A reader reacts to the assessment of Senator Klobuchar:
Yep. Society as a whole is stupid when it comes to judging people for their abilities to do various things like lead a company or lead a country. Height is a primary preference, especially among men, even though it has zero correlation (much less causation) with ability to lead, manage, decide, understand, negotiate, communicate, learn, or command. Yet, most CEOs are tall. One’s average salary is about $800 more per year for each inch of height. All of our presidents since Nixon (5’11”) have been over 6′.
Other falsely used attributes in place of actual ability include boldness, aggressiveness, physical strength, etc.
Another of the positives of telecommunications is that many, but not all, of these bad proxies are filtered out. Here’s the chart the reader references:
By Jengod at English Wikipedia – Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons., CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32927284
Correlations with the advent of easy travel, radio, and television might be of interest. Perhaps future debates should be banned from TV and only broadcast via radio or other audio-only media.
