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On December 19 2015 02:50 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2015 02:19 TheTenthDoc wrote:Looks like someone at 538 thinks Sanders still has a shot at Iowa.An interesting read. Probably because it reaffirms a preexisting belief I had and want to have reaffirmed though. + Show Spoiler +Again with that awful interpretation of a 95% confidence interval though...just ugh. Neyman is rolling over in his grave at this point. Nah, he doesn't have a chance. The DNC has so badly rigged the the democratic primary in favor of Hillary that the whole process for the democrats is a joke. For what it's worth, I don't think that Bernie would win anyway, even with a fair process, but democrats should still be outraged. And I'll just restate that Hillary is a very problematic candidate for the democrats for all of the reasons that she has had problems in the past, plus some additional ones that she has picked up since her last campaign. Her election is very, very far from a fait accompli.
The funny thing is that Hillary is the perfect candidate for a lot of RINOs: the perfect storm of technocratic bureaucracy, corruption, and extractive capitalism.
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On December 19 2015 04:11 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2015 02:50 xDaunt wrote:On December 19 2015 02:19 TheTenthDoc wrote:Looks like someone at 538 thinks Sanders still has a shot at Iowa.An interesting read. Probably because it reaffirms a preexisting belief I had and want to have reaffirmed though. + Show Spoiler +Again with that awful interpretation of a 95% confidence interval though...just ugh. Neyman is rolling over in his grave at this point. Nah, he doesn't have a chance. The DNC has so badly rigged the the democratic primary in favor of Hillary that the whole process for the democrats is a joke. For what it's worth, I don't think that Bernie would win anyway, even with a fair process, but democrats should still be outraged. And I'll just restate that Hillary is a very problematic candidate for the democrats for all of the reasons that she has had problems in the past, plus some additional ones that she has picked up since her last campaign. Her election is very, very far from a fait accompli. The funny thing is that Hillary is the perfect candidate for a lot of RINOs: the perfect storm of technocratic bureaucracy, corruption, and extractive capitalism.
Yep. There's very little effective difference between Hillary and Jeb.
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Debbie Wasserman Schultz such a loyal lapdog this is becoming farce ladies and gentleman.
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On December 19 2015 01:49 KwarK wrote:
I'm not saying that Democratic voters are universally informed and that Republicans are universally stupid. I'm saying that the reason we choose people to govern us is because we expect them to rise above the petty, reactionary and stupid responses of the average person. A lot of people will support the plan to blindly lash out at a random place, just to feel like they're doing something or showing some kind of strength and those people are morons who should not be given any influence.
In the UK it's the classic death penalty argument. The majority has always supported the death penalty and yet it was abolished fifty years ago because a more detailed analysis of the death penalty than the average man on the street is willing to do shows that it's really stupid. In the US interracial marriage would be a good example, the majority opposed legalization of it for decades after it was legalized.
The people elect their betters to make the kind of decisions they recognize they are not qualified to make. They may support the bombing of fictional cities filled with innocent apple thieves but the system assumes that somewhere further up the totem pole someone is going to look into Agrabah and conclude that bombing it runs contrary to American interests. The mob should not be listened to. That's the point of representative democracy.
In theory... but a quote from Gladiator: "the beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the senate it’s the sand of the Colosseum."
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This is pretty gross. There was a mistake made, but they fired the person who did it and I doubt any permanent damage done. And the DNC hasn't really ripping up the headlines with any positive coverage lately.
On December 19 2015 04:34 ticklishmusic wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2015 01:49 KwarK wrote:
I'm not saying that Democratic voters are universally informed and that Republicans are universally stupid. I'm saying that the reason we choose people to govern us is because we expect them to rise above the petty, reactionary and stupid responses of the average person. A lot of people will support the plan to blindly lash out at a random place, just to feel like they're doing something or showing some kind of strength and those people are morons who should not be given any influence.
