[CharlieDigital]

There was an interesting Freakonomics podcast a few months back that pointed out an interesting divide in how the US and China thinks about its leaders[0].

    > China is a country that is run by engineers, while the U.S. is a country run by lawyers. Engineers, he explains, are driven to build while lawyers are driven to argue, and obstruct.

Even Trump:

    > And even though Donald Trump is not a lawyer by any means, I think he is still a product of the lawyerly society, because lawsuits have been completely central to his business career. He has sued absolutely everyone. He has sued business partners, he has sued political opponents, he has sued his former lawyers as well. And there is, I think, something still very lawyerly about Donald Trump in which he is flinging accusations left and right, he’s trying to intimidate people, trying to establish guilt in the court of public opinion

Very interesting take and I think insightful on why the US is the way it is today and sidesteps the democracy vs autocracy debate.

[0] https://freakonomics.com/podcast/china-is-run-by-engineers-a...

[fdw]

The episode was based on the book Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future by Dan Wang (Amazon: China's Quest to Engineer the Future)

Very interesting read, with a lot more depth and details to this short (but accurate) summary.

[Hikikomori]

Not just lawyerly society, special kind of asshole lawyer, as he was a protégé of Roy Cohn.

[jwhitlark]

Supposedly Roy Cohn was startled by how easily he was discarded when he wasn’t useful anymore. Makes me wonder who will be the next in line with the knife.

[ixtli]

Very interesting way to put it. I would be less generous having lived here most of my whole life.