Politics makes us mean and dumb

[Skybird]

http://emotionresearcher.com/politics-makes-us-mean-and-dumb/

Kind of a summary of some of the core arguments of the book by the author that I currently read.

Also, this:
http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2017/01/hurting-low-information-voters-wittle-feelings/

General, vague own doubts, and then Hoppe were main origins for my growing critical attitude towards democracy. It seems I now stumbled over another major name to add to that: Brennan.

Like Hoppe, Brennan offers an ill-defended flank for counter attack, for criticism.

Different to Hoppe, he admits that there are some weak sides in his alternative model, which he considers to be not complete therefore (whereas Hoppe seems to think he offered a complete and realistic alternative - on which I would disagree).

But both men point at the same direction, and they do so for mutually supporting, complementary arguments and reasons. Their diagnosis and description on the hopelessly messed up status quo and the inner contradictions of the democratic concept, is very hard to fight against, I think they simply are very right there. On the alternatives they offer, more discussion and solution-finding is needed. Hoppe concludes that all existence of a state has to be denied and that there is no need for having a state in the first, no matter whether it is a democracy or a monarchy or whatever.

Brennan seems to be less radically against having a state as a principal basis of human community, but seems to take the need for state as a basis. But maybe I have not yet read enough by him.


Let’s be clear: Part of my mission is to downgrade the status we attach to politics. I argue for elitism about politics in the same way I argue for elitism about plumbing. The average person knows jack **** about plumbing, but that doesn’t make him an inferior person. Still, the average person’s opinions on plumbing aren’t worth much more than the stuff we flush down the pipes. Same goes for the average person’s opinions on trade policy, immigration policy, and so on. To have a reasonable point of view requires knowledge of particular relevant facts (let alone social scientific knowledge), but we have 65 years of data showing most people lack awareness or are uninformed about even the most basic relevant facts. “It hurts my feelings when you say that!” Sorry, precious, but I ain’t your mommy.

[Rockin Robbins]

Unfortunately, lacking any real knowledge, we parrot the words of political leaders, posing them as our own thoughts. We treat politics as a football game. If your guy cheats on a crossword puzzle, damn him, put him in prison, flog him and off with his head, not necessarily in that order.

If our guy takes bribes to give hostile nations a pass on rearming with biological weapons, and incidentally sends them a couple shipments of anthrax, well, that excusable. Anybody could make such a mistake, if that is even a mistake. And we begin to advocate giving anthrax to all nations as a gesture of trust.

Our guy good. Your guy bad. That is politics today. That and the pursuit of personal destruction of the opposition, impeaching them, boycotting them, shouting them down when all they wanted to say is that they like puppies, attacking their supporters with knives, sticks and bricks, destroying innocent people's property as some kind of "protest" against a totally different group of people. That is politics today. We should hire a nation who doesn't care about our politics to arrest such houligans and put them in prison, no matter what their political affiliation.

[Gargamel]

I was fully expecting a blank post here, but knowing skybird, I knew better. :03:

But do you really need to provide any links for this statement? Anyone who visits GT regularly will attest to this.

[Skybird]

I sometimes wonder when coincidence ends and synchronicity begins. :) As chance wanted it, just short time before I stumbled over Brennan, I had started to read about what they call "political psychology". Thats is a branch that is busy with research on how people get their potlical views and opinions, what influences them, how educated of the fields in poltics they are and so on.

Plenty of empoiricla findings there, some very clever experimental settings they have run, too. And the findings are absolutely desillusionising. Most people, the overwhelming majpirty, is clueless about the objcts of poltics. Most form their opinions basing on mechnisms like football fans in a club of fans: team colour decides the right and the wrong exclusively, period.

And then came Brennan and referred to all those names I just had started to read about and fired them like torpedoes into the fetish of general elections and the precious, the holy, the hopelessly overestimated shrine of having the right to "vote".

The competence to use that freedom, that right, to vote, to decide for this and agaunst that, needs a certain level of infiormation and education that most people simply lack. For reasons of that political psychology calls "rational ignorrance".

Indeed, most people are clueless hobbits or bullying, aggressive hooligans. Rational, educated Vulcans there are almost none. Most voters are hobbits. Most activists, campaign helpers and politicians are hooligans. There is heartbreaking plenty of empirical evidence in political psychology showing that becoming politically engaged in the usual, conformal ways society invites us to see as prcious and holy, lead NOT to higher education and informaiton and understanding.