In the UK it's the classic death penalty argument. The majority has always supported the death penalty and yet it was abolished fifty years ago because a more detailed analysis of the death penalty than the average man on the street is willing to do shows that it's really stupid. In the US interracial marriage would be a good example, the majority opposed legalization of it for decades after it was legalized.
The people elect their betters to make the kind of decisions they recognize they are not qualified to make. They may support the bombing of fictional cities filled with innocent apple thieves but the system assumes that somewhere further up the totem pole someone is going to look into Agrabah and conclude that bombing it runs contrary to American interests. The mob should not be listened to. That's the point of representative democracy. In theory... but a quote from Gladiator: "the beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the senate it’s the sand of the Colosseum."
Yes, but that is a historical revisionist action movie that's saving grace was its score and Ridley Scott's direction. The plot of that movie is beyond stupid.
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On December 19 2015 04:35 Plansix wrote:
This is pretty gross. There was a mistake made, but they fired the person who did it and I doubt any permanent damage done. And the DNC hasn't really ripping up the headlines with any positive coverage lately.
That and the Sanders campaign apparently alerted the DNC back in October about the issue...
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On December 19 2015 04:38 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2015 04:35 Plansix wrote:
This is pretty gross. There was a mistake made, but they fired the person who did it and I doubt any permanent damage done. And the DNC hasn't really ripping up the headlines with any positive coverage lately. That and the Sanders campaign apparently alerted the DNC back in October about the issue...
The only press they have managed to grab has been some opportunistic favoritism. Nice.
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On December 19 2015 04:38 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2015 04:35 Plansix wrote:
This is pretty gross. There was a mistake made, but they fired the person who did it and I doubt any permanent damage done. And the DNC hasn't really ripping up the headlines with any positive coverage lately. That and the Sanders campaign apparently alerted the DNC back in October about the issue...
The most important thing for me in this situation is how NGP VAN found out about it this time. I've already written them off as an idiotic service provider due to the fact that this has happened multiple times.
According to their blog, they found that only Sanders' campaign accessed the data at the time, and I'm inclined to believe them in this case. But did NGP VAN find the issue themselves this time, or did Sanders' campaign alert them about it again? I can't find a good source indicating one way or the other.
Also, could "accessing the data" simply mean that it was brought back by a query? It sounds like all of this data is housed in one database, segmented only by security profiles, and a software bug nuked those permissions. So, something like
select * from CAMPAIGN_DATA
would return all data for all campaigns if security on the table has been borked. I'd be surprised if it's that simplistic, but I'm having trouble sifting through the conflicting information.
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United States44307 Posts
On December 19 2015 04:34 ticklishmusic wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2015 01:49 KwarK wrote:
I'm not saying that Democratic voters are universally informed and that Republicans are universally stupid. I'm saying that the reason we choose people to govern us is because we expect them to rise above the petty, reactionary and stupid responses of the average person. A lot of people will support the plan to blindly lash out at a random place, just to feel like they're doing something or showing some kind of strength and those people are morons who should not be given any influence.
In the UK it's the classic death penalty argument. The majority has always supported the death penalty and yet it was abolished fifty years ago because a more detailed analysis of the death penalty than the average man on the street is willing to do shows that it's really stupid. In the US interracial marriage would be a good example, the majority opposed legalization of it for decades after it was legalized.
The people elect their betters to make the kind of decisions they recognize they are not qualified to make. They may support the bombing of fictional cities filled with innocent apple thieves but the system assumes that somewhere further up the totem pole someone is going to look into Agrabah and conclude that bombing it runs contrary to American interests. The mob should not be listened to. That's the point of representative democracy. In theory... but a quote from Gladiator: "the beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the senate it’s the sand of the Colosseum."
Gladiator movie quotes about ancient Rome are not necessarily useful sources for understanding the political structure of the United States. And it turned out he was wrong.
