement rallied around was dealing with previous government and various public and private sector corruption that it instigated/facilitated - in the bringing them to justice/rule of law sense.
Comment by IslandRebel 1 day ago
Comment by techcode 1 day ago
That said back in 2003, so ~2 years after the previous student protests in Serbia that brought down Milošević - Serbian Prime Minister was assassinated.
Officially the assassination was done by criminal gang that had ties with previous government - that just so happened to also be (former) members of the special antiterorist (military) police.
And it is said that he was assassinated because he was doing things (setup special investigation/prosecution) to fight organized crime.
While some of the current students might not know about all that. Older people, the ones that are now discussed/proposed as ministers and such - definitely know about.
Comment by IslandRebel 19 hours ago
Obviously. I would have thought that it would be obvious that it is delegated to the various security services.
> Officially the assassination was done by criminal gang that had ties with previous government - that just so happened to also be (former) members of the special antiterorist (military) police.
Well, bringing the rule of law didn't work out for him, did it?
He should have made sure these people were tracked down ASAP and killed. To have law and order, you need to have order first.
Comment by watwut 1 day ago
The whole thread started with you pointing at specific group and claiming they are nore vulnerable to corruption.
Comment by watwut 1 day ago
Comment by IslandRebel 1 day ago
People on the other side of the aisle say the same thing. I think they are all scumbags.
I see grifting, corruption and all sorts of shenanigans on both sides.
> They also have morality completely at odds to mine.
Hyper-partisan people like yourself will hand waive any wrongdoings because you happen to say things you like. All you are doing is treating politics as a team sport. I have no interest in it.
Comment by RetardedBastard 1 day ago
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Comment by Dansvidania 1 day ago
Then again, I might just be hoping it is so. Given that, sadly, similar movements elsewhere (perhaps with not as much laurel leaves) have quickly fallen apart. (5 star movement in Italy and Piraty in Czech Republic come to mind)
Hopefully the Serbian youths learned from them.
Comment by servo_sausage 1 day ago
In some ways it's the ultimate short term thinking, taking the mediocre but predictable steps, instead of risking the real world with its unbounded upsides.
Possibly that mindset is good in a parliament, but I wouldn't really classify it as long vs short term.
Comment by boelboel 1 day ago
Comment by __rito__ 1 day ago
BUT it is such a toned down, dwarfed down version of what a holistic education should look like. It probably looks like that in undergrad CalTech Physics, maybe. Not much in most places.
People outside think it's so high and holy to be a PhD. It's not for most people.
Most people also go to academia because they can't find other jobs.
Things in Humanities are much worse than STEM, as there are much more subjectivity, favouritism, nepotism, groupism involved.
'Research' nowadays in most fields and institutions is nothing like whatever grand vision people tend to have: Faraday or Bell Labs, Maxwell or Bohr, Feynman or Bletchly Park.
Comment by ChrisMarshallNY 1 day ago
I would like to mention that when I was young, I figured that if young people ruled the world, then things would be much better. I was pretty sour on the bitter, cynical old farts that didn't have a stake in things, and had basically ruined our world.
Sound familiar?
After seeing what's happened in Silicon Valley, which is pretty much my "utopian dream," I have come to realize that young people can be much, much worse than "old farts."
Maximilien Robespierre was an intellectual.
Comment by michael-bey 1 day ago
I think this populist race to the bottom you are describing is a symptom of voting simply being a button to press to enrich your own specific financial interests. This happens on both the left and right of the aisle.
I don't really know how to reconcile this in the current system. Elected representatives seem to be more concerned with career-making and personal enrichment than actually advocating for the people they are supposed to represent.
I'm not advocating for stripping rights, but I am a little bothered that perhaps Adams had a point. As an outsider to Serbian politics, it seems like an academic movement is perhaps an attempt at a nuanced solution to this problem.
Comment by bonoboTP 1 day ago
Comment by oblio 1 day ago
Comment by iorrus 1 day ago
Also the output of tech companies is ideally something tangible not just the careerist publish or perish mindset of academics. Academics are not exactly principled either they will go to exactly where the funding/grants are.
Comment by servo_sausage 1 day ago
Comment by anal_reactor 1 day ago
Society hated techies until we started getting ridiculous amounts of money and women figured out that they could marry a techie and instantly go up the social hierarchy. Now that this isn't happening anymore, society is back to hating techies. Tech always attracted people who were in some ways social outcasts - I've spent my formative years being bullied and now I'm supposed to love the society? I pay taxes to maintain public infrastructure while normies vandalize and misuse it when bored and I'm supposed to love that? Truly baffling.
