Ok, but, like, no offense, are you skilled enough to properly analyze and dig through large complicated bills? Are you a skilled enough administrator to manage an office of staffers? Are you a good enough public speaker to campaign?

I’m not saying people should want to serve in congress because it pays well, but, if the same set of skills that make a good representative could earn you 4 million a year in the private sector, then it’s going to be really hard to get qualified professionals. Instead you’ll get incompetent ideologues, independently wealthy aristocrats, or corrupt individuals intending to abuse the position.

It needs to pay competitively or else you create a bunch of perverse incentives.

[–] MumboJumbo@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago

Ok, but, like, no offense, are you skilled enough to properly analyze and dig through large complicated bills? Are you a skilled enough administrator to manage an office of staffers?

Are most politicians? They generally use their staff and their chief of staff for those things. The only thing that I'd grant them across the board, generally, is they are decent at public speaking.

There are many people that have specialized training that do their work to serve, not for the money (e.g. teachers, public defenders, MSF, etc…)

[+] yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] grindemup@lemmy.world -4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Damn bro I need to know what school you got a math degree from if your logical reasoning is that faulty!

[–] yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I’m fairly sure my “logical reasoning” is spot-on, but feel free to correct me.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world -2 points 3 days ago (2 children)

A law, philosophy, or poli sci degree from a no name college holds a hell of a lot more weight for politics than a mathematics degree from Harvard. Know your limits.

[–] grindemup@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Online rankings seem to put Harvard pretty high for mathematics! So I wouldn't disregard their opinion just because their degree is from Harvard. I would disregard their opinion because of how faulty the logic is though.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It's not the ranking, it's the being completely out of their field. But y'know, someone should be able to pick up on that if they had gone to Harvard

[–] grindemup@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

What do you mean? Harvard has excellent international ranking for math, specifically. How is this "being completely out of their field"?

[–] yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I appreciate that you like philosophy. If we are interested in intelligence, though, a degree is less important than, say, how well you can do on a test like the LSAT. If we are interested in specialized skills, then a degree and the institution matter an awful lot. Keep in mind, however, that most people with any credentials from any institution are incomprehensibly stupid.

I’m not sure how we would determine whether someone is a good person. That’s significantly more difficult. But certainly nobody motivated by money is a good person.