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On December 19 2015 05:25 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2015 04:34 ticklishmusic wrote:On December 19 2015 01:49 KwarK wrote:
I'm not saying that Democratic voters are universally informed and that Republicans are universally stupid. I'm saying that the reason we choose people to govern us is because we expect them to rise above the petty, reactionary and stupid responses of the average person. A lot of people will support the plan to blindly lash out at a random place, just to feel like they're doing something or showing some kind of strength and those people are morons who should not be given any influence.
In the UK it's the classic death penalty argument. The majority has always supported the death penalty and yet it was abolished fifty years ago because a more detailed analysis of the death penalty than the average man on the street is willing to do shows that it's really stupid. In the US interracial marriage would be a good example, the majority opposed legalization of it for decades after it was legalized.
The people elect their betters to make the kind of decisions they recognize they are not qualified to make. They may support the bombing of fictional cities filled with innocent apple thieves but the system assumes that somewhere further up the totem pole someone is going to look into Agrabah and conclude that bombing it runs contrary to American interests. The mob should not be listened to. That's the point of representative democracy. In theory... but a quote from Gladiator: "the beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the senate it’s the sand of the Colosseum." Gladiator movie quotes about ancient Rome are not necessarily useful sources for understanding the political structure of the United States. And it turned out he was wrong.
I just wanted to quote Gladiator okay, geez. 
But the point is, our representative democracy isn't really working. The problem is that instead of us electing our better angels or whatever, we get a lot of power-hungry twats who appeal to the lowest common denominator. Then we get gerrymandering, pork spending, etc. and the problem propagates. I for one have some faith in our system, but we're dangerously close to waking up one day and realizing Idiocracy wasn't a comedy, it was a documentary.
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it's working alright. it's just very, very hard. and what you are describing, the fear of democracy going bad has been described by aristotle himself already. generally decent people getting seduced by self serving demagogues into proscribing to easy, but in the end terrible or even damaging solutions - "tyranny of the many" - "democracy" as the perverted form in his "government of the many" category.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Aristotle-constitutions-2.png
the way I see it, if trump does not learn some new, really good tricks, like really fast, he is toast.
last debate has been his weakest by far. if jeb bush were not so weak rhetorically he could have smacked him into oblivion. the insults are only good for some quick laughs - even the republican audience was turned off by it.
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United States44307 Posts
On December 19 2015 05:43 ticklishmusic wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2015 05:25 KwarK wrote:On December 19 2015 04:34 ticklishmusic wrote:On December 19 2015 01:49 KwarK wrote:
I'm not saying that Democratic voters are universally informed and that Republicans are universally stupid. I'm saying that the reason we choose people to govern us is because we expect them to rise above the petty, reactionary and stupid responses of the average person. A lot of people will support the plan to blindly lash out at a random place, just to feel like they're doing something or showing some kind of strength and those people are morons who should not be given any influence.
In the UK it's the classic death penalty argument. The majority has always supported the death penalty and yet it was abolished fifty years ago because a more detailed analysis of the death penalty than the average man on the street is willing to do shows that it's really stupid. In the US interracial marriage would be a good example, the majority opposed legalization of it for decades after it was legalized.
The people elect their betters to make the kind of decisions they recognize they are not qualified to make. They may support the bombing of fictional cities filled with innocent apple thieves but the system assumes that somewhere further up the totem pole someone is going to look into Agrabah and conclude that bombing it runs contrary to American interests. The mob should not be listened to. That's the point of representative democracy. In theory... but a quote from Gladiator: "the beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the senate it’s the sand of the Colosseum." Gladiator movie quotes about ancient Rome are not necessarily useful sources for understanding the political structure of the United States. And it turned out he was wrong. I just wanted to quote Gladiator okay, geez. But the point is, our representative democracy isn't really working. The problem is that instead of us electing our better angels or whatever, we get a lot of power-hungry twats who appeal to the lowest common denominator. Then we get gerrymandering, pork spending, etc. and the problem propagates. I for one have some faith in our system, but we're dangerously close to waking up one day and realizing Idiocracy wasn't a comedy, it was a documentary.