> low empathy
Blatantly false. Name one industry where a huge chunk of experts spend their time doing volunteer work, because that's what open source is (Linux, GCC, etc.). Have you ever seen a baker just giving out free bread on weekends and calling it a hobby? I haven't.
> "bootstraps" mentality
The expectation that everyone could just vibe through life and be perfectly happy is unrealistic. There will always be winners and losers, there will always be inherent unfairness, deal with that to your best ability.
Comment by marjann 1 day ago
Comment by oblio 22 hours ago
Programmers do that because distribution is free, production has a fixed cost that's relatively limited compared to actual industrial equipment and the output directly benefits THEM.
If they would really be as altruistic as you say, software made by companies started by devs would be AGPL or even freer.
> The expectation that everyone could just vibe through life and be perfectly happy is unrealistic. There will always be winners and losers, there will always be inherent unfairness, deal with that to your best ability.
Q.e.d.
This assumes that a teacher that's paid 1/5th of a dev is "vibing".
Comment by ZeroGravitas 1 day ago
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Comment by g-b-r 1 day ago
It was the first Putin-supported party in Italy
Comment by rightnutwingjob 1 day ago
Ha! <knee slap> <snort!> Good one!
Comment by Dansvidania 1 day ago
Comment by hhsec 1 day ago
The committee of doctors, surgeons and biophysicists I supported couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery...they all had PhDs.
Comment by mtoner23 1 day ago
Comment by ykonstant 1 day ago
However, I want to look at this experiment more optimistically, see if this assembly can defeat the stereotype. I'll be observing its activity with interest!
Comment by hedora 1 day ago
When intellectuals were in charge, or at least given authority by the politicians, things got much better. When they weren't, things got much worse. Examples include the Great Depression and (fast forwarding to the 2000's) the financial crisis, COVID (Trump fired the disease response team that stopped SARS-v1, and that would have been the early response to COVID before it left China.) He also ignored nearly-universal warnings from economists that his policies would cause the inflation that Biden was later blamed for.
On the intellectual side, we have things like the New Deal, the Apollo Program, well-run public education that led the US to be a superpower (and has now been gutted), etc, etc.
Comment by seizethecheese 1 day ago
For example, the Great Depression. Hoover was a literal textbook author, but is widely blamed.
The only real professor was Wilson, but he had similar failings to what people in this thread are worried about.
Comment by hedora 12 hours ago
Writing a textbook full of non-peer-reviewed nonsense does not make you an academic or intellectual.
Comment by jimmySixDOF 1 day ago
But the idea of randomly selecting leaders as a leveling distribution is as old as Athens. We still practice it in Jury selection in much of the world.
So this experiment in Belgrade might be worth watching and it wouldn't surprise me at all if they outperform previous and regional governments.
Comment by prmph 1 day ago
These new batch of people are not randomly selected; they are thought of as more suitable to rule due to their being academics and scientific/technical experts, rather than lifetime politicians. Same as the old politicians who were cut from a certain cloth.
The cloth is now different, but a cloth it remains.
Comment by Abishek_Muthian 1 day ago
Comment by vconnor 1 day ago
I would love to be governed by 500 average Joes and Janes, chosen at random, for a mandatory 4 years of (political) conscription.
But eventually they will themselves vote to abolish this in favour of career politics. It is one of those cursed problems there are no valid solutions to.
Comment by HPsquared 1 day ago
Comment by qwytw 1 day ago
To be fair even if that worked out somehow they would be dominated by the professional bureaucrats running the civil service and other day to day government activities. Effectively it would turn into a technocracy with some degree of oversight.
Comment by vmsp 1 day ago
I'm a bit skeptic on all those professors and PhDs being a boon, though. In Portugal, we've been ruled by PhDs since 1926, if not before. Most ministers are professors, many of them independent. Results haven't been good. I hope Serbia proves us wrong.
Comment by RandyOrion 1 day ago
At least this parliament is elected by people, not manipulated by a corrupted authoritarian / totalitarian party or such.
At least Serbia society can get a chance to rest or recovery after a lot of destruction happened.
Wish them the best.