I comoare it to a crowd of tourists aboard a Boeing flying towards their holiday destination, all wnat to party and all want to feel fine. And then comes the voting: the voting on what the pilot should do when and how. Passengers decide by majority vote what flap settings he shioukld set for takeoff. Where to set rotation speed? What climb speed? When to retract the gear? What cruise altitude? Where to mark top of descent? Approach speed, which one? Brake settings: 1, 2 or 3? Or even setting 4? Full flaps? Or is 30 sufficient? And so on, passenegers debate it and vote on it and everybody has his say and everybody is clueless and knows no stuff about nothing - but all demand to be treated like a holy expert. Becasue they have a "right".

The problem is, the elite Brennan argues to have the lead in politics, called epistocracy, doe snot exist as an elite. Its no Vulcans forming it, it is just more unscrupulous hooligans. We can see it in the Eu wonderfully: the EU just practices what I described: it feels authorized and justified to set the rules and demand that others should follow them. But it is no Vulcans making these rules, it is hooligans making them, lobbyistic holligans, narcissistic hooligans, attention-craving hooligans, ideology-drunk hooligans - but hooligans all of them nevertheless.

Hooligans that get electd by clueless hobbits. Ho could any good come from this? How could such an arranegment ever be not dysfunctional? Most people would serve poltic interest best if not getting engaged in politics and over politics, and not being interested at all.

To have a voting right for every Peter and Paul, is simply stupid. Such a right should base on whether somebody has the education and informaiton qualifying him, or not. And that alone still does not solv the problem of egoist versus altruist election decisions. Here is where the Ancient Greek come back into play, I think. There, only "citizens" had the right to vote. But the old Greek term for citizen meant by that "bands of armed people", in other words, citizens are military units of any kind. Soldiers. Who was allowed to bear arms? Only men (no women), only free men (no slaves, servants, subordinates), only rich free men (since they had to pay for their equipment and armor l by themselves). The latter is relevant since it was this elite, this wealthy elite, that was to defend the city against foreign aggressors, and to decide - via debate and majority vote on internal city issues and things of public interest. Those who were authorized to participate in these processes, at the same time had much at stake that they invested into the city - their private wealth and property, that is. Between only 5 and 15% of Greek city populations were seen as citizens. And thes ecitizens - were feudal elite of noble men. Thats is what democracy originally was - a feudal form of government! ;)

Good old Ben, twice:

"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."


"The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. But you have to catch it yourself."

(http://www.quotes.net/quote/41624)

[Sailor Steve]

IGood old Ben, twice:
Except of course for the part where he never said either of those.

[Skybird]

I seem to vaguely recall either you or somebody else years ago already said that on the first quote. However, it gets allways attributed to him, both quotes, not just on internet quotation sites, but in print media and books as well.

So for the time being, I keep it simple and pragmatic, and do like others do as well. Both quotes by Benjamin Franklin, therefore. :DL To claim the opposite all of a sudden would not be believed by anyone anyway LOL. And if they are not by him indeed, at least their content is like that they could as well have been said or written by him.

I had just one book about Franklin, but it probably drowned in the flood we had three years ago, together with a good other share of my library. :cry: At least I cannot find it anymore since then...

[Sailor Steve]

"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2181646/posts

"The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. But you have to catch it yourself."
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/04/historical_inaccuracies

Just because everyone on the internet repeats something doesn't make it so. Nor does saying something in a book. A careful search of Franklin's papers reveals that he never wrote anything like either one of those quotes. No one who parrots those quotes (and many others) ever gives an actual attribution ("Letter to so-and-so, such-and-such date"). It's a game played by political hacks who want someone important to back up their own beliefs. It's called "cheating" and "lying". I don't think you're cheating or lying, but I do think quoting the meme without checking on it is lazy at the very least. It only takes a minute to check a quote. To defend that laziness with the comment "no one would believe it anyway" is even worse. The truth is the truth, whether anyone believes it or not.

And if they are not by him indeed, at least their content is like that they could as well have been said or written by him
Maybe the first one, but the comment on the Constitution misses the fact that it says nothing about "The Pursuit of Happiness". That is the Declaration of Independence. Franklin, who helped draft both, and signed both, would know the difference.

[Skybird]

While techncially you are right, I must admit I think there are more important things than to become this pedantic about such famous quotations that are this popular that even in books by best-intending professional authors on for exmaple history or politics and history give these quotes time and again. I really do not know how often I have stumbled over them by now, onine as well as in books. VERY often.

Too judge whether such claimed popular quotes by somebody are fakes or are real, requires an intimate expertise on the author in question. And that is kind of specialised knowledge that most people simply do not have, and do not care to get, for acchieving it means too much investment for them (time), while providing too litte benefits. So there we have it again: "rational ignorrance" that I already mentioned above. Both "quotes" have a meaning and a message, and I think it matches what I wanted to hint, and I also think they meet the general direrciton of thought in Franklin. At least as long as all the other things I read about him and quotes I read that are claimed to be by him, maybe even his full biography, have not been a fake as well. ;)

Relax, good man. No real harm was done, nor intended. And I fear you will need to live with that these quotes will be continued to be attributed to Franklin by many, many people, right or wrongly so.