Not really. The premise of idiocracy is that society used to be smart but is getting dumb. I reject that entirely. The average person has never been smarter or better informed. It's just a way for people to go "yeah, everyone is stupid, but not me, I'm the guy who is outside of it all observing the slow decline and lamenting it". It's bullshit masturbatory arrogance. Hell, maybe you are smarter than the average person, I know I am but you know what? Most people believe they're smarter than the average. Even the people saying "if Jesus isn't real then who wrote the Bible" believe they've truly found a way to stump those moron atheist Muslims.
Evolution is a long term process except in times of extremely aggressive selection. There is no reason to think genetic intelligence has changed between any two periods of human history while acquired intelligence has never been higher. The peak of human achievement in all areas is not only going up daily, it's accelerating. So go ahead, look down on other people as stupid, feel free. Hell, you might even actually be smarter than the average person. But that doesn't mean you're in the midst of a great societal collapse, it just means you're a dick.
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On December 19 2015 06:06 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2015 05:43 ticklishmusic wrote:On December 19 2015 05:25 KwarK wrote:On December 19 2015 04:34 ticklishmusic wrote:On December 19 2015 01:49 KwarK wrote:
I'm not saying that Democratic voters are universally informed and that Republicans are universally stupid. I'm saying that the reason we choose people to govern us is because we expect them to rise above the petty, reactionary and stupid responses of the average person. A lot of people will support the plan to blindly lash out at a random place, just to feel like they're doing something or showing some kind of strength and those people are morons who should not be given any influence.
In the UK it's the classic death penalty argument. The majority has always supported the death penalty and yet it was abolished fifty years ago because a more detailed analysis of the death penalty than the average man on the street is willing to do shows that it's really stupid. In the US interracial marriage would be a good example, the majority opposed legalization of it for decades after it was legalized.
The people elect their betters to make the kind of decisions they recognize they are not qualified to make. They may support the bombing of fictional cities filled with innocent apple thieves but the system assumes that somewhere further up the totem pole someone is going to look into Agrabah and conclude that bombing it runs contrary to American interests. The mob should not be listened to. That's the point of representative democracy. In theory... but a quote from Gladiator: "the beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the senate it’s the sand of the Colosseum." Gladiator movie quotes about ancient Rome are not necessarily useful sources for understanding the political structure of the United States. And it turned out he was wrong. I just wanted to quote Gladiator okay, geez. But the point is, our representative democracy isn't really working. The problem is that instead of us electing our better angels or whatever, we get a lot of power-hungry twats who appeal to the lowest common denominator. Then we get gerrymandering, pork spending, etc. and the problem propagates. I for one have some faith in our system, but we're dangerously close to waking up one day and realizing Idiocracy wasn't a comedy, it was a documentary. Not really. The premise of idiocracy is that society used to be smart but is getting dumb. I reject that entirely. The average person has never been smarter or better informed. It's just a way for people to go "yeah, everyone is stupid, but not me, I'm the guy who is outside of it all observing the slow decline and lamenting it". It's bullshit masturbatory arrogance. Hell, maybe you are smarter than the average person, I know I am but you know what? Most people believe they're smarter than the average. Even the people saying "if Jesus isn't real then who wrote the Bible" believe they've truly found a way to stump those moron atheist Muslims. Evolution is a long term process except in times of extremely aggressive selection. There is no reason to think genetic intelligence has changed between any two periods of human history while acquired intelligence has never been higher. The peak of human achievement in all areas is not only going up daily, it's accelerating. So go ahead, look down on other people as stupid, feel free. Hell, you might even actually be smarter than the average person. But that doesn't mean you're in the midst of a great societal collapse, it just means you're a dick.