Comment by adverbly 1 day ago
Power to the people man!
I'm really excited for this to be successful and stay in place.
It's going to end up being something quite unique perhaps in a ways similar to Switzerland's unique democracy.
Comment by gunslinger_meta 1 day ago
Comment by niemandhier 1 day ago
I hope they are confident enough to reach out to people who can help them in matters where not smarts but experience is needed.
Comment by differentSoln 1 day ago
Comment by Trannosaur 1 day ago
The idea that as students or young people they're uniquely going to fail, WHEN IT WAS ALREADY A FAILED SYSTEM doesn't make sense to me, it seems like just poo-pooing?
I guess, a lot of it seems to just be reactionary thought to any change at all eh?
Comment by bugake 1 day ago
F. A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit (1988).
Comment by Danox 1 day ago
I understand China has a large number of engineers. Involved in their government in comparison to the United States…
Comment by aaa_aaa 1 day ago
Comment by rightnutwingjob 1 day ago
And then there’ll be the inevitable “I have to work with that person for how long!?” And the fiefdoms will be set up, and the back stabbing will begin.
That’s before we even consider the effect of the unelected bureaucracy and the power of the lobby groups and foreign interests.
Comment by kushalpandya 1 day ago
Highly qualified scholars are often socially awkward, to the point where their "life experiences" are nonexistent. And that makes them barely relatable to a common person of the society.
Sure they're great problem solvers in their respective fields but in a well functioning administration, you don't want overengineered solutions. Not to mention that politics requires a strong people skill, which is often missing in these class of people.
I'd be curious to know how this experiment turns out eventually.
Comment by gunslinger_meta 1 day ago
Comment by dzonga 1 day ago
vs electing lawyers as done in other countries.
Comment by oblio 1 day ago
Comment by hedora 1 day ago
All the worst people I've dealt with in my career were high EQ. Many were extremely successful and did significant, lasting damage to their employers and coworkers. Some were even violent, yet somehow got away with it.
Comment by rightnutwingjob 1 day ago
Yes, very STEM oriented indeed.
Comment by Biganon 1 day ago
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Comment by DrProtic 1 day ago
What happened is that students created a list of 250 people and vetted them.
So far they did an absolutely amazing job. There are LOT of potentially malicious actors from academia but so far looks like they did a good job at excluding them.
So those 250 people (not all of them are academics, only like half or so, maybe less) were chosen by students and they accepted.
So far, the whole movement and those people from the list haven't made a single mistake; and that's why they got 53% in election. And not ordinary election, these ones were marked by almost complete media blackout and outright lies (e.g. media claiming students are beating women, to give you an idea of what kind of lies).
Anyway, of course, we'll see.
The biggest focus right now for pretty much everyone is putting people in handcuffs, and I don't imagine much of ideological differences on that topic.
Comment by HexnMarcusWolfe 1 day ago
It's going to move things to the extreme edges. On things they agree on things will move fast. On things they disagree on it'll stall indefinitely.
And in the case of the latter, corruption and assassinations become the only answer to moving the needle.
Comment by vazma 1 day ago
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Comment by crtified 1 day ago
It may be that some types of academic ('of the Academy') learning predispose their adherents to see that distinct failure pattern, behind all the noise. I hope so.
Comment by brainless 1 day ago
I feel governments are made of people who barely know anything. It is getting worse. From the US to European nations, India to Australia. Make deals with powerful people, get a seat, serve the powerful. That is modern democracy.
Comment by porknubbins 1 day ago
Comment by andyvesel 1 day ago
Interesting, that the brainiest parliament in the world started with a very populist decision, so it's the degradation from the very beginning. These brilliant minds better would've been stayed in science, rather than getting into politics.
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Comment by hedora 1 day ago
That's so radical these days that it is not on any political spectrum.
Comment by zvmaz 1 day ago
Comment by pattt 1 day ago
Comment by hedora 12 hours ago
Maximize societal benefit per tax dollar spent.
Find one policy in which this does worse than the status quo in the United States. If you want an easier task, change it to:
Maximize long-term economic growth per tax dollar spent.
I still suspect you cannot find an example of how this is worse than current policy. For instance, on the environment, the only path that makes sense on a 20-30 year timeline is to internalize the costs of externalities. That would force cleaner energy or environmental remediation, which would save lots of costal cities in the US, and lower losses due to crop failures and cities burning down. It'd raise the price of gas by maybe $1-2 vs pre-Iran prices.
