FTFY
9 Likes
My wife complains I don’t explain myself enough.
The point about a democracy is that everybody gets to vote. Unless the normal distribution of IQ somehow becomes very compressed, no matter where the average lies a small number of people will be very much higher and, obviously, half the population will be of below average intelligence as measured by IQ. Let’s leave aside for one moment what that means.
There is evidence that over the last 50 years or so ability to process symbolic information is gradually increasing. I’m not going into that here because the information is out there if you look for it. But at the same time Western society is getting more complex and issues are getting harder to understand. The result is that a significant part of society is, I think, being left behind. And those people vote. Inevitably no matter where the average lies I suspect that a significant number of people will resent technocracy - and so they will not vote for technocrats (see original post to which I replied).
IQ does mean something; it means the ability to obtain a certain range of scores in different IQ tests. You may feel it doesn’t mean anything but if you measure the IQs of a typical class at Harvard you will get values in the range +2s and up, and if you measure the values of people who didn’t complete high school you will find very few above +1s who don’t have life problems that affect their prospects. SATs, IQ, are quite highly associated with success in our society. They may not “mean anything” but they are significant. Because our society is designed by people with high IQs, it is often difficult to navigate for people with low ones. They make the rules, and they write the rule books with very high reading ages (my wife and I are on a campaign to get the local council to fix its corporate speak website, btw, though we’re getting nowhere).
So, coming back to where I came in, my post isn’t (I think) as idiotic as you thought. I was saying that the problem with democracy is always going to be that the kind of people who get elected as politicians are likely to be sufficiently richer and better at symbolic manipulation than the majority that they will inevitably arouse anger and resentment in a portion of the electorate - and so a purely unemotional, pragmatic fact based politics isn’t ever likely to happen.
Memo to self; must try to avoid smartass posts, leads to extra work in future.
4 Likes
Given tRump’s penchant for projection, his opponents could make frequent use of “I know you are, but what am I?” on the other hand, if they were so inclined.
2 Likes
Having both microphones “on” for the entire debate was agreed upon by the campaigns as part of the ground rules.
Many rules are negotiated ahead of time.
The Trump campaign, for example, insisted on no “potty” breaks – a straight through 90 minutes format.
Likewise, the campaigns agreed to the all-split screen all the time format. No one was ever off camera.
and so on.
If the ground rules allow a mic to be cut, then there needs to be rules when the mic gets cut, and the campaigns have to negotiate who enforces that rule.
Leaving both microphones “live” is a pretty resonable solution. Yes, that allowed the Donald to boorishly interrupt 57 times — but isn’t that vital information for the American Public to witness for themselves?
4 Likes
I knew this was a bad week to give up telling lies.
8 Likes
I get what you were saying now.
If you mean that if politics got reduced to a policy wonkfest, nobody would care, I totally agree with you. Very few people have the interest or the energy to follow that. I must be one of the few who can, and even I find it draining. A wonkfest would be inaccessible, and not just to those with low IQs. But guess what? That’s the stuff that matters. There’s nothing to understand if you don’t understand the dry, unemotional, close-to-the-metal stuff. The rest is just veneer, and even high-IQ people can be taken in by that, because it works on a subconscious level. For example, my gut impressions would tell me that Trump comes across as friendlier and more real than Clinton, and if I didn’t know what was really going on in the world, I would be taken in by that.
Then there are the people who don’t follow anyway even though they can. Maybe they have preconceived notions that they’re too scared to challenge. These people don’t follow the two-year superficial horse race we have now, so they will certainly won’t follow a wonkfest.
Although I agree with you that understanding politics shows high intelligence, I have to point out that the pageantry and veneer and superficial bullshit is designed to work at a subconscious level, and is mostly aimed at apathetic and uninformed people. Even high IQ people can be apathetic, uninformed, and influenced by subconscious emotion-driven arguments.
2 Likes
I don’t agree.
The wonkish stuff matters for good governance. But not for leadership. That’s a big difference.
America’s greatest tank General, George Patton, knew almost nothing about operating a tank. He would have been laughed out of the room at a wonkfest of tank engineers. But he knew how lead thousands of men whose job it was to fight with tanks.
Jimmy Carter will do for a fine counter-example that the wonk stuff is paramount. From a policy standpoint, the Carter administration was outstanding. Heck, they even legalized home brewing! But Carter failed to get the country to follow him – he proved a poor leader.
I am not saying the debates are a great measure of “leadership,” but making anyone who wants to be president stand in front of a camera for 90 minutes and act “presidential” isn’t a horrible screen test.
4 Likes
That’s quite interesting, because being British I read Trump as over the top, invasive of personal space and insincere whereas I read Clinton as well mannered and more trustworthy. The Atlantic is a big gap. Though Trump is more like Berlusconi and Clinton more like Merkel, so it may also be a north/south Europe thing.
9 Likes
Heinz Guderian knew everything there was to know about tanks. It was said he knew to the kilometre how long they could keep going in given conditions, how long repairs would take…he was described by British historians as a “superb technician”. He was also very tetchy and quick tempered, like Patton.
I’m sorry, but Guderian was ten times the general Patton was and had he been on the Allied side the invasion of Europe would have been very different (if he’d been Russian and Stalin had let him run things the war might have ended in 1942). Complete mastery of the subject is more important than “leadership”.
2 Likes
Her reaction was perfect.
“Whoo— okay!” really says it all, “…I’ll leave it to everyone else to evaluate what Trump just said” was the unspoken subtext.
15 Likes
I loved that response. S’all that needed to be said.
6 Likes
4 Likes
That would be the same Guderian who regularly got into conflict with his superiors and colleagues, and thus never lead a major operation after 1941, right?
Leadership matters.
2 Likes
By all accounts Trump doesn’t drink. IME it’s almost impossible to do cocaine without drinking.
2 Likes
Does stating “the truth lies in the middle” repeatedly with all topics ever get exhausting? It seems like it must at some point.
7 Likes
I get your point, that certain people (who probably would test lower on an IQ test) are disadvantaged and taken advantage of.
I have no problem with your argument. It’s just that “average IQ of 100” is literally a meaningless phrase, because it’s redundant. By the definition of IQ, 100 is average. If that ever becomes false, the test will be changed to make it true again.
If we fixed everything that you say is wrong, if we managed to educate and empower everyone, if we constructed a utopia where democracy worked up to its best ideals…
The median IQ of that civilization would still be 100.
So saying that something is unlikely “in a democracy with an average IQ of 100” is exactly equivalent to just saying that it’s unlikely in a democracy, since it is literally impossible for the average IQ to be anything else other than 100.
2 Likes
Dude…
3 Likes
If Trump is basically “America’s drunk racist uncle” when he’s 100% sober then I’d shudder to think what he’d be like if he did start drinking.
10 Likes
There are no commercials during debates. Why would a station care about ratings? They’re only used to set advertising rates and producer/actor/etc. salaries.
1 Like