I don't think people have become better informed. It's easy to surround yourselves with people and media that conform to your idea of the world while tuning out anything that gives a different perspective. It's also incredibly easy to be lazy and just listen to then parrot a pundit/ expert. I'm not sure where you cam up with the latter bit about me thinking I'm superior to anyone else... I also don't think intelligence is really a huge factor in what's going on here.
Anyways, as a bit of a side comment, we've kind of broken natural selection in many ways. A basic example is obesity. We love fatty sweet stuff because it's calorie-dense, and for most of human history, it was also scarce. After we domesticated livestock and various crops it became more available. Now, I can walk to our breakroom and grab a soda. Our evolutionally optimal trait to seek fat and sugar, here, is busted. Evolution works on a timeline that we can barely comprehend (channeling Neil de Grasse Tyson/ my evo bio prof here). That shit is like a glacier or climate change-- it started going one way a looong time ago, and it's going to take ridiculous amounts of time to adjust course. Well, there's some evolution that can happen faster when there's a super high selection pressure, but oftentimes these differences are barely noticeable. Another fun example is sickle cell-- basically when Malaria was actually a problem, the fitness of a sickle cell carrier was higher than that of a regular person due to defective RBC's which for some reason allows the immune system to better fight the parasite. However, that's changed because we have quinine and modern medicine, which has altered the relative fitnesses so having the regular genotype is greater than the carrier status.
One thing I thought about was Pearl Harbor. When that happened, despite our intelligence telling us that Japan was likely to do something sneaky and aggressive, people didn't accuse FDR of being a traitor or anything. The US came together as a country (maybe there was some calls along those lines, but hey we haven't heard about it). If that happened today, I bet we would be calling for Obama's resignation or impeachment.
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United States44307 Posts
On December 19 2015 06:13 ticklishmusic wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2015 06:06 KwarK wrote:On December 19 2015 05:43 ticklishmusic wrote:On December 19 2015 05:25 KwarK wrote:On December 19 2015 04:34 ticklishmusic wrote:On December 19 2015 01:49 KwarK wrote:
I'm not saying that Democratic voters are universally informed and that Republicans are universally stupid. I'm saying that the reason we choose people to govern us is because we expect them to rise above the petty, reactionary and stupid responses of the average person. A lot of people will support the plan to blindly lash out at a random place, just to feel like they're doing something or showing some kind of strength and those people are morons who should not be given any influence.
In the UK it's the classic death penalty argument. The majority has always supported the death penalty and yet it was abolished fifty years ago because a more detailed analysis of the death penalty than the average man on the street is willing to do shows that it's really stupid. In the US interracial marriage would be a good example, the majority opposed legalization of it for decades after it was legalized.
The people elect their betters to make the kind of decisions they recognize they are not qualified to make. They may support the bombing of fictional cities filled with innocent apple thieves but the system assumes that somewhere further up the totem pole someone is going to look into Agrabah and conclude that bombing it runs contrary to American interests. The mob should not be listened to. That's the point of representative democracy. In theory... but a quote from Gladiator: "the beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the senate it’s the sand of the Colosseum." Gladiator movie quotes about ancient Rome are not necessarily useful sources for understanding the political structure of the United States. And it turned out he was wrong. I just wanted to quote Gladiator okay, geez. But the point is, our representative democracy isn't really working. The problem is that instead of us electing our better angels or whatever, we get a lot of power-hungry twats who appeal to the lowest common denominator. Then we get gerrymandering, pork spending, etc. and the problem propagates. I for one have some faith in our system, but we're dangerously close to waking up one day and realizing