Competence Crisis Collapses Systems

A growing norm of promoting on grounds other than technical competence (political, identity, or managerial conformity) is, the author argues, weakening the people who run interdependent national systems. Failures in shipping, energy, transport, and health are presented as symptoms of a systemic selection problem that produces cascading breakdowns. — If true, this reframes infrastructure and safety failures as governance and personnel problems rather than isolated technical accidents, shifting where policy remedies (hiring, oversight, legal standards) should focus.