

Scientists say America is too dumb for democracy to thrive - mikeleeorg
http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2012/03/09/scientists-say-america-is-too-dumb-for-democracy-to-thrive/

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paulhauggis
"Let’s say a politician comes up with an ingenious plan that would ensure
universal health care while decreasing health care costs.

According to Dunning-Kruger, no matter how much information is provided, the
unsophisticated would 1) be incapable of recognizing the wisdom of such a
plan; 2) assume they know better; and 3) have no idea of the extent of their
inadequacy."

Jesus..biased much? I stopped reading here.

~~~
cheald
On the flip side, you could argue that if we do actually democratically(-ish)
elect representatives, Dunning-Kruger would indicate that our currently-
elected leaders are the product of a stupid voting base, and therefore can be
assumed to not be the hypothetical "politician with genius healthcare"
presented in the article, since the population is too dumb to elect the right
guy in the first place.

(I track with you, though; the article seems to be a thinly-veiled jab at
"those stupid rednecks who can't see the genius of Obama's healthcare
proposals", and is rather offputting for what is allegedly scientific
reporting.)

Since we're talking about gimmick phrasing already, let's just remember that
half of all voters are of below-average intelligence. :D

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kls
_Maybe we should only let Ph.D.’s, Mensa members and Jeopardy! champions vote?
At least require a passing an IQ test before you get to cast a ballot?_

This is where these type of ideas invariably fail. The author and everyone
else has a different metric in which the gauge intelligence. Someone can be
very strategic and have an average IQ as such the have a specific form of
intelligence. Secondly just by the mention of a PHD as a requirement shows
that little care was taken in such a flippant comment. Amount of schooling is
not an indicator of intelligence, is any PHD good enough to qualify? from any
school? The whole idea of requiring intelligence before and individual can
cast their lot is absolutely backwards to the idea of freedom. Part of freedom
is the freedom to be stupid. The solution is education, we should educate
people on the issues and incentivize people for getting that education. The
problem is there is no incentive for politicians to incentivize the education
of the population.

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Sandman
What a bad article. Here's the original one:
[http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/2187-incompetent-
people-...](http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/2187-incompetent-people-
ignorant.html)

The original article basically claims that people who are incompetent at
something will have a hard time recognising people who are competent and their
own level of incompetence. Fine, that makes sense. But how on earth did this
get turned into "Americans too dumb for democracy"? This is just taking some
of the claims from the original article and blowing them out of proportion.

~~~
redcircle
It is as if the author wants to use himself to prove his point.

~~~
cheald
Indeed. This is a big problem with the self-styled _intelligentsia_ ; they
point to others who are not as smart as they are, and cite them as evidence
that they cannot possibly be ignorant, because they aren't as ignorant as
those they look down on.

Wisdom begins with recognizing that you don't know everything, can't know
everything, and generally assuming that you're wrong or uninformed until you
can prove otherwise. The immediate presumption that you're right, and
arrogance or indignation when it's suggested otherwise is a huge indicator
that you're probably suffering the Dunning-Kruger effect.

------
unimpressive
I don't think it requires decades of study to tell you that. It's not enough
to say that something is broken. What you end up having to answer is how to
fix it. So far consistent mediocrity seems to beat the other forms of
government that came before it. (Disclosure: I haven't done a full study of
human history, but so far thats the vibe I'm getting.) So a new form of
government should provide consistent high-quality leaders if it wants to beat
the democratic-republic model.

And I personally have _no idea_ how to do that.

~~~
cheald
"Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of
sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it
has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those
other forms that have been tried from time to time." - Winston Churchill

