People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say

• BobYoMeowMeow wrote on 2012-03-03 06:54

  Quote from TLCBonaparte;794549:

  I don't think people are stupid, Americans are no less intellegent than rest of the world, it's the culture in American society that stagger more progessive policies promoted by democrates.

  
  
  people are stupid
  it's just more apparent because Americans participate more in their government than other countries
  
  

  Quote from TLCBonaparte;794596:

  Built by the west?

  
  
  pretty much hurr
  take a good look at both
  
  
  

  Quote from The Hero Luka;794566:

  This is also true. I see people who are capable of comprehending politics usually don't get riled up enough to vote.
  
  But I always see hordes of people who don't know the names of the party they've chosen to vote for beforehand line up burning with their passion to save America from the evils of the party they're against.

  
  
  common voter behavior
• TLCBonaparte wrote on 2012-03-03 07:02

  Quote from BobYoMeowMeow;794620:

  people are stupid
  it's just more apparent because Americans participate more in their government than other countries
  

  
  
  I think Bill Maher said American have less voting turnout than most European nations.
• Aisunix wrote on 2012-03-03 07:11
  For presidential elections we get around 50% voter turnout, but as you go down to Gov., Mayor etc, it just gets less and less. I think its around 20% for Mayors, but I don't remember where I read that from. No participation ):<
• TA wrote on 2012-03-03 07:19
  Hell, I could have told you this.
  
  In fact... I have, in that one big rant I had that one time.
  
  The most promising system is Geniocracy but there's some basic problems with it being implemented at the moment until we have proper tests in place.
• chaolin wrote on 2012-03-03 07:27

  Quote from RebeccaBlack;794595:

  Ugh, the biggest problem is that a lot of people think they're smarter than they really are and others are just completely out of the loop. It seems like people often get pulled into one side or the other and aren't willing to take a reasonable middle ground when it's often the best option.
  
  I've just learned to deal with it. I just don't care anymore. I mean, I do, and it actually means a lot to me, but the only way to get anything done would be to do it on a large scale and it doesn't bother me nearly enough to warrant that, or at least not at this point in my life. If I ever got involved in politics, and even was to just vote, I would instead go all the way. I mean that in the sense of speaking in front of groups of people and actually trying to convince others why such and such is a good idea. If I have to speak to 1,000 people over the course of 3 hours to get 50 to change their minds, I've done 50 times as much in 3 hours as I ever could've alone.

  
  
  Nailed it. People think they're smarter than they really are so they feel entitled not to share their knowledge. The gap widens and nothing gets accomplished really.
  
  

  Quote from TA;794643:

  Hell, I could have told you this.
  
  In fact... I have, in that one big rant I had that one time.
  
  The most promising system is Geniocracy but there's some basic problems with it being implemented at the moment until we have proper tests in place.

  
  
  Corruption ensures that this will fail.
• RebeccaBlack wrote on 2012-03-03 07:59

  Quote from chaolin;794653:

  People think they're smarter than they really are so they feel entitled not to share their knowledge.

  
  I have no problem with that. We should be able to talk openly about our views and to challenge the views of others. My biggest problem with how things work is that people often pick a side and won't stray too far from ideas they see as simply wrong or conceptually ridiculous, regardless of the arguments for them or how they play out. The worst part is that neither sides seem to realize what's happening and instead just tell each other how dumb the other side is.
  
  It's great that there are some open minded people, but there should be a lot more than there are.
• chaolin wrote on 2012-03-03 08:48

  Quote from RebeccaBlack;794680:

  I have no problem with that. We should be able to talk openly about our views and to challenge the views of others. My biggest problem with how things work is that people often pick a side and won't stray too far from ideas they see as simply wrong or conceptually ridiculous, regardless of the arguments for them or how they play out. The worst part is that neither sides seem to realize what's happening and instead just tell each other how dumb the other side is.
  
  It's great that there are some open minded people, but there should be a lot more than there are.