Idiocracy wasn't a comedy, it was a documentary. Not really. The premise of idiocracy is that society used to be smart but is getting dumb. I reject that entirely. The average person has never been smarter or better informed. It's just a way for people to go "yeah, everyone is stupid, but not me, I'm the guy who is outside of it all observing the slow decline and lamenting it". It's bullshit masturbatory arrogance. Hell, maybe you are smarter than the average person, I know I am but you know what? Most people believe they're smarter than the average. Even the people saying "if Jesus isn't real then who wrote the Bible" believe they've truly found a way to stump those moron atheist Muslims. Evolution is a long term process except in times of extremely aggressive selection. There is no reason to think genetic intelligence has changed between any two periods of human history while acquired intelligence has never been higher. The peak of human achievement in all areas is not only going up daily, it's accelerating. So go ahead, look down on other people as stupid, feel free. Hell, you might even actually be smarter than the average person. But that doesn't mean you're in the midst of a great societal collapse, it just means you're a dick. I don't think people have become better informed. It's easy to surround yourselves with people and media that conform to your idea of the world while tuning out anything that gives a different perspective. It's also incredibly easy to be lazy and just listen to then parrot a pundit/ expert. One thing I thought about was Pearl Harbor. When that happened, despite our intelligence telling us that Japan was likely to do something sneaky and aggressive, people didn't accuse FDR of being a traitor or anything. The US came together as a country (maybe there was some calls along those lines, but hey we haven't heard about it). If that happened today, I bet we would be calling for Obama's resignation or impeachment. I'm not sure where you cam up with the latter bit about me thinking I'm superior to anyone else... I also don't think intelligence is really a huge factor in what's going on here.
I'm not sure really how to address the claim that people today aren't better informed. Do you understand that for most of human history people didn't leave the area around a day's walk from where they were born? That knowledge was transferred primarily through word of mouth and was transmitted by being remembered by someone who would walk around wherever he planned to go anyway and might mention it to someone else?
Sure we have insane debates now about whether or not Obama is from Kenya but think about what that means for a second, Americans know about Kenya. That still makes them better informed than most humans who have ever lived. People have become better informed. I'm informing you that people have become better informed because we're having a real time discussion on a remotely hosted message board we can both access. Even if you disagree with my argument you still know what my argument is and what my position is. Information has never been free-er or more available.
The only reason we don't have records of all the really stupid things people in the past did or said is because they were too busy working to learn to write and they couldn't afford the paper either way. And we still have a lot of stupid things written down.
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On December 19 2015 06:23 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2015 06:13 ticklishmusic wrote:On December 19 2015 06:06 KwarK wrote:On December 19 2015 05:43 ticklishmusic wrote:On December 19 2015 05:25 KwarK wrote:On December 19 2015 04:34 ticklishmusic wrote:On December 19 2015 01:49 KwarK wrote:
I'm not saying that Democratic voters are universally informed and that Republicans are universally stupid. I'm saying that the reason we choose people to govern us is because we expect them to rise above the petty, reactionary and stupid responses of the average person. A lot of people will support the plan to blindly lash out at a random place, just to feel like they're doing something or showing some kind of strength and those people are morons who should not be given any influence.
In the UK it's the classic death penalty argument. The majority has always supported the death penalty and yet it was abolished fifty years ago because a more detailed analysis of the death penalty than the average man on the street is willing to do shows that it's really stupid. In the US interracial marriage would be a good example, the majority opposed legalization of it for decades after it was legalized.
