Finnish minister Sanna Marin, 34, to become world's youngest PM

[haunter]

I really don't get HN sometimes. The russian doping ban article was flagged fore political, yet this one stays up even tho I feel this is more political https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21742239

And before everyone says "Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate". I'm not complaining just observing situations like this + HN lacks appropriate open ways for meta discussion (which Reddit actually does better), you can only do this in submission comments

[ddevault]

The doping article is more likely to stir up drama. People have strong feelings about Russia, drugs, the olympics, etc. This article is just interesting - it may involve political figures but there's not really much politics at play. To quote the on-topic guidelines: "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity".

[billfruit]

I thought Russia doping one would at least have some matter for debate and discussion. This news is just a factoid.

[mellosouls]

To be fair (I'm the submitter) I thought of it as more of an interesting article about social progress and the leadership in some areas of countries not always in the news - rather than being a political story per se.

From the guidelines:

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.

(My emphasis, and I've clipped the addendum about if it would be featured on TV news it might not be relevant here).

[wayoutthere]

HN, like any subreddit, has inherent bias in its moderation. I suspect the fact that Russia was involved prompted the removal of the other story -- if I were a moderator, I would just expect any thread involving Russia and international politics to be a dumpster fire. Finland is a bit easier for Americans to avoid passionate political opinions with.

[lbsnake7]

Congratulations to her but it seems like age is seen as less of a factor in these countries. From an outside perspective, the Nordic countries have a very by the book form of government. Meaning the government/prime minister isn’t the result of the hopes and dreams of the constituents but more of how do we get things done with the least amount of turmoil. Kind of like how your local city government is run, where things seem more administrative and less political. Maybe that is the secret to their success.

[toasterlovin]

Perhaps that is because many of the Nordic countries are about the population of a large metro area. Finland, for instance, has about 5 million people.

[wavefunction]

At least in the US city councils there is often a hotbed of politics and corruption it seems. I consider the city-council/property-developer interface to be the greatest scale of corruption in the US.

[buboard]

if old people are not fighting to get the job, there 's probably not a lot of power involved

[tyingq]

There's a list of the youngest world leaders since 1900 here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_youngest_state_leaders...

Oh, and also the current youngest:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_state_leaders_by_ag...

Number 2 and 3 after Sanna Marin are Oleksiy Honcharuk, Prime Minister of Ukraine at 35 and Kim Jong-Un of North Korea at 36.

[ginko]

Currently youngest. Sebastian Kurz, former (and very likely future - he's been reelected and currently in coalition talks) chancellor of Austria, is younger.

[sgjohnson]

He technically isn't a Prime Minister, but Chancellor.

But yes, definitely a head of government.

So the headline is literally correct, but factually wrong.

[irrational]

That seems insanely young. I'm in my mid-40s and don't feel like I have enough life experience to run a neighborhood, much less a country.

[bhaak]

What life experience would qualify you to do this?

Having a person lead a country that will have to live for a longer time with their decisions doesn't strike me as bad.

Through the history, there were lots of young leaders and I don't think that age had much to with how successful they were.

[notkaiho]

She does have a Masters degree in political administration and experience at various levels of government. It's not like she's come in from the cold.

[hrktb]

On some level it could help getting another approach to governing a country.

60~70 yo people also don’t have nearly enough knowledge and/or wisdom to operate at that scale, and if we’re speaking about impacting the lives of millions of people the difference between 34 and 70 is marginal I think. It should all come down to the system they operate in and how they use it, at the end of the day.

[tyingq]

Aside from experience, there's also the notion of a change in demeanor, to something more pragmatic and measured, that happens later in life.

I don't know if there's credible research that confirms it, but it seems true...of course with notable exceptions.

[fortran77]

In the United States, the minimum age was set to prevent "dynasties." Which means that today, they may have set the age even older, because of extended lifetimes.

[ptah]

your lack of confidence is actually a positive indicator if you take into account the inverse of dunning-kruger

[swagonomixxx]

Agreed. For a long time I had thought the age requirement for being president in the US was kind of dumb - why don't we just get the right person for the job, no matter the age? But as I've grown older I realized what you have - it's extremely difficult to run anything, and I would prefer leaders that have been in extremely high, laborious, and difficult leadership positions before over those who are outlier-level young (such as Mrs. Marin). But then again I'm basing this judgement purely on age and not on many other factors so this is a very shallow analysis.

[ptah]

> Mr Rinne stepped down after a plan to cut wages for hundreds of postal workers led to widespread strikes

great to see a politician actually facing consequences for their actions

[jsjw7sbw]

He is still the leader of the democratic socialist party and prime minister by proxy. Actual concequences would be having a new election and reforming the government. Obviously the current government is against that since they know they are unpopular for their incompetence.

[billfruit]

William Pitt the younger, one of the most influential British Prime ministers of all, assumed office when he was just 24.

[irrational]

Hmm, I don't know how it is in other countries, but in the USA retired presidents receive a yearly salary for life. Get yourself elected at 35. Screw around for 4 years. Retire at 39 with a good enough yearly pension to do nothing for the rest of your life. Brilliant.

[ape4]

Of course, there is a law that the USA president must be 35+

[shafyy]

Well, this sounds like Ice Town all over again.

[sojournerc]

Is it really impossible? Why? Do you think there really aren't conservative young people?

I somehow missed when conservative became a dirty word, and have a hard time understanding why anything right of center is "ruining" young people lives.