  
  
  I agree with the whole set-in-stone bias thing but that's half the problem. People should be given the opportunity to learn whether or not they choose to use that privilege. Beyond whatever schooling people had prior to their careers and in the rare case that they watch the news, the common person doesn't have the chance to learn things that would be of benefit to them. Quite often, others blame "the public" for not being educated yet that reeks of hypocrisy when those who point the finger do nothing to fix the problem. Perhaps my view on knowledge is a gross exaggeration but if it's not being used to gain from it, then it wasn't worth the effort to discover in the first place.
• Hiccup wrote on 2012-03-03 09:48
  I could've told you that one. :l
• Zirkonia wrote on 2012-03-03 21:26

  Quote from Hiccup;794881:

  I could've told you that one. :l

  
  Yup, could have saved them some money and time.
• Royale wrote on 2012-03-04 05:46
  Democracy is run by opinions and will only work where there are opinions, so saying that someone whose opinion is differ for your own is "not smart" is hardly fair not to mention scientific. this is especially true with politics, where some thing that works for you will not work for others. so who's decide beforehand, that the individual choices we make, the opinions we have are the greatest ever, or are infact incredibly retard?
  
  The article title is also misleading, the whole article can pretty much be summed up with " For example, if people lack expertise on tax reform, it is very difficult for them to identify the candidates who are actual experts" of course people might not be able to identify the idea if they don't know much about it, just because you don't have a degree in political science doesn't mean you are not smart, or in any way incompetent to vote. As Einstein once said “If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough” , if a person can make an idea simple and understandable naturally people will listen to him/her instead of some other random confusing mass of words.
  
  As for "rarely or never elect the best leaders." I think we can all agree that America has elected some the finest human beings as president before.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  geez, now i am starting to sound like more and more like an American, better go drink more bagged milk and watch Curling.....
• TheKartheus wrote on 2012-03-04 12:06
  The problem with thinking that the majority of people are stupid and don't realize it is that by agreeing with that statement you are acknowledging the fact that you are most likely stupid and don't realize it. And to argue against that is to prove that it's true.
  
  
  For that reason, I don't believe that the majority of people are stupid. I believe instead that the majority of people think that the people who don't think the same way as them are stupid.
• EndlessDreams wrote on 2012-03-04 12:40
  If they looked at the US constitution, the Founding Fathers were very afraid of the ignorant masses. I don't know why they need to spend money to study about this.
• RebeccaBlack wrote on 2012-03-04 12:51

  Quote from TheKartheus;795932:

  The problem with thinking that the majority of people are stupid and don't realize it is that by agreeing with that statement you are acknowledging the fact that you are most likely stupid and don't realize it. And to argue against that is to prove that it's true.
  
  
  For that reason, I don't believe that the majority of people are stupid. I believe instead that the majority of people think that the people who don't think the same way as them are stupid.

  
  While I kind of somewhat agree with this, it's easy to tell when someone's intelligent and just thinks differently if you yourself have a generally good thinking process and an open mind. It's quite unnecessary to have endless experience in something if you have enough knowledge of it, although experience definitely helps. I only say this because occasionally the dudes at the top of the food chain managed to bulldog their way up there without being particularly bright thinkers.
  
  This isn't just limited to politics, it kinda loosely applies to everything in life.
• Sumpfkraut wrote on 2012-03-04 16:29

  Quote from TLCBonaparte;794549:

  Americans are no less intellegent than rest of the world

  
  Who might generally not have the capabilities to be able to recognise the overall best candidate.
  
  But quite frankly, if people really had the capability to recognise the objectively most efficient and effective way to administrate and organise society, they wouldn't need to elect someone for them to do it.
  
  
  So, as Popper put it, the best thing about democracy is that you can get rid of bad government without bloodshed. It's a bit like scientific falsification. Ideally...
• Scarlet wrote on 2012-03-04 20:07
  [FONT="Times New Roman"]Regardless of intelligence (I'm sure people would hate on me if I expressed my opinion on this), plenty of intelligent people, and people in general, could give less than a flying fk about voting (in the USA) Take a look at these voter turnouts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout#International_differences
  The United States has the lowest voter turnout in the democratic world. People here don't care lol.[/FONT]