So what are the rest of us that dont have a political affiliation? Independently stupid?

me texan: So what are the rest of us that dont have a political affiliation? Independently stupid?

You're unimportant

I know plenty of very smart people who have some very stupid political beliefs. I don't think there's necessarily a correlation, though people with postgraduate degrees are a solidly liberal group.

Crud... I just read that entire article but I forgot to look at who it was by to make sure I should believe them or not.

/points be damned!

Racht: I know plenty of very smart people who have some very stupid political beliefs. I don't think there's necessarily a correlation, though people with postgraduate degrees are a solidly liberal group.

this

Ultimately, it is not IQ that matters, but rather it is what one does with the mental faculties they posses that is important.

brainiac-dumdum: Ultimately, it is not IQ that matters, but rather it is what one does with the mental faculties they posses that is important.

It does matter. The inability to reason, or process information leads stupid people to cults... and the republican party.

Political stance correlates way better with income or socioeconomic status. Income correlates (albeit somewhat weakly) with IQ. Convolve the two, and there you go.

People who don't use words like libtard or conservadunce are smarter. That being said, I'd like to state that in my opinion, people who post on Fark have got to be far more intelligent, on average, than the average poster at any other popular site. Yes, we have our share of nimrods, GEDs in Law, and people who spell Republikkkan with three Ks, but overall Fark is a pretty goddamn smart group. And suave, too.

Every time I visit the politics tab I get stupider.

Yawn @ wall of text.

Jason Richwine is a National Research Initiative Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Are liberals smarter? Who cares.

I know they are smart enough not to write this article.

me texan: So what are the rest of us that dont have a political affiliation? Independently stupid?

In-Duh-pendents.

dahmers love zombie: People who don't use words like libtard or conservadunce are smarter. That being said, I'd like to state that in my opinion, people who post on Fark have got to be far more intelligent, on average, than the average poster at any other popular site. Yes, we have our share of nimrods, GEDs in Law, and people who spell Republikkkan with three Ks, but overall Fark is a pretty goddamn smart group. And suave, too.

I haven't spent a lot of time on other sites, but I'm not sure about this statement. (I mean, I know Fark has Yahoo Answers beat, but ... ) Particularly in the politics tab, I've lost the ability to differentiate a serious opinion and a troll (either that, or 99% of posters in a given political discussion are trolls ... in which case, who are they trolling and who's getting trolled?)

Racht: I know plenty of very smart people who have some very stupid political beliefs. I don't think there's necessarily a correlation, though people with postgraduate degrees are a solidly liberal group.

i'd like to know what sort of post grad degrees?

dahmers love zombie: People who don't use words like libtard or conservadunce are smarter. That being said, I'd like to state that in my opinion, people who post on Fark have got to be far more intelligent, on average, than the average poster at any other popular site. Yes, we have our share of nimrods, GEDs in Law, and people who spell Republikkkan with three Ks, but overall Fark is a pretty goddamn smart group. And suave, too.

I sometimes read excellent opinions on the Economist page and at Slate although frequently there's a 'DUMBOCRATS love thier SMELLFARE' guy on the Economist. It seems out of place.

WSJ comments are almost as dumb as YouTube comments. You think they would do better.

I enjoy reading the sports comments for my local paper, the AJC. This week the "Dawgs win by 50" comments were a laugh riot.

How smart do you have to be to realize that both sides have their merits and demerits and thus you find yourself called both a libtard and a conservadunce by the people espousing their staunchly right or left leaning ideology.
.

loonatic112358: Racht: I know plenty of very smart people who have some very stupid political beliefs. I don't think there's necessarily a correlation, though people with postgraduate degrees are a solidly liberal group.

i'd like to know what sort of post grad degrees?

I'm an engineer and I frequently hear logical fallacies from some of my coworkers when speaking of politics. You'd think if your job is problem solving that you wouldn't use false dichotomies. I frequently find myself saying "it could be both or it could be this third option" more than I should have to.

I think there's something about politics that short circuits rational thought and causes us to look for confirmation of irrational ideas.

wildcardjack: How smart do you have to be to realize that both sides have their merits and demerits and thus you find yourself called both a libtard and a conservadunce by the people espousing their staunchly right or left leaning ideology.
.

The word you're looking for is smug not smart.

Racht: I know plenty of very smart people who have some very stupid political beliefs. I don't think there's necessarily a correlation, though people with postgraduate degrees are a solidly liberal group.

