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People who voted for Brexit ‘more likely to be less intelligent’, study claims

independent.co.uk

31–40 of 59 posts

Re: People who voted for Brexit ‘more likely to be less intelligent’, study claims

#31
post #7
post #3

Massively unhelpful study which nevertheless raises an important point about the democratic system of governance - intelligence not being a factor in making critically important decisions - which would appear to be an un-smart way of doing things

Is a study unhelpful if it leads to helpful questions?

fair point!

Re: People who voted for Brexit ‘more likely to be less intelligent’, study claims

#32
post #5

Imagine a democracy in which you vote your IQ from an official test. If your IQ was measured at 114 your vote counts 114 times, etc. This seems obviously unfair. But would it improve the results? My intuition fails me here, I can't predict. I wonder if that rule would have swung Brexit the other way? That would give an idea of the magnitude of the difference.

Several forms of "census suffrage" exist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Householder_Franchise (Check the other languages because they are more complete and better document the various forms).

Re: People who voted for Brexit ‘more likely to be less intelligent’, study claims

#33
post #5

Imagine a democracy in which you vote your IQ from an official test. If your IQ was measured at 114 your vote counts 114 times, etc. This seems obviously unfair. But would it improve the results? My intuition fails me here, I can't predict. I wonder if that rule would have swung Brexit the other way? That would give an idea of the magnitude of the difference.

Whilst I appreciate your point- what happens if the higher the IQ, the more likely to be a sociopath (for example)?

And secondly- just because someone has a lower IQ, doesn’t mean their vote and view is any less valid.

The issue here, imho, is more that the fraudulent claims by the leave were not shut down so lower intelligence people were less able to understand and realise what was happening. They put their trust into the liars who were in it for their own gain rather than the good of the nation. This is, for me, the real story.

Re: People who voted for Brexit ‘more likely to be less intelligent’, study claims

#34
post #22
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the interests of people with high IQ What would that be? More library funding? NASA? NSF?

Smart people are equally greedy and corruptable.

And have greater ability to leverage that in to oppression of others.

This entire idea if IQ or "smart" as somehow better has tried and failed repeatedly in history. There is no benevolent ruler, as they will get displaced in short order.

Re: People who voted for Brexit ‘more likely to be less intelligent’, study claims

#36
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people with high IQ may vote to further the interests of people with high IQ, effectively oppressing the people with low IQ.

> the interests of people with high IQ What would that be? More library funding? NASA? NSF?

Let's say for the sake of argument that people with high IQ are more likely to have white-collar jobs which rely on intellectual ability, and people with low IQ are more likely to have jobs consisting mostly of manual labor. I would expect jobs to be distributed this way even in a theoretical society where IQ was a perfect measure of true intelligence, and where manual labor was respected and not necessarily lower-paid.

It stands to reason that the white-collar, high IQ voters would be less concerned with policies which affect manual laborers. These could include workplace safety protections, certification requirements, etc.

Re: People who voted for Brexit ‘more likely to be less intelligent’, study claims

#37
post #18

And “more likely to be manipulated” too?

That’s actually a large part of it. People with lower intelligence are also worse at critical thinking. They often defer that to someone else despite what they may say or even believe.

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Re: People who voted for Brexit ‘more likely to be less intelligent’, study claims

#39
post #3

Massively unhelpful study which nevertheless raises an important point about the democratic system of governance - intelligence not being a factor in making critically important decisions - which would appear to be an un-smart way of doing things

There's no evidence that people with a higher IQ do better at choosing where to vote on the ballot. Germany, for example, was a highly educated society in the 1930s, one of the most educated in the world. They voted for Hitler.

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Re: People who voted for Brexit ‘more likely to be less intelligent’, study claims

#40
post #21

Frame this north American style. The poorest voted for it because it was in their interests

They voted for it because they were propagandized into believing it was in their interests.

High immigration into the UK has been depressing wages at the lower end of the scale (edit: and perhaps not only but I'm thinking that people who earn a good living don't think too much about whether all those foreign professionals dampen salary increases)

The "working class" voted to control immigration but were taken for a ride because those in charge actually want more immigration.

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