Speaking of which, we'd never have gone into Iran because there was no economic story for it.
Education is cheaper than prisons and also leads to higher expected growth. Universal health care lowers wasted work on insurance paperwork (which is currently > 33% of US health care costs).
Then there's stuff we wouldn't do: How exactly does policing bathroom gender policies grow the economy again? Allowing food manufacturers to add known poisons to food? Jailing farm workers + their children?
And so on.
Comment by wyre 1 day ago
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Comment by palata 1 day ago
I came here to say that it's not "just academics", as many of the comments here seem to imply.
Comment by Ylpertnodi 1 day ago
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Comment by willguest 1 day ago
It is clear from populist approaches that conducting business-as-usual without any foundational knowledge is dangerous and leads to corruption and regulatory capture, and it is equally true that purely rationalist efforts neglect the messy nature of political governance and social complexity, leading to an overly narrow idea that ends up not serving the people it claims to support.
I expect that this government will rise or fall based on its ability to remain internally cohesive while also trying to resist (and hopefully influence) the many pressures that will be put on it by the regional and global vested interests.
Comment by permalac 1 day ago
Turns out those who never worked in hard jobs don't value them as needed
Comment by groundzeros2015 1 day ago
Comment by ksec 1 day ago
I have much more faith in an electrical engineer than the rest of the academics. Especially sociologist and economists.
Comment by suchoudh 16 hours ago
Comment by 100111011111 11 hours ago
Milosevic was a banker, communist and nationalist all in one lifetime.
Vojislav Seselj started out as a bright, protesting student, look how that ended.
Maybe it'll be different this time
Comment by siva7 1 day ago
Pardon, i may be naive, but shouldn't a stable democratic parliament be somewhat a representation of the citizens who elected them? Do more than half of all serbians have a Ph.D.? I fear this "revolution" isn't what you think it is..
Comment by tzs 1 day ago
For example a country with multiple significant ethnic groups should probably have a parliament with a similar ethnic split. A country with a significant rural population and a significant urban population should probably have a similar split in parliament.
Within those groups people are going to vote for their best people for the job. That's generally going to be from among the smarter and/or more educated in their group.
That results in a parliament that is not representative along those dimensions.
Comment by netfortius 1 day ago
Comment by saaaaaam 1 day ago
Lots of people told my father that he should go into big P politics and his response was always Groucho Marx: “I refuse to join any club that would have me for a member”.
I think he also found Politics of that sort futile and aggressive and based on all the things that he felt didn’t (or shouldn’t) matter in academia: who can speak loudest, build factions, and influence an agenda with no regard for data or facts. Of course many of those things are in fact present in academia.
But it’s very inspiring to see this parliamentary cohort. I do wonder whether they will find it exhausting and disillusioning to operate in the cut and thrust of modern personality politics.
I sincerely hope not though.
Comment by antibarbarus 1 day ago
Also, looking around the globe at professional politicians once also lauded for their political talent, like Macron, or Merkel, I’m really not seeing their policies paying off in spades, nor their "political vision" proving particularly beneficial to their citizenry at the moment. In all three cases, it seems, seasoned politicians made capital errors in judgement which are now causing resentment, almost unprecedented political realignments and upheaval across these nations. People are incredibly quick to judge the potential behaviour of a future political formation - yet Western democracies are by and large falling apart, as a result of career politicians’ actions, inactions, stupidity and avarice? As people speak more and more loudly on certain issues, like Palestine, these same politicians are comfortable ignoring them. Where is the scepticism for them, or the viability of this guild-like way of structuring the political sphere as the way forward? We are living the consequences of having career politicians lead, do we like it so much we cannot conceive of anything better?
Anyway, if you look into the local press in Serbia and especially enclaves like Twitter, there’s a wonderful symmetry: the EU champions are terrified the student movement has already shown "concerning" right leanings, they’re busy counting how many EU flags the students have draped themselves in while marching, and aren’t happy. The right is deeply worried about how the "globalist, NGO, pro-EU camarilla" is already deeply embedded in the student movement (they went to Brussels, after all!) and is perhaps even planting their candidates into the mix to sell out the country’s interests to the globalists. I am being slightly ironic here, but I have nothing but contempt for this thinking on both sides. Winning the election required the participation and support from both these camps’ voting blocks, which tells you how bad the situation truly was, since sworn enemies were forced to cooperate with a political unknown just for the chance to win against the existing political regime.