I guess you don't know many people with postgraduate engineering degrees.

"The bottom line is that a political debate will never be resolved by measuring the IQs of groups on each side of the issue. Even if certain positions tend to be held by less intelligent people, there will usually be plenty of sharp thinkers who take the same side. Rather than focus on the intellectual deficiencies, real or imagined, of certain politicians and their supporters, people should strive to find the best and brightest spokesmen for the opposing side."

That's how the article ends. What a waste of time.

Cubansaltyballs: It does matter. The inability to reason, or process information leads stupid people to cults... and the republican such as a political party.

FTFY

jetzzfan: Racht: I know plenty of very smart people who have some very stupid political beliefs. I don't think there's necessarily a correlation, though people with postgraduate degrees are a solidly liberal group.

I guess you don't know many people with postgraduate engineering degrees.

Depends. The old engineers are generally conservative, the young ones are generally liberal. Pretty much everyone at my firm has a Master's.

Regardless of political affiliation, the engineers that talk the most about politics are usually the worst at their jobs. Possibly they spend too much time blabbing about politics. I used to work with a guy who spent about 5 hours a day walking from cube to cube talking about how it's so unfair that he gets taxed for being such a hard worker. It's been my experience that these guys are in their 50s and not progressing in their careers. Maybe the lack of career advancement caused the incessant need to biatch about Washington.

Rapmaster2000: loonatic112358: Racht: I know plenty of very smart people who have some very stupid political beliefs. I don't think there's necessarily a correlation, though people with postgraduate degrees are a solidly liberal group.

i'd like to know what sort of post grad degrees?

I'm an engineer and I frequently hear logical fallacies from some of my coworkers when speaking of politics. You'd think if your job is problem solving that you wouldn't use false dichotomies. I frequently find myself saying "it could be both or it could be this third option" more than I should have to.

I think there's something about politics that short circuits rational thought and causes us to look for confirmation of irrational ideas.

i think you've summed it up

I've been around people much smarter then me (doc brown levels) and yet, they'll say the dumbest thing politically

loonatic112358:
i'd like to know what sort of post grad degrees?

The group in general. In 2004 (which was pretty close to 50/50), those with postgraduate degrees voted 55% for Kerry, compared to 46% for college graduates and 47% for high school graduates. In 2008 it was 58% compared to 50% and 52%. So, I guess "solidly" maybe wasn't the right word, but the group definitely stands out as being more liberal than others.

Nice to have yet more confirmation.

loonatic112358:
I've been around people much smarter then me (doc brown levels) and yet, they'll say the dumbest thing politically

It's possible that you are just not smart enough to understand their brilliance.

keithgabryelski: loonatic112358:
I've been around people much smarter then me (doc brown levels) and yet, they'll say the dumbest thing politically

It's possible that you are just not smart enough to understand their brilliance.

no, i understand it fine, i'd have to to be able to interpret what they're wanting done

after all, if i can't understand it, i can't draw it, make a working mechanism, or any of the other

i referred to doc brown, not just because he was a genius, but that he was also a tad bit mad

Why does it matter what party they belong to? Whenever you get a group of like-minded people together, logic and reason go straight down the toilet. That's why we get "talking points" and "sound bytes" and "catchphrases" and "words with quotation marks around them".

Uh oh, I ended my first sentence with a preposition. Must be the "group think that is FARK" dumbing down my writing. Let's see if I can fix it.

"Why does it matter to which party they belong t ... ". Oops.
"What does it matter to which party they belong?" Ugh.

I give up.

hjalmarsson: img266.imageshack.us

OK, so you have managed to work the General Social Survey, or something akin to it (though I haven't seen one with a Vocab Test recently). What's your point? We usually at least have the statistics show up when we do data runs. Gamma values or something? Or was the copypasta of the crosstabs itself the intelligence test?

First table is stupid, as it doesn't explain the row labelings. WTF is "Most Desirable" as it pertains to the question label? Is this data from a dating service?

Second table (assuming the vocab test is reasonable) shows a bimodal distribution amongst the very liberal. They're either very smart or very stupid. Amongst the very conservative, the results are skewed towards not knowing shiat from Shinola.

General comment:
And so? People who label themselves as "extremely" anything tend to be total whackjobs anyway. I'd probably collapse the values into "liberal" and "conservative" for data manipulation. You suppressed the cell values out the other side of the matrix -- were there extremely few "extremely" liberal and/or conservative respondents? If there were only a handful, they might not be worth mentioning.