The people elect their betters to make the kind of decisions they recognize they are not qualified to make. They may support the bombing of fictional cities filled with innocent apple thieves but the system assumes that somewhere further up the totem pole someone is going to look into Agrabah and conclude that bombing it runs contrary to American interests. The mob should not be listened to. That's the point of representative democracy. In theory... but a quote from Gladiator: "the beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the senate it’s the sand of the Colosseum." Gladiator movie quotes about ancient Rome are not necessarily useful sources for understanding the political structure of the United States. And it turned out he was wrong. I just wanted to quote Gladiator okay, geez. But the point is, our representative democracy isn't really working. The problem is that instead of us electing our better angels or whatever, we get a lot of power-hungry twats who appeal to the lowest common denominator. Then we get gerrymandering, pork spending, etc. and the problem propagates. I for one have some faith in our system, but we're dangerously close to waking up one day and realizing Idiocracy wasn't a comedy, it was a documentary. Not really. The premise of idiocracy is that society used to be smart but is getting dumb. I reject that entirely. The average person has never been smarter or better informed. It's just a way for people to go "yeah, everyone is stupid, but not me, I'm the guy who is outside of it all observing the slow decline and lamenting it". It's bullshit masturbatory arrogance. Hell, maybe you are smarter than the average person, I know I am but you know what? Most people believe they're smarter than the average. Even the people saying "if Jesus isn't real then who wrote the Bible" believe they've truly found a way to stump those moron atheist Muslims. Evolution is a long term process except in times of extremely aggressive selection. There is no reason to think genetic intelligence has changed between any two periods of human history while acquired intelligence has never been higher. The peak of human achievement in all areas is not only going up daily, it's accelerating. So go ahead, look down on other people as stupid, feel free. Hell, you might even actually be smarter than the average person. But that doesn't mean you're in the midst of a great societal collapse, it just means you're a dick. I don't think people have become better informed. It's easy to surround yourselves with people and media that conform to your idea of the world while tuning out anything that gives a different perspective. It's also incredibly easy to be lazy and just listen to then parrot a pundit/ expert. One thing I thought about was Pearl Harbor. When that happened, despite our intelligence telling us that Japan was likely to do something sneaky and aggressive, people didn't accuse FDR of being a traitor or anything. The US came together as a country (maybe there was some calls along those lines, but hey we haven't heard about it). If that happened today, I bet we would be calling for Obama's resignation or impeachment. I'm not sure where you cam up with the latter bit about me thinking I'm superior to anyone else... I also don't think intelligence is really a huge factor in what's going on here. I'm not sure really how to address the claim that people today aren't better informed. Do you understand that for most of human history people didn't leave the area around a day's walk from where they were born? That knowledge was transferred primarily through word of mouth and was transmitted by being remembered by someone who would walk around wherever he planned to go anyway and might mention it to someone else? Sure we have insane debates now about whether or not Obama is from Kenya but think about what that means for a second, Americans know about Kenya. That still makes them better informed than most humans who have ever lived. People have become better informed. I'm informing you that people have become better informed because we're having a real time discussion on a remotely hosted message board we can both access. Even if you disagree with my argument you still know what my argument is and what my position is. Information has never been free-er or more available. The only reason we don't have records of all the really stupid things people in the past did or said is because they were too busy working to learn to write and they couldn't afford the paper either way. And we still have a lot of stupid things written down.
I agree people have access to vastly more information, but our ability, generally speaking, to critically assess it is still very shitty. Our ability [on average] to access information has far outstripped our ability [on average] to critically use it. I guess it could be called like growing pains for society or whatever, but it's depressing AF. As a bit of a general statement, people are much more subject to Dunning Kruger now, yours truly included .
Judging from what you've said, I think you take a more optimistic view of human progress than me. Sometimes I'm consumed with wonder that I can be making this post from Atlanta and that you can read it from... Texas or wherever in the southwest you are (I forget). On the other hand, I'm also baffled by how someone can read, say, Breitbart, and agree with things that are outright a lie (or for a presidential candidate to say he'll talk to the previous, deceased king of Jordan).
I also think our disagreement is more one of definition: you're defining "informed" as having access to information, I'm defining it more as the ability to objectively assess and make conclusions based on balanced sources.
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More is not always better. Athenians might not have known where Kenya was or Newton's laws, but they probably were better informed of what was relevant to make a political decision which only concerned a tiny portion of the world than today's americans about how to choose to guy who have opinions on a ton of stuff. And they certainly had better incentives to inform themselves.