In a sense, only a political unknown could have won, as all pre-existing political factions, (mostly comprised of these praised seasoned politicians, many of them three decades into their careers) would not or could not muster the strength or wherewithal to work with one another. No nationalist would ever cooperate with a globalist pro-EU green party, even if it cost them their country, democracy, and those same national interests they hold sacrosanct. Likewise, no progressive citizen party saving democratic principles would ever work with what they view as backward retrograde nationalist movements threatening to plunge the country back into the type of rhetoric and milieu as existed during the wars of the nineties. Also, at some point the decades-long careers of many politicians was perfect cannon fodder for the regime’s propaganda machine, gleefully cataloguing their past sins and outright inventing them if the need arose. After a while, political experience morphs into evidence of one’s political parasitism.
It took a decentralised student movement which could not be targeted and besmirched, to engage the non-voting public and voters on both sides of the political spectrum. Part of the reason why all parties which took part in this election were swept away (except for the students and the outgoing regime) was because of failing to recognise the political moment. This election, in my view, was a single-issue election - the workings of democracy and stopping corruption and the further decay of institutions. This is what the political movement will be judged on, and what will determine its political future. The citizenry, at this juncture, is willing to table discussions on foreign policy for the sake of internal affairs and weeding out corruption. Most foreign powers and press corps, sadly, are interested primarily in the foreign policy implications of this new movement, and seem like they couldn’t care less if Serbian citizenry lives in caves, favelas, or in a thriving democracy.
Many things are still unclear, such as the exact relationship between the Parliament and Government, once formed, and the direct democracy practiced by the student movement. It is unclear how effective it will prove, or how they will select their allies and collaborators, as it’s perfectly obvious that the movement cannot simply replace the totality of public administration. Regardless, the new regime will enjoy a broad latitude and a measure of good will among the citizenry not seen in a generation. It needs to use that to good effect. If it fails to deliver, they will be ridiculed and attacked by members of both internal factions, and will more than likely splinter, and usher in a return of Vučić, who - lest we forget - is now the only opposition party in Parliament, with a sizeable number of representatives, and plenty of corrosive residuals and slush funds and media operations still at his disposal. Lest we also forget, with 700k party members, it is a powerful organisation even without the corruptive backend of the state apparatus.
Comment by reader9274 1 day ago
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Comment by realo 1 day ago
... checking notes ...
Ah yes. China used to have 100% technocrats in their leadership 30 years ago. No one with a law degree in sight. Nowadays it is less, but they still have quite a few.
It can work.
Comment by dead_hn_theory 1 day ago
Comment by hedora 1 day ago
Comment by real_faxenoff 1 day ago
If scientific intellect were that successful in politics and governance, then academic cliques would be in power all over the world. And every governor would have a Ph.D.
The more honest and highly educated people gather in one room to decide important issues, the harder the fight will be. And the more sad the outcome.
Science has more or less figured out the causes of such processes, but so far it cannot offer a recipe for sustainable governance. Dictatorship works most effectively, but only for a short period and then stagnates. Autocracy is theoretically better, but depends heavily on specific individuals. Oligarchy is, as a rule, the agony of transitional periods. Democracy in its classical form is complete rubbish; in the form of a masked plutocracy — well, it’s something in between, on par with autocracy. There was some hope for technocracy, but it seems to be failing because the technocrats aren’t really the real ones.
Alas, there’s no good news for anyone.
Comment by real_faxenoff 1 day ago
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Comment by miroljub 1 day ago
With him gone, it's time to say fuck you to them all and regain sovereignty.
Given the number and the might of oppressors, Serbia will definitely need those brains.
Comment by skirge 1 day ago
Comment by idiotsecant 1 day ago
What will happen here will strongly depend on how good these people are at actually playing the game of politics. I don't have any particular reason to be more or less optimistic than any regular slate of politicians.
Comment by ownagefool 1 day ago
It's entirly possible that the experiment fails because of politics, but it's also possible that the amount of politics is simply lower because people are simply more reasonable.
The last part will come down to vested interest and ideologues.
Comment by prmph 1 day ago
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Comment by hedora 1 day ago
So, it'd be a big step up if we had leaders that understood basic elementary school stuff stuff like bleach injections are not medicine (vs Trump), or that draining the California delta would be an ecological disaster (vs Newsom - https://stopthetunnels.org/).