Heck, not even the Bible's originality is beyond doubt in so many passages that might or might not be correctly translated. Not even the Quran is original. LOL.

[Sailor Steve]

While techncially you are right, I must admit I think there are more important things than to become this pedantic about such famous quotations that are this popular that even in books by best-intending professional authors on for exmaple history or politics and history give these quotes time and again. I really do not know how often I have stumbled over them by now, onine as well as in books. VERY often.
So I can misquote anybody I like, and justify it because to point out that it's wrong is pedantic? It's okay to say something is commonly attributed to somebody but is not confirmed, but to say somebody said it is to state that it is true. And if it's not?

Too judge whether such claimed popular quotes by somebody are fakes or are real, requires an intimate expertise on the author in question.
Not really. I treasure history the way you treasure psychology. I double-check every quote I use. It's not that hard to do.

And that is kind of specialised knowledge that most people simply do not have, and do not care to get, for acchieving it means too much investment for them (time), while providing too litte benefits.
Five minutes is all it takes, and the benefit is telling the truth from a lie. Are you saying the truth isn't important to you?

So there we have it again: "rational ignorrance" that I already mentioned above. Both "quotes" have a meaning and a message, and I think it matches what I wanted to hint, and I also think they meet the general direrciton of thought in Franklin. At least as long as all the other things I read about him and quotes I read that are claimed to be by him, maybe even his full biography, have not been a fake as well. ;)
Benjamin Franklin was a very famous man, even in his own time. Every single quote has been checked and rechecked. The same is true of every very famous man. All it takes is a couple of minutes to look for the checking that's already been done. To misquote somebody is understandable, especially when so many have deliberately done so in an attempt to make someone famous seem to support their cause. To attempt to justify it by saying "he could have said it" is a deliberate distortion of the truth. You like to point out when others are wrong. Are you trying to misdirect the facts when you are shown to be the same?

Relax, good man. No real harm was done, nor intended. And I fear you will need to live with that these quotes will be continued to be attributed to Franklin by many, many people, right or wrongly so.
And I will continue to point out that it is wrongly so. And the ones who use them will continue to try to justify their wrongness.

Heck, not even the Bible's originality is beyond doubt in so many passages that might or might not be correctly translated. Not even the Quran is original. LOL.
Yes and no. There are enough experts who know their stuff to translate the Bible correctly. The problem is that so many of the original manuscripts disagree with each other, and none of them are early enough to be truly "original". On the other hand if someone misquotes the Bible you can bet that plenty of others will point it out.

[Skybird]

Steve, I am only saying that I think you simply spend a bit too much attention to somethign that you will not change anyway. Many people will continue to attribute said two quotes to Franklin, no matter what those dudes in that other forum said. It happe, you don't like it, but it happens nevertheless. Its not as if any real serious consequences are caused by this. Its harmless. it does not matter that much. No information damage has been done. Those two statements are good ones. Some say the author is named wrong, okay. So be it. i do not know - the ultimate evidence for the opposite the links you posted do not provide, too, btw. Just some people claiming somethingthign diffefebt, and hinting by wuotes from some other people that the two sentences could as well be collected from the context of words by somebody else. Just saying - I really dont want to start a fight here.

Compare this to me living in a sociocultural habitat where 99,9% of the population seriously believes that this political freak show event around them indeed is correctly attributed to what ancient Greek democracy was about - there you have a big distortion of things, and according consequences! What e call demicracy today, to the old Greeks would have appeared as tyranny! Still we call Greek the cradle of our modern poltical order!?

I think my suffering is much bigger than yours! :D

BTW, I do not "treasure" psychology the way you seem to think I do. Way too much stupid babbling in there, if you ask me, way too much. But not all is bad, and so some stuff I keep on mind. I have voluntarily given up this branch, and not even for one day I have ever regretted to do so - what does this tell you? ;) :)

I would share your pedantry on this quoting thing if I would write an academic paper, or somethign meant for professional publishing, a book. There are academic standards and rules for correct quoting: footnotes, sources to be given and colelcted in an appendix, quoting in correct context, and so forth, not to mention: checking the copyrights. But hey, this is a bar, no university, so enjoy the jokes and the cold beer. Life can be easy.

[ikalugin]

"The problem of the Internet is that noone verifies the origin of quotes" - Joseph Stalin.

