How dumb are we?

[Tchocky]

I don't very much relish the idea of being bound by laws that I have neither given consent to nor have the power to change.

[Betonov]

Originally Posted by tater

And most likely most who voted "for" were also told by someone in one way or another.

It was an Arbitration Agreement between Slovenia and Croatia about a sea border in a small bay, empty of fish and poluted, that has been a hotspot between the countries since Yugoslavia fell apart in 1991. I was for since I was tired of politicians using this disagreement to avert the public form the failing economy and incompetence of politicians, to the point I am more ready to trust some hotshots from Belgium to finally sort this out than national(istic) interests.
The problem I have and you proabibly guessed it is that if my grandmother would have said: I'm against because I dont trust foreigners to do this right. it would be alright, her decision. No, she was against because a radio told her.

[Platapus]

Read

The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies choose bad policies

by Bryan Caplan

I don't agree with everything he writes, but he brings up some interesting viewpoints

[Skybird]

Isn't it that if you make a choice between several options/alternatives, you need to understand these options' characteristics and implications for yourself and for others? And isn't it that for this both intellectual functionality and transparent information are necessary, inevitable preconditions?

Isn't it that elections are not the goal and holy grail of democracy, but just a tool trying to acchieve democracy's real internal utopia? I think many people are extremely vulnerable to especially confusing these two.

Do fishes in a big swarm, swimming in perfect synchronicity, practice a "choice" in the widest meaning when deciding whether to swim left, straight or right in this very moment? And I see many similiarities in the behavior of voting masses, and swarm "intelligence". Predators have learned to manipulate the behavior of the whole swarm (for example to keep it together or to surface). So it is with "public opinion", "new press" and "new media", politicians, and the anonymous tyranny of political correctness and opinion conformity.

Making a choice is not a right imo, but a capability, and it has several inevitable preconditions that miust be fulfilled in order to be of value, and making a difference. For democracy, such preconditions are an understanding for background processes, and education; an awareness fore longterm dimensions and how the single person'S interest collides or collides not with the overall interest of the higher community. And as I argued earlier in other threads, community size to me seems to be one of the most important factors influencing the effectiveness of democratic principles working - the bigger the community, the smaller the chance for full understanding by the individual, for transparency and fact-based decision making instead of decisioons formed by simple habits.

Votring by habit is not what democratic elections are about. For that, influencing the pltical going of a whole community simply is too important as if any community can afford to leave it to that.

Four weeks ago, I got letter again, there is something that is called "Sozialwahlen", certain gremiums are getting voted for that have a supervising function over parts of the social security system. Not a single peson or name on the lists is known by most, incluzding me. I could throw a dice or a coin - but is that what democratic elections are about?

What I think on elections over political parties on federal and national level, I have said in earlier threads.

What is said in the textbooks about how it is meant and what it should be like, is one thing. But reality - is totally different. The theory of de,mocracy in our modern time with our modern social communities to me seems to be as dysfunctional as is the theory of ideal capitalism or the theory of ideal classic economy theory or as the theory of ideal communism.

In the end, all this is just a variation of a theme that has surfaced repeatedly in the past mon ths in thios forum: the controvery I had with some others over total, unlimited freedom and necessarily limited freedom, and total tolerance versus tolerance that is intolerant of the intolerant.

Freedom to choose is not so much just a right - riding this prinmciples hill up, hill down, leads you nowhere but into distortions. Freedom to choose is a skill, an ability. It depends of actual choices being avaiulable (with the choices being diferent to each other indeed), and your ability to see the difference between them, and the longterm consequences. People not being able to deliver in this regard, shall notr be given the right to influence and maybe mess up the fate of all. For that reason we do not allow little children to vote. For that reason I think we shall, not allow very old people with already present intellectual handicaps to vote (like we also do not let them drive cars, etc.). Education and information is what it is about, and intellectual capacity to process these. And here, not all people are the same. Not at all.

If people cannot step beyond themselves, and think beyong themselves and take into account the factors I mentioned, they should indeed not be allowed to vote. Not in violation of democracy, but actually to give back some meaning to "democracy". Acting by habit, or by throwing a coin, or by instinct or trained behavior, everybody can. You then can even let doves in laboratories vote for parliament. But then it would not make a difference between democratically elected regimes, and regimes that are simply put on top off you.

Is this really what democracy is about?

I am convinced that somehow we need to learn to think beyond democracy. I have no solutiun, but I still can state that like I can state that a claimed false solution for a complex mathematical formula is wrong - by showin g it to be wrong. You can falsify a wrong result even if you do not know the correct result.-

See all this also a bit in the light of that essay 14 months ago, where I summarised Jared Diamond about how we can make suicidal decisions about our fate and future - on the basis of maximum reasonability and well intention and good argument.