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United States44307 Posts
On December 19 2015 06:34 corumjhaelen wrote:
More is not always better. Athenians might not have known where Kenya was or Newton's laws, but they probably were better informed of what was relevant to make a political decision which only concerned a tiny portion of the world than today's americans about how to choose to guy who have opinions on a ton of stuff. And they certainly had better incentives to inform themselves.
The Athenians launched themselves in a doomed invasion of Sicily during the middle of a life or death struggle with Sparta because fuck it, why not. They weren't entirely sure where Syracuse was relative to Athens, nor what the manpower of Syracuse was relative to Athens. They weren't able to make accurate predictions about the cost of the war or the logistics of executing it or how long it'd take or how many men would die or anything like that but that didn't stop them voting that it would be a good idea.
People who write about the golden age of Athenian democracy need to remember why the golden age of Athenian democracy ended. It's because a bunch of people with no understanding of the wider world voted to do some really, really stupid things.
If the Athenians had known a little more about Sicily maybe fewer of them would have died there. Having a stake in a decision and being directly involved in making it are not guarantees of good logic.
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On December 19 2015 06:47 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2015 06:34 corumjhaelen wrote:
More is not always better. Athenians might not have known where Kenya was or Newton's laws, but they probably were better informed of what was relevant to make a political decision which only concerned a tiny portion of the world than today's americans about how to choose to guy who have opinions on a ton of stuff. And they certainly had better incentives to inform themselves. The Athenians launched themselves in a doomed invasion of Sicily during the middle of a life or death struggle with Sparta because fuck it, why not. They weren't entirely sure where Syracuse was relative to Athens, nor what the manpower of Syracuse was relative to Athens. They weren't able to make accurate predictions about the cost of the war or the logistics of executing it or how long it'd take or how many men would die or anything like that but that didn't stop them voting that it would be a good idea. People who write about the golden age of Athenian democracy need to remember why the golden age of Athenian democracy ended. It's because a bunch of people with no understanding of the wider world voted to do some really, really stupid things. If the Athenians had known a little more about Sicily maybe fewer of them would have died there. Having a stake in a decision and being directly involved in making it are not guarantees of good logic.
I mean, we did invade Iraq. Apparently we aren't much better than the Athenians.
(I'm kidding, but the point is our knowledge and intel hasn't always translated to us making better decisions)
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On December 19 2015 06:47 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2015 06:34 corumjhaelen wrote:
More is not always better. Athenians might not have known where Kenya was or Newton's laws, but they probably were better informed of what was relevant to make a political decision which only concerned a tiny portion of the world than today's americans about how to choose to guy who have opinions on a ton of stuff. And they certainly had better incentives to inform themselves. The Athenians launched themselves in a doomed invasion of Sicily during the middle of a life or death struggle with Sparta because fuck it, why not. They weren't entirely sure where Syracuse was relative to Athens, nor what the manpower of Syracuse was relative to Athens. They weren't able to make accurate predictions about the cost of the war or the logistics of executing it or how long it'd take or how many men would die or anything like that but that didn't stop them voting that it would be a good idea. People who write about the golden age of Athenian democracy need to remember why the golden age of Athenian democracy ended. It's because a bunch of people with no understanding of the wider world voted to do some really, really stupid things. If the Athenians had known a little more about Sicily maybe fewer of them would have died there. Having a stake in a decision and being directly involved in making it are not guarantees of good logic.
I completely disagree with your simplistic take of the Sicilian expedition. I think it would have been perfectly winnable or at least neutral, if not for Nikias, such a knowledgeable man who managed to make a serie of dumb decisions not being submitted to a vote. Also I'm pretty sure Athenian democracy did not end after the Sicilian expedition, but hey, I'm no history major.
The really horrible mistake was the trial after the battle of Arginusae, but it's not like we can't find other examples of stupid war decision that have little to do with "mob rule". Also the democratic system was very likely amended after that, but the balance of power had already shifted.
Ask yourself who was better informed, George W. Bush, or Themistocles.
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EPT