[Rockstar]

http://www.snopes.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/stalin.jpg

https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_908w/2010-2019/Wires/Images/2016-01-31/Getty/507815942.jpg&w=480
Ben Carson

[vienna]

The issues of quotes brought to mind one of the most argued quotes, actually an exchange between two noted historical figures (a sort of quote on quotes):

“I Wish I Had Said That” “You Will, Oscar, You Will”

http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/09/05/oscar-will/

The link gives as full a background, with citations, as one could hope, and can be found just by typing in Google the basic quote; the link, in fact, was the first one presented in the results, and there are other links on the same subject. It is ridiculously simple to source a quote on the Web; what would have taken me hours in the library pre-Web is now done in less than a few seconds. Not adequately researching a quote, or any citation, for that matter, is nowadays is more a case of either sloppiness or laziness, or both...




<O>

[Skybird]

Sloppiness? Laziness? :) I'm guilty as charged- but I would rather not producing as many typos with my inapt speedtyping amok-hacking, for I think my posts suffer from these many typos much more than from some good quote attributed to maybe the wrong author.

:woot:

[Sailor Steve]

My apologies. My intent wasn't to derail the thread. It was originally just to point that out, something I will continue to do whenever and wherever I see it. Pedantic? Guilty. OCD? More than likely. Argumentative? Sometimes.

Still, on with the show!

[vienna]

Sloppiness? Laziness? :) I'm guilty as charged- but I would rather not producing as many typos with my inapt speedtyping amok-hacking, for I think my posts suffer from these many typos much more than from some good quote attributed to maybe the wrong author.

:woot:

Just to clarify and apologize, if necessary: my comments regarding sloppiness and laziness were not intended to be personally directed towards yourself; it was just a general observation I probably should have worded better...

Typos are not a big issue, in general. As someone whose typing skill has not progressed much beyond a rapid 'hunt and peck', I am in no position to criticize others; in an informal forum such as this, even if the typing is not of the best, as long as the idea gets across, its all good... :up:

My apologies. My intent wasn't to derail the thread. It was originally just to point that out, something I will continue to do whenever and wherever I see it. Pedantic? Guilty. OCD? More than likely. Argumentative? Sometimes.

Still, on with the show!

Steve, we all enjoy your OCD; it keeps us honest. Mine extends to keeping a dictionary, of some kind, either physical or digital, at hand while reading or writing, just to be sure I either fully understand the intent of a read word in its context or to be sure a word I use actually conveys the meant intent. Somehow, I rather much suspect dictionaries are not far out of your reach, also... :03:




<O>

[Skybird]

Just to clarify and apologize, if necessary: my comments regarding sloppiness and laziness were not intended to be personally directed towards yourself; it was just a general observation I probably should have worded better...

No worries, man, I did not take anything queer there.

[mapuc]

Haven't been following this thread closely

We all have some kind of a political standpoint and we all try in some way or others to convince others that we are correct and they are wrong.

If this fail does this make the other person dumb or what ?

Of course not-It could very well be that it is I who is mean and dumb, ´cause I failed to understand the other persons argument or similar.

Markus

[Skybird]

^That is not what Brennan - or me - are about. The point is that many people do not have the knowledge to understand what they form political opinions on, lack the knowledge to fully understand the many issues poltical touches upon, and that just own team colours, so to speak, influence them stronger and make them more team-conformal , than they realise. The have unfounded opinions, therefore, opinions they cannot explain why they have them, they cannot defend them. Challenge them on their views, and they turn aggressive, therefore. When I realise that I lack sufficient understanding or info on some matter, then I sometimes intentionally refuse to form an opinion on it. Which also means I do not take sides and do not defend arguments. Since most people however seek the collective cover of the mainstream, since it represents the "biggest team" and thus its colour seem to matter the most, even not having an opinion often is seen as a challenge to which said mainstream collective reacts most aggressively - since your non-opinion implies you are not with them. And that is enough to justify striking against you.

[Sailor Steve]

When I realise that I lack sufficient understanding or info on some matter, then I sometimes intentionally refuse to form an opinion on it.
Yeah, I know that feeling.

even not having an opinion often is seen as a challenge to which said mainstream collective reacts most aggressively - since your non-opinion implies you are not with them. And that is enough to justify striking against you.
What's really fun is when they accuse you of "sitting on the fence". It's almost like not having an opinion is a major crime.

I once heard someone quote the old saying "The man who stands for nothing will fall for anything." My reply was "Usually said by the man who fell for something and now can't stand the idea that he might have been wrong."

[Rockstar]

I dont think politics makes us dumb and mean. Politics just gives us the opportunity to show the world the levels of how dumb and mean we already are.