A hearty "meh" from me.

Cubansaltyballs: brainiac-dumdum: Ultimately, it is not IQ that matters, but rather it is what one does with the mental faculties they posses that is important.

It does matter. The inability to reason, or process information leads stupid people to cults... and the republican party.

I meant it did not in relation to who is smarter, not that it doesn't matter at all, genius

HawgWild: I give up.

I see what you did there.

dahmers love zombie: OK, so you have managed to work the General Social Survey, or something akin to it (though I haven't seen one with a Vocab Test recently). What's your point? We usually at least have the statistics show up when we do data runs. Gamma values or something? Or was the copypasta of the crosstabs itself the intelligence test?

Cumulative Datafile(^) from Berkley. The top left bank in Frequency Distribution explains the values in each cell.

dahmers love zombie: First table is stupid, as it doesn't explain the row labelings. WTF is "Most Desirable" as it pertains to the question label? Is this data from a dating service?

INTEREST : INTERESTED HOW AND WHY THINGS HAPPEN - 167a. Which three qualities listed on this card would you say are the most desirable for a child to have? b. Which one of these three is the most desirable of all? c. All of the qualities listed on this card may be desirable, but could you tell me which three you consider least important? d. And which of these three is least important of all? THAT HE IS INTERESTED IN HOW AND WHY THINGS HAPPEN 0 IAP 1 1 MOST DESIRABLE 2 3 MOST DESIRABLE 3 NOT MENTIONED 4 3 LEAST DESIRABLE 5 1 LEAST DESIRABLE 8 DK 9 NA

dahmers love zombie: Second table (assuming the vocab test is reasonable) shows a bimodal distribution amongst the very liberal. They're either very smart or very stupid. Amongst the very conservative, the results are skewed towards not knowing shiat from Shinola.

Yep.

dahmers love zombie: And so? People who label themselves as "extremely" anything tend to be total whackjobs anyway. I'd probably collapse the values into "liberal" and "conservative" for data manipulation. You suppressed the cell values out the other side of the matrix -- were there extremely few "extremely" liberal and/or conservative respondents? If there were only a handful, they might not be worth mentioning.

What? Look at the ROW and COL Totals; it has the number of respondents per ROW and COL, and the bottom right square contains the total respondents. The only thing I 'cut out' was the same information represented in a color-coded bar graph (appearing underneath the table).

dahmers love zombie: A hearty "meh" from me.

It was not meant to be authoritative or comprehensive; it was relevant to the articles/thread so I thought I would share.

This isn't complicated.

"Liberal" translates, loosely, to a forward-thinking viewpoint, who sees how much better we could do things.

"Conservative" translates as a backwards-thinking, change-scares-me viewpoint, which sees change, any change, as a bad thing, because it's not how it used to be done.

Conservatism, in some measure, is necessary to keep progressive thought in some check, so it doesn't go scampering off into traffic, but it isn't in and of itself a useful worldview except for this check-and-balance effect on progressive thought.

At least, that's how it SHOULD be. However, conservatism in the US has been hijacked by the bigoted and the ignorant, and upheld as a goal in and of itself. These are the people who would have opposed the elimination of slavery, or the equlization of women, solely because it was new and different. They don't oppose it NOW only because they grew up with it; their arguments are not based on any rational support, but are solely buttressed off a belief that things should go back to how they were when they were kids.

In short, they're culturally retarded and scared of any new light. They would rather lurk in the darkness and keep chewing on rats, rather than risk opening the door and seeing if there's anything better out there.

Rapmaster2000: jetzzfan: Racht: I know plenty of very smart people who have some very stupid political beliefs. I don't think there's necessarily a correlation, though people with postgraduate degrees are a solidly liberal group.

I guess you don't know many people with postgraduate engineering degrees.

Depends. The old engineers are generally conservative, the young ones are generally liberal. Pretty much everyone at my firm has a Master's.

Regardless of political affiliation, the engineers that talk the most about politics are usually the worst at their jobs. Possibly they spend too much time blabbing about politics. I used to work with a guy who spent about 5 hours a day walking from cube to cube talking about how it's so unfair that he gets taxed for being such a hard worker. It's been my experience that these guys are in their 50s and not progressing in their careers. Maybe the lack of career advancement caused the incessant need to biatch about Washington.

Citation most definitely needed.

