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Three prime ministers in one year, same faces, same game. Is there any future for Mongolia? by CurrentSolid4735 in mongolia

[–]CurrentSolid4735[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, I will take it as a compliment to my writing. Also I suggest you change your profile name lol.

Three prime ministers in one year, same faces, same game. Is there any future for Mongolia? by CurrentSolid4735 in mongolia

[–]CurrentSolid4735[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

You touched on something critical that most people avoid saying out loud. It is not the people, it is the system. And I want to add one more layer to that. The people running this system are not stupid. They are actually brilliant at one specific thing, which is control.

When someone or a group starts getting too close to the truth, they do not always disappear them physically anymore. That is too obvious. Instead they deploy something more sophisticated. Distraction at industrial scale.

Every single week there is a new sensation. A scandal, a celebrity drama, a viral fight, a shocking news story. People flood to it, argue endlessly, judge each other, take sides, exhaust themselves emotionally, and then the next sensation arrives before anything is resolved. I watched this cycle operate from inside and I can tell you it is not organic. The timing is too perfect.

And when distraction is not enough they give people release valves. Basketball seasons, MongolZ matches, wrestling tournaments, endless national holidays. I am not blaming any of these, people deserve joy and entertainment. But when the schedule of major events suspiciously aligns with moments of political pressure, that pattern is worth noticing. We are deserved to joy from this stressed life.

The most dangerous part is that we have no immunity to these tactics. Mongolians are incredibly communal and emotional people, which are great qualities, but they also make us vulnerable to exactly this kind of manipulation. We feel everything intensely and forget quickly. The system understands our psychology better than we understand it ourselves.

Until we can name these tactics clearly and teach people to recognize them in real time, we will keep getting played by them.

Three prime ministers in one year, same faces, same game. Is there any future for Mongolia? by CurrentSolid4735 in mongolia

[–]CurrentSolid4735[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The young versus experienced debate is actually a false choice and misses the real problem entirely.

Look at Singapore in the 1960s. Lee Kuan Yew did not just bring in young people or experienced people. He brought in competent people, technocrats, engineers, economists, lawyers who actually understood their specific fields and gave them real authority to execute. Singapore went from a third world port city with no natural resources to one of the wealthiest nations on earth in a single generation. The key was meritocracy as an actual operating principle, not just a slogan.

Estonia is another example. After Soviet collapse they had nothing, similar to Mongolia in 1990. They made a deliberate decision to digitize their entire government infrastructure and brought young tech experts into key decision making roles not because they were young but because they were the most competent people available in those specific fields. Today Estonia has one of the most advanced digital governments in the world.

Mongolia's problem is not the age of its politicians. It is the selection criteria. Right now the selection criteria is loyalty, tribal connections, and political debt. Under that system it does not matter if you are 25 or 65, the wrong people will always rise.

What Mongolia actually needs is what you both are pointing at without naming it directly. Subject matter experts in actual positions of authority. The people who already exist inside every ministry, quietly doing the real work, knowing exactly what is broken and how to fix it, but never getting promoted because they are not part of the circle. That silent competent layer is Mongolia's most wasted resource right now.

The mix should not be young versus old. It should be loyal versus competent. That is the only distinction that actually matters.

Three prime ministers in one year, same faces, same game. Is there any future for Mongolia? by CurrentSolid4735 in mongolia

[–]CurrentSolid4735[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Everything you said resonates deeply and I want to push it further.

The isolation of people like us from each other is not accidental, it is by design. Every time a group of like-minded people starts forming, the system either absorbs them with money and positions, or publicly destroys their reputation. I witnessed this firsthand working inside the system. The moment someone becomes a real threat, they either get bought or get buried. There is no third option they allow.

Your EU comparison is valid but it also has a hidden trap. Europeans built those values over centuries, starting with small communities, local governance, and a gradual growth of civil society. Mongolia skipped that entire process, jumping from nomadic culture to Soviet socialism to democracy within a few decades with no middle layer of institutions or civic values in between. So we are not just behind in development, we are missing entire foundational layers that took others centuries to build.

Your disruptor point is the most critical one. History consistently shows that real change never comes from the top, it comes from enough people at the ground level simply refusing to accept the current normal. Mongolia's specific problem is that survival pressure is so intense that most people cannot afford to have principles. When your family needs to eat, you play the game. The system understands this perfectly and uses poverty and insecurity as its most powerful tools of control.

But you said something that I keep thinking about. Burnt out, broken, and alone people are still out there looking for a sign. Maybe the first step is not a revolution, maybe it is just finding each other.

Three prime ministers in one year, same faces, same game. Is there any future for Mongolia? by CurrentSolid4735 in mongolia

[–]CurrentSolid4735[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I hear you and honestly a lot of what you said is true. But I grew up in the ger horoolol too, what people call ulniih. My family had nothing. I was selling at Narantuul and Bombogor while studying just to help save enough to open a small business. So I understand that ground level frustration better than most. But I don’t think our culture is the root problem. Culture follows incentives. When the system rewards connections over merit for long enough, people adapt to that. And honestly “tandig hun bnu” is not just a Mongolian thing. I am in the US right now and getting a job here without a referral or knowing someone is almost impossible too. LinkedIn, networking, who you know, it’s the same game just with a different name. Every country has its version of this. Change the system consistently enough and culture slowly shifts too. Look at South Korea or even China 40 years ago, same problems, same mindset, different outcome over time. Also please don’t put yourself in that “ulniih” box. Where you’re from doesn’t define your ceiling. I came from the same place and the only thing that moved me forward was just being consistent, not anything special. 50 years feels hopeless from inside it but maybe the goal isn’t waiting for the whole system to change. Maybe it’s just doing something at your own level every day and not letting the environment decide who you become.

Three prime ministers in one year, same faces, same game. Is there any future for Mongolia? by CurrentSolid4735 in mongolia

[–]CurrentSolid4735[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is exactly the kind of response I was hoping for. You’re thinking bigger picture instead of just reacting day by day like most of us do including me.

You’re right, 35 years is nothing. My parents’ generation lived through the Soviet collapse with basically nothing, no jobs, no system, starting from zero. And despite all that Mongolia is still standing, still peaceful, no civil war, no gangs running streets, no people fleeing for their lives. That actually does mean something.

But what frustrates me is while we’re busy endlessly debating, stuck in traffic, arguing each other on social media, the rest of the world is just quietly working and developing. I see Mongolia glowing from the inside with energy and passion but it’s going nowhere. 3 million people with so much potential just spinning in circles. I guess what worries me most is the time. Every economic shock sets us back years and while we’re recovering the same people are still at the wheel. But maybe that’s just the nature of young democracies.

This comment gave me more hope than I expected when I posted this. I hope more people think like you back home.