[Betonov]

Maybe if we eliminate the pre-election campaign more voters would vote based on the achievements of the voted and not on their sweet talk.
C'mon, one has a whole mandate to make up his mind

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Betonov

Maybe if we eliminate the pre-election campaign more voters would vote based on the achievements of the voted and not on their sweet talk.
C'mon, one has a whole mandate to make up his mind

lieschen Müller is 78 years of age and hardly understands a word anymore. She does not know much about anything anymore, but she still goes voting. You can evenm buy her vote by promising her that her pension will rise. In a society that is rapidly overaging, and the financial burdens for the young threaten to sink them even before they can found and secure their own existence and future and family, this is almost cataclysmic a trend.

What have pre-election campaigns to do with this...? While pre-election campoaigns aim at making people act studid, there absence does not make people more educated and insightful, but leave them as they are.

And before somebody comes with the claim again that nobody pays attention to campaigns and stupid slogans anyway - parties would not invest those big ammounts of money into campaigns if they could not influence the voting outcome by that. Like the industry would not invest millions and billions into advertising, if that would not make a real difference in consumer behavior.

There is another inherent problem. Even if there would be no campaigns, elected parties and poltiicans tend to make policies that secure their next re-election. They still do so even if dpoing so comes at the cost of the overall interst and longterm perspective of the community, and comes at tzhe price of compromising state reason.

This is one of the showstopping bugs that so far no poltiical system - including democracy - has solved. And it cannot be overestimated. It is one of the reasons why our intended desiogn for Wetsern nations all have been corrupted and distorted into oligarchies run by lobby groups and political parties who rate their own powerinterest as higher as state reason and communal interest.

And you cannot vote it off.

Tribesman, you are a terrible writer and not in the least capable of conveying a point effectively.

Yet you understood perfectly what was conveyed.

No, he isn't. He's toting the same line but in a different form, as I'm sure you've perceived.

You understood that too even though it was deliberately misleading.

[Skybird]

Another question, in the more diatant context of this thgread: of what value is freedom, if the people/community in question does not value freedom, either by will, or lacking interest, or inability to value it?

And if somebody does not value freedom - does he deserve freedom then? Has he even a reight for freedom?

Must a slave be given freedom, if he does not desire to be free? Is it making any difference at all (except for yourself whose self-assessment may rise when you come along in shing armour and oin a white horse and offer hiom to free him)? Aren't you about freedom then for any other reason than your own narcissim, and to feel great by behaving as what you perceive as your gallantry? Kalil Gibran wrote that if you find a sleeping slave, you should wake him and explain to him freedom. But he wrote of a slave who already dreamed of freedom. - But what if he does not desire freedom, or cannot appreciate it? Maybe as a free man his life wpould not change at all, and he still woudl face a daily fight for survival. What vcalue has freedom then? Biologically, organisms tend to behave by the imperative of "the important things first". That is, securing the organism's survival. Is freedom an imperative priority here? What does it mean for a man not to live in freedom - is it enough to just exist?

How can and does love interfere with freedom?

[Betonov]

I'm not going to disagree on you there. But no sweet talk and no bull**** might produce some good results. Like I said, if there's no campaign to try to convnce people that it would be better, they would have to convince the people by making it better. Re-electing would be a mattter od actions in the last 4 years and not the words of the last 4 weeks.
To put in an example. Last year we had elections for mayors of municipalities. We had behind us a mandate of a very competent mayor- Leopold Pogacar. Under his mandate the entire infastructure was being overhauled. 50% of all roads have been replaced anew, sewer system to every house (previosly only the newer parts had sewers, we had a septic tank), fiber optics to almost all houses plus a new advertisement campaign that tripled tourist visitations. His re-election campaign was almost non existent. A coule of posters, one picnic. He was re-elected by 78%. It was his 4 years that convinced us, not the 4 weeks before an election. Oh, not to leave a loophole, he was elected in the frst place for having an honest and hardworking reputation, also had a modest election campaign.

Thank you and good night

[tater]

Originally Posted by Betonov

Maybe if we eliminate the pre-election campaign more voters would vote based on the achievements of the voted and not on their sweet talk.
C'mon, one has a whole mandate to make up his mind

A campaign would ideally be to educate the voters on your positions. Anyone who has watched a modern, so-called "debate" (least here in the US) is already LOLing (assuming they are not one of the clueless idiots we're berating ). It's flash over substance, and in many cases the electorate is willfully ignorant. "Obama is a (Kenyan) muslim" on the one hand, and "Obama is gonna pay my mortgage!" on the other. Idiots all.