What the article doesn't take into account is that what it describes as "social conservatives" are no longer necessarily welcome in the Republican Party. Failure to swallow the complete poison pill--to accept without question every plank in current Republican platform--makes you ipso facto unfit to be a Republican. The GOP is now the party of reaction, not conservatism. When true conservatives develop the courage to stand up to the Limbaughs and Becks and say "You are not conservatives; you are reactionaries; we are not interested in restoring the ancien regime; we reject your fanaticism," then they will be able to take back their party.

It depends entirely on the type. There are ways the stupid can be drawn into both. I think it has to do more with empathy and open mindedness than with intelligence. Although selfishness could lead a rich person to be conservative, selfishness could lead a poor person to be liberal. So it's not really consistent.

Thorak: "Liberal" translates, loosely, to a forward-thinking viewpoint, who sees how much better we could do things.

"Conservative" translates as a backwards-thinking, change-scares-me viewpoint, which sees change, any change, as a bad thing, because it's not how it used to be done.

That was an extremely overgeneralized, and hence, dumb, statement. Only a liberal would come up with that.

/Tried my best...

MyRandomName: Rapmaster2000: jetzzfan: Racht: I know plenty of very smart people who have some very stupid political beliefs. I don't think there's necessarily a correlation, though people with postgraduate degrees are a solidly liberal group.

I guess you don't know many people with postgraduate engineering degrees.

Depends. The old engineers are generally conservative, the young ones are generally liberal. Pretty much everyone at my firm has a Master's.

Regardless of political affiliation, the engineers that talk the most about politics are usually the worst at their jobs. Possibly they spend too much time blabbing about politics. I used to work with a guy who spent about 5 hours a day walking from cube to cube talking about how it's so unfair that he gets taxed for being such a hard worker. It's been my experience that these guys are in their 50s and not progressing in their careers. Maybe the lack of career advancement caused the incessant need to biatch about Washington.

Citation most definitely needed.

Did you read the whole post? The guy is speaking from his personal experience.

The citation would be: "The people he interacts with on a daily basis".

As for the topic, there was a study a few years ago that polled the mentally retarded on politics, and they pretty much all polled for the republicans. Unfortunately, quick google searches don't find it easily anymore, too much commentary on tea partiers. Wish I could find that one though.

I are smart!! My mommy says so when she throws chicken nuggets down basement stairs!!!

So... Liberals are smarter than social conservatives that vote democrat. Got it.

William F. Buckley once famously declared that he would rather give control of our government to "the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University."

I always wondered what he'd say if you pointed out that that would probably include 50 people named "Abramowitz."

I'm shocked! I figured that by this point this thread would be the equivalant of monkeys flinging their poo at each other.

mikec2003: I'm shocked! I figured that by this point this thread would be the equivalant of monkeys flinging their poo at each other.

That can be arranged ...

mikec2003: I'm shocked! I figured that by this point this thread would be the equivalant of monkeys flinging their poo at each other.

Every time, some dumbass decides to try and claim we're monkeys. We aren't monkeys. You'd have to be a special kind of idiot to claim we're monkeys.

Monkeys have tails. We're apes.

The good news is that apes fling poo, too.

jetzzfan: I guess you don't know many people with postgraduate engineering degrees.

I do. while they aren't all libs, not a one is a Republican or "conservative".

think of it this way - give me an intelligent reason why gays should not be married.


/tons of people are anti-repub because of the god-bothering and the hate-ness
///that alone will skew it, i believe

William F. Buckley once famously declared that he would rather give control of our government to "the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University."


Random rubes are easier to con into giving you other people's money.

RemyDuron: It depends entirely on the type. There are ways the stupid can be drawn into both. I think it has to do more with empathy and open mindedness than with intelligence. Although selfishness could lead a rich person to be conservative, selfishness could lead a poor person to be liberal. So it's not really consistent.

That was a thoughtful response to a headline that is totally flamebait.

In fact, this thread has stayed relatively nice so far - I will say that bright people have different reasons for reaching their political beliefs.

RedThree: jetzzfan: I guess you don't know many people with postgraduate engineering degrees.

I do. while they aren't all libs, not a one is a Republican or "conservative".

think of it this way - give me an intelligent reason why gays should not be married.

Because marriage is an archaic concept that originated as a formalization of the passing of ownership of a woman from her father, to her new husband?

If we're gonna protect "traditional" marriage, let's go all-out, here.

Int and Wis are two totally different stats.

You also have to take Char into account.