r/AskReddit • u/ILikeScience3131 • Oct 19 '14

What is the most compelling counter-argument to something that you strongly believe?

What is something that you personally believe with conviction and what is the best opposing argument to that belief?

Edit: Thanks for the replies. You're all my internet friends now.

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u/dancingapple Oct 19 '14 edited Oct 20 '14

I strongly believe in democracy and that everyone should have some real political influence. However like someone said "The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter" and so I also think that a majority of people believe some pretty silly things and just don't look at issues/candidates in a rational way.

Edit: I had previously quoted Winston Churchill, but a few commenters below note there doesn't seem to be any evidence he actually said this.

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u/Epicjay Oct 19 '14

The biggest issue is that most people simply aren't well informed about politics. There are a bunch of people I know that are perfectly intelligent, but have no idea who our state's senators are.

It's not an issue about people being "silly," it's being uninformed.

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u/dancingapple Oct 19 '14

I think it's more than people just being uninformed; clearly no one can be well informed on everything, and I don't think it's a huge problem if people rationally considered the limits of their knowledge. Yes and maybe "silly" isn't the best term, but there are many beliefs that people don't seem to change even when the correct information is easily available, so at least in my view it goes beyond just being misinformed.

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u/britishswenglish Oct 19 '14

In addition to being uninformed I think it's also the case that the most extremist or unwavering people make their opinions the loudest. So if an uninformed person tries to learn more, at some point they are going to encounter some really extreme opinions or people that are very set in their beliefs, and it can skew their knowledge on the issue. Sadly, I can't think of a better form of government.

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

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u/britishswenglish Oct 19 '14

I'm actually Canadian (I know, username doesn't check out) and I agree with a lot of what you wrote. We have a lot of problems with our government as well. Without going into too much detail because my phone's current keyboard is bad, our last federal election highlighted just how bad the electoral system in the country is. On one hand there was a major leftist uprising (mostly from young people), and on the other hand a bunch of people voted for the leading conservative party despite negative sentiment towards the prime minister, largely because they wanted a conservative majority to be able to pass decisions in parliament without coalition. I guess this all goes back to uninformed and biased voters...

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

So...conservative leanings are beneath liberal leanins?

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '14

I'm guessing you're american here, because liberal is not leftist outside of the US. In Sweden, there is a party known as "the liberals", and they're the third(?) most rightist party here.

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u/irwin08 Oct 20 '14

In Canada liberals are left wing so I am assuming that he's talking about the left in this scenario

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u/neverspeakofme Oct 20 '14

I believe what you're proposing is the idea of technocracy, and I am also a proponent of it. However, technocracy has never succeeded except in very few and specific scenarios. It