Comment by feverzsj 1 day ago
Comment by probably_wrong 1 day ago
I'm not saying they will succeed, but they have been explicitly voted to fight the corruption you speak of.
Comment by jimmydoe 1 day ago
Israel in contrast is in forever war but much less deaths, hence is stuck with this 77yr old leader forever. USA sort of same boat.
Not saying we should do genocide in USA or Israel to push for change, but in generally I see human live longer is no good, especially the tech to make human live longer usually benefit people in power first (people in Russia and China see this first, but the western now see this haunting them too)
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Comment by fnord77 1 day ago
Oh in fact, there's a term for it
Out-of-Domain Appeal to Authority
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Comment by itissid 1 day ago
In a muddled political system(democratic or otherwise) today its about power and how is it balanced. When Nandan Nilekani was creating India's UIDAI(the national aadhar system), he insisted that he would only do the project if he was given a cabinet level post[1]. His is one of the few technology examples to succeed in India when most large government run projects are a disaster. ISRO is probably another decent example of success. I think Nilekani succeeded because he had a clear moral compass and a defined goal.
But there is a problem with kings, soon they have an asshole child. Metaphorically speaking at least. UIDAI is being used stupidly enough like an SSN now and in ways it was never meant to be.
[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/10/03/the-i-d-man
Comment by mwidell 1 day ago
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Comment by HPsquared 1 day ago
Edit: which makes sense, because technocracy leans heavily on trust (in the experts).
Comment by jamiejquinn 1 day ago
Comment by eru 1 day ago
> but I didn't realise it was so strong on corruption.
That's literally a core part of the brand, isn't it?
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Comment by dzonga 1 day ago
they grew up on communist rhetoric, got support from communist countries - so their main ideology had already failed in the real world. so accumulating degrees without practical experience is a recipe for failure as seen in most african countries.
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But he was extremely successful as manager then. Just like the ex-NAZI NASA leader then a bit later.
That was the golden time of German management.
Comment by eru 1 day ago
Actually, not. They had a few left-over from when Germany had a functioning state, but the Nazis were overall fairly incompetent at actually running the country.
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Comment by protocolture 1 day ago
Lots of governments just end up with career lawyers and politicians.
They can choose their advisors and their advice.
The more varied experts you can get into parliament, the more likely you have an on the record disagreement from an expert preventing a politician from choosing the incorrect advice that suits them better.
Thats not to say they are going to be any better for corruption, but in todays world there are so many deep silos that governments just completely step over and disregard.
Comment by shevy-java 1 day ago
Hardly. But it depends on who is on board.
Corruption exists everywhere. Do you think that Vukic was less corrupt? I am pretty certain you will find many people in Serbia who want to fix the country. Other Europeans would ask: why let only poor countries join? They drain money from richer countries. Switzerland and Norway will never join and they know why. Hint: there is a reason they are rich. Second hint: they got rich without the EU.
Which country got rich with the EU? I don't know of a single one. Germany was already wealthy before the EU was founded. France is now in debt crisis from which it can not escape, so it will drag the whole EU down.
Comment by czw2 1 day ago
Comment by dancing 1 day ago
https://www.euronews.com/2024/12/09/eu-budget-who-pays-the-m...
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Comment by eru 1 day ago
Poland and the other new members in the East, probably?
Comment by fifilura 1 day ago
Great Britain are feeling the pain of leaving so they are living the alternate reality.
Comment by eru 1 day ago
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Comment by hunterpayne 1 day ago
You misspelled NATO
Comment by eru 1 day ago
Comment by eru 1 day ago
However I broadly agree otherwise.
Comment by allendoerfer 1 day ago
Switzerland is the opposite of a state being "without the EU".
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Comment by sparkling 1 day ago
Poland? >250 billion Euros received in subsidies since joining the EU; almost any construction you walk by has the "Funded by EU" poster next to it.
I think the massive service and outsourcing industry would also not have been possible (at the current scale) without EU membership.
Comment by wiseowise 1 day ago
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Comment by locallost 1 day ago
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Comment by qwytw 1 day ago
Which is a double edged sword since then it's hard to get rid of the incompetent and corrupt people when they are deeply entrenched.
