Congressmen are experts at getting people to vote for them. The problem is that the people who step up to the challenge of winning this popularity contest aren't necessarily most qualified to be calling the shots.
I'd like to see more STEM workers in general running for office. They'd certainly pique my interest more than yet another lawyer.
All joking aside, I think there is a certain way of thinking that comes from a technical education that could be used more in government.
The Chinese government seems a lot more rational, and it's not just because they have authoritarian control. Our government could be far more rational too.
But that's not the important part of government. The important part of government is:
1. Identifying parties who might be affected by a decision.
2. Informing / talking with said parties.
3. Deciding if said parties have conflicts of interests / biases to consider.
4. Making a decision afterwards.
Expertise in a particular subject is... kind of not needed. There are always more experts out there. The only "expertise" needed is again: the politics. Being able to identify conflicts of interest and account for them.
Sure, a CEO doesn't need to be an engineer because the CEO doesn't do any engineering, but he understands the fundamental forces that shape the success of the engineering projects and he respects the process.
Like Steve Jobs?
> CEO with an engineering background
I mean, Lisa Su and Jensen Huang are great. But I'd argue that Elon Musk is terrible as a CEO.
I mean, you're asking the very basic Bill Gates (Programmer background) vs Steve Jobs (non-programmer) question. Obviously there's a difference, but I wouldn't necessarily say that the lack of engineering background hurt Steve Jobs.
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I'm not entirely sure if an engineering background is necessary to be a good or bad CEO. The most important thing is being able to lead your workers. For some, it means being a technical leader, understanding the code and product.
For others, like Steve Jobs, it means being a visionary and making the right business choices. Another great non-technical CEO would be Warren Buffet, a great CEO and visionary: being able to predict the future of the American economy and place investments in the right place.
There's lots of ways to lead and inspire others. We programmers worship technical leaders, because that's our strength. But I'm aware of many other styles of leadership, and respect that too (Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet)
Lets play some word-games:
* Doctors : Disease, Ebola, Health Care costs
* Accountants: Corporate Taxes, Tax Loopholes, Economic Stats
* Programmers: Encryption, Websites, "Internet is Tubes", Infrastructure as a Service
* Army Generals: War against ISIS. War against Taliban. War against (any other enemy here).
* Civil Engineers: Bridge design and safety, Urban Smart Growth, Gentrification, Water Rights management across rivers.
* Energy Engineers: Power Plant construction, Nuclear Safety, Solar vs Coal investments.
* Farmers: Patent law applied to GMOs and ownership of genetics, Legal Insecticides and whether or not they are damaging the local ecology, legal limits to water-consumption across various states and locals
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Believe it or not: US Politics involve more than just programmer issues. We care about programmer issues because Hacker News attracts programmers. But as soon as we leave the subject of programming, we (as a community) will become blubbering idiots in the face of Hospital issues, Child-care laws, foreign policy and Tax-fraud.
The entire point of a Congressman is to specialize in the ability to talk to a wide variety of experts. Congressmen are "experts at politics": the ability to make a decision WITHOUT being an expert in a subject.
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Our job, as experts in our field, is to form a cohesive argument that Congresspeople understand. Well, that's the point of lobbying: hiring specialists who know how to talk to Congressmen, so that our interests are communicated more effectively.
And lets be frank: there are plenty of lobbyists who are actually representing technology's point of view at the moment. Google, Facebook, Microsoft, IBM, and other big-tech all ensure that Congress is keenly aware of the issues affecting our field.
Other fields are not quite as lucky as ours. I don't think we have any right to really complain about the Programmer's role in modern US politics.