Good thoughts to ponder. When I was a lobbyist (cybersecurity and environmental), extremely complex topics (if you want to actually accomplish anything properly) are impossible to manage if you don’t have a powerful entity behind you (e.g. Insurance industry, American Banking Association, and certification companies like UL in the case of cybersecurity) to provide lobbying $ and connections. This is because experts will be drowned out because the topics are too complicated unless they put together an effective program in conjunction with the powers that be. Unfortunately, nobody cares what experts have to say unless there is a financial incentive, in which case any good business person can work in conjunction with experts to get the top line story straight on the whole operation. I did this effectively with Cybersecurity reform. It also helped that Insurance Companies and the American Banking Association (i.e. financial institutions) are really good at managing risk and putting resources into it. They are actually a pleasure to work with (on cybersecurity). Everybody else pretty much sucks at it, because it is not front and center in their operations, despite what they claim…a lot of it is “Security Theater”.
If you now apply those principles to environmental lobbying, you have a dead issue. Who’s going to listen to a complex explanation of how to address for example the issue of green energy for the Power Grid and electric vehicles (I know from personal experience that not a single person working on policy, strategy, planning, etc. in the Power Industry or the Government has any clue as to how this works). Who’s going to put up the money and resources to save the Earth? Pretty much nobody with enough money and power. (Without an any strong NGOs with strong funding from the populace, very little will happen other than a very slow crawl).
So the experts can be integrated in to the governing process ,but only in rare circumstances. Another example: It doesn’t work in education for different reasons, for example, pick 2 out of 3:
- Inspiring students creativity, teamwork skills, confidence , etc
- Manage costs
- Get good standardized test results
Which one will be dropped. The one hardest to measure and explain : #1.
So the focus will be on #2 and #3.
Any experts who buck this trend will be ignored or fired. (I also know this from personal experience)
And yes, since capitalism + politics is designed to ensure people don’t have enough time to be experts, the majority of the population has absolutely no idea what’s going on. So the experts are pushed aside unless their skills and values are in alignment with the government as a corporate for-profit entity in partnership with Wall Street and Big Business.
The scariest one is the incompetence in the Federal Government on managing Nuclear Weapon’s strategy:
https://medium.com/@mariakonner/book-review-confessions-of-a-nuclear-war-planner-ac8771f78049
I’ve worked with two of the three Federal Organizations you mentioned. Very smart and intense people, but same principles apply, they all must be in alignment with the wheels of capitalism and big business. (Being good at encryption for example doesn’t make you a good security practitioner.) The only exceptions is when something goes so wrong it’s really obvious — e.g. Washington DC is under water, nuclear war, etc. Planning properly to avoid problems is absolutely out of the question in our current environment. The populace is just too overwhelmed and disorganized.
Organized Greed is more effective than disorganized democracy