Comment by g-b-r 1 day ago
People appointed for their closeness to a party are not too likely to be competent and incorruptible
Comment by qwytw 1 day ago
> party are not too likely to be competent and incorruptible
As I said, a doubled edged sword. A newly elected reformist government won't be very effective if they can't put new people in power.
Comment by rijavecb 1 day ago
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Comment by safety1st 1 day ago
The essential factor in whether a state is good or bad for the people at large is arguably whether you can draw a clear line around which sorts of favoritism are permitted and which are outlawed as corrupt, and actually achieve enforcement when people in power inevitably break these rules. A cardiologist, bioarchaeologist and a physicist are going to know nothing about all of this. Their job is to work with the incumbent bureaucrats and elites who hold the real power in that society and those people will almost certainly run circles around them. Fantasyland Reddit politics consists of making aggressive, principled statements. Real world politics is about recognizing you have to deal with a ton of people who are quite frequently awful but because they've managed to cling to one lever of influence or another you can't ignore them. They are moving things in a the direction you don't want them to go every day so what do you do about them? Jail them? Kill them? Buy them off? Cut a deal with them? Make them see reason even though it's against their personal interest because you're just that smart? (lol!) You can't ignore them. It's nothing like the deterministic systems all these people have studied. I wish them luck but I think I know how this is gonna end.
Comment by photios 1 day ago
Comment by justsomehnguy 1 day ago
> The Brainiest Club in the World - Yale University Press
No.
Comment by sMarsIntruder 1 day ago
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Comment by avazhi 1 day ago
There's no modern historical indication that more degrees results in better governance.
Comment by rvz 1 day ago
So non career politicians.
This is essentially a technocratic government that is left leaning. Just because they are academics, researchers, doctors, engineers and sociologists does not mean they cannot go corrupt themselves (it will). The EU itself is heavily corrupt as well.
We have also seen how corrupt a technocratic right government can get in the US. It will be no different to a left leaning one once money and promises are involved.
To give an analogy of what this is, this is like electing effective altruists from Anthropic with the difference being that they are using your money (taxes) instead of theirs and giving lots of promises for your vote.
If they are serious, they need to pass the world toughest anti-corruption laws while also significantly growing their own economy or borrowing economic policies from the least corrupt nations in the world such as Singapore and to exceed them.
> Student List has promised to fight corruption and establish meritocracy, accountability, and the rule of law.
While these are good promises, the problem is that this is the first lie that they have already made.
They better do all four of them without angering the electorate otherwise they can’t be trusted.
Comment by shevy-java 1 day ago
Hungary has this problem by the way - people thought Péter Magyar will fix, and change, Hungary. Recently Hungary signed a "we are ultra-right servants of Trump" in the USA (see https://telex.hu/english/2026/10/30/hungarian-fm-and-rubio-s...), thus validating all those who pointed out that Peter is just a younger face but the same Orban 2.0 in the end.
Corruption runs very, very deep. I am also certain the Epstein network is not only much bigger than known, but has different actors and beneficiaries. To this day the US court system can not explain why only Maxwell is in prison. That makes logically - and logistically - no sense at all.
Comment by mgrandl 1 day ago
And I also don’t think you can compare Magyar pre- and post election to the new Serbian elected government at all. But I do agree actually producing enough noticeable change until the next election will be hard for both. It just takes time to unfuck countries.
Comment by skrebbel 1 day ago
Comment by watwut 1 day ago
Proper up to the point. No way he is giving up built in advantages right wing has in Hungary - like rural voters votes having way more power then city voters.
Comment by skrebbel 1 day ago
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Comment by secondary_op 1 day ago
"leaderless" is propaganda framing, you have been brainwashed
and there is follow up video
Comment by ordinaryradical 1 day ago
Or are you simply reproducing a regime’s narrative on here?
Comment by secondary_op 1 day ago
It is doubtful he is pro-Russian, but he is surely anti-US.
Brian Berletic - an American industrial designer based in Bangkok, Thailand who has written under the pen name Tony Cartalucci
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNL4xoD5uMYComment by AlexeyBelov 2 hours ago
I mean, have you seen secondary_op's other comments?
Comment by gostsamo 1 day ago
Comment by amiga386 1 day ago
It was my fellow countrymen, and their long held Eurosceptic views, that fucked us. Russia posting divisive pish in 2016 has nothing on our decades of native politicians and newspapers blaming Brussels for everything bad (often its their own policies being policywashed) and pretending everything good came from them.