On topic, I really would prefer a system that required at least a basic understanding of the US system for people to be registered to vote in the US. Freshman year in High School, we were required to take "Government" at my school. My teacher gave us snippets of the Constitution to study every day or two (it's been over 20 years, not sure—regardless, he divided the entire thing (and Amendments) into manageable sections), then the quiz was to write out the assigned section from memory verbatim.

Do I still remember the entire Constitution verbatim? Nope. Is the gist there? Absolutely.

Being able to answer a series of intelligent questions regarding the Constitution to me should be the minimum standard to be allowed to vote. And the passing grade standard should be high. I've taken a few of the "citizenship" tests available online, and the only question I ever missed was one regarding the specific form required of naturalized citizens (the answer was some form number). All the real questions, I have always been able to answer. Make a 90% required to pass. That says nothing about the voter's understanding of current events, but it at least it means they can place those events within the context of our form of government.

In the last Presidential election, I watched a "handler" of a group of adult, retarded people talking each into the cubby, and I could hear her telling them who to vote for. Needless to say, she made it easy and had them scribble in the circle for a Democrat party ballot.

[Platapus]

As an election official, I have to admit that sometimes I think that Universal Suffrage, while a noble concept, is a lousy reality

[Feuer Frei!]

Problem is, the dumb always seem to be the majority in elections!
The way i see it is that here in Australia, there are way too many people that i speak to that firstly wouldn't have a clue about Politics, what the different parties stand for, what their stand points are etc.
The other thing that i find is that people don't give a rat's about politics either.
Needless to say, ie they are uneducated, misinformed, easily swayed, voting for a party because of peer group pressure, because their g/f or b/f or grandmother voted for them then 'i may as well'.
Can't remember who said in this thread that we need to educate people more about their countrie's politics.
Politics is a farce anyway.
All the b***s*** that politicians speak well before, pre elction campaign and during election campaigning is tiring and just so ridiculous.
The 'sales pitch' that they deliver is laughable, and it is the same usual crap every time elections are looming or taking place.
A bunch of gutless and spineless liars who only seem to care during times of elections about the country or the state if it's a state election, then, once elected, it's business as usual!
The attitude seems to then be 'well, we are in, now we can just relax and do nothing about the election promises'.
Unfortunately dumb people will always be sucked in by the lying, 2-faced politicians.
I have long believed that that is how the wrong governments get into power.
The dumb people vote for them.
Thank you Captain Obvious you say, well, makes sense doesn't it?

Solution?
Educate, educate, educate!!!!!
Then you may just find that the majority of voters will be better informed to make the right decision, not a dumb one!

Hi,

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Edward Bernayes.

[Penguin]

In this thread: people mixing the meanings of education, knowledge, intelligence and wisdom; stupidness, unintelligence and ignorance...

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

People, even dumb people, have the inalienable right to self-determination. Saying anything contrary to that is to demean their status as human beings, and in turn to demean your own.

nuff said!

I had a long drawn out post bashing this and that and the what not when suddenly I realized I sounded just like the political party I can't stand. So I erased it and typed this instead.

I believe dumb just depends on the side of the political spectrum you vote for. There is no doubt that we are in general not as intelligent as we once were. But that is because more people are around and well, the lesser of us all can live off the government and what not. Of course as much as I love technology I can't help but see it being a problem as well. Spelling and grammar (which I do not claim I am good at, I just type how I talk) is at an all time low I imagine, and will no doubt continue to go down.

Mostly I think the education system is to blame. Here is Texas every school focuses on the TAAS Test (Now named the TAKS test: A test you have to pass before you graduate High School.) I will be the first to admit that I absolutely hated school from day one. All one had to do was remember the answers long enough to take the test and throw it out the window. Then these schools go to the media and say, "Look how well our school did on the test. We need more money". Money has nothing to do with it, it is the quality of information we are given. Now here is Texas some politicians won't to teach us about Santa Anna's side of the story in the War for Texas Independence because, well not doing so will offend his descendants. So now that want to teach about a brutal tyrannical Dictator who slaughtered men, women and children, of his country and mine, to appease a group of minorities.

That's another problem as well. The system which controls what we are able to teach is to busy trying to when votes from someone rather than teach us something that will give us a step up in life.

But even after all that, I believe everyone no matter how dumb I think they may be have the God given right to determine their own future, even if it means that my future will be hurt. The ol'e I disagree with what you say, but I will fight, even to death, to protect your right to say it.

And for the TL;DR of us all, in short we are all screwed.