Comment by g-b-r 1 day ago
Comment by amiga386 1 day ago
Do you wonder why there even was a referendum?
Compare 1997: Sir Jammy Fishpaste hates Europe, spends millions of his own money promoting his Referendum Party, gets nowhere. Because it's "cool Britannia" and the common man is doing well for himself. People think he's a nutter and all he achieves is keeping 4-11 Tories out of power by sapping their votes
But the 2008 crash wrecks the country. UKIP builds a voter base over years, and gets an enormous share of the vote. That's a warning shot for the Tories, whose voters UKIP are sapping. They only just squeaked through a hung parliament with a Libdem coalition. Hence Gambling Dave offers a referendum to bring Europe haters back to his party so he can remain in power.
Those percentage points were already in place before Russia even got going.
Comment by g-b-r 1 day ago
Farage was basically a Putin asset, for years; I don't doubt that a lot of the sentiment was there before any influence, but to my recollection the influence was obvious and very heavy
Comment by cmrdporcupine 1 day ago
Worth remembering... Anti-globalization and anti-liberalization were slogans and policies of the socialist left in the late 90s and 2000s. Battle of Seattle, Occupy, etc. Voices marginalized and mocked by the neo-liberal centrist "left" (not left) in the Democratic party, Labour party, mainstream European govt's, Canadian Liberal party, etc. Manufacturing jobs were dumped overseas, union membership declined, middle class incomes plummeted, 2008 drained people's financial well being, while housing prices skyrocketed etc. And same "moderate" forces also went to war in the middle east, etc. etc.
Obama ran on left populist slogans but actually governed from the neo-liberal centrist right.
Actual socialist left voices and formerly moderate social democratic policies generally had no voice or power in government anywhere, Corbyn was run out of the room, Bernie isolated, etc.
So it's no surprise that the right and far right saw the vacancy and exploited it. The rise of Trump, of UK Reform, etc. ties directly into this sense of hopelessness and anger people had.
Now the "conservative" right -- which was formerly pushing liberalization the strongest -- talks in angry tones about "globalism" instead of "globalization", and it's caught up with anti-Semitic dog whistles, national chauvinism, etc. etc. That shit sells.
Comment by brandnewideas 1 day ago
You're looking at it from a very narrow minded point of view. Those agencies push their agenda in very meticulous ways through many channels. While it may seem that the people are merely exercising their agency and pushing for change, the _direction_ they're pushing towards is what's decided by the agencies, at the very least.
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Comment by well_ackshually 1 day ago
Conspiracy would be saying that the US orchestrated the existence of the Student's list and created protests from thin air. Realism is that the US is very happy about any political destabilization that could favor their interest and will provide unofficial support wherever it's convenient for them.
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Comment by amiga386 1 day ago
He clearly redirected the railway station maintenance budget to his friends instead, because he assumed the public were suckers who'd vote him back in no matter how badly he fucked up. Then the station canopy collapsed and killed people. Entirely avoidable.
When your leaders are nakedly corrupt, and through sheer luck you still have free and fair elections, you vote those fuckers out. Otherwise they'll fiddle while your country burns.
It looks like the public want someone else in charge, they'll give them a fair shake. Maybe the new lot will direct the treasure more appropriately.
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Comment by Betelbuddy 1 day ago
All this while said Researchers offload the real work the students are paying for... to TAs.
Comment by lifestyleguru 1 day ago
Comment by d5lt5 1 day ago
Healthy democracies do not rely on student-led protests to overthrow the government. Someone was behind it and they got what they paid for.
https://www.amazon.com/Jakarta-Method-Washingtons-Anticommun...
Comment by techcode 1 day ago
So far there's been no indication that this time it's been anything but an actual grassroot movement.
Also - having Vučić around was probably better for basically everyone except people living in Serbia.
No one outside had enough interest to see him gone - hence no abroad supported the students. And he's been fucking up lives of people in Serbia long and bad enough to cause an uprising.
While I'm no longer a student, nor living in Serbia anymore. Still having there both older and younger family/cousins that are students and were part the protests - I had a bit of a glance of internal functioning.
It was literally kids/students from a city where rallies/protests were happening - self organizing food and accommodation for other students coming in from other cities.
Other people and business also pitched in with bringing out food/water/etc to the streets for students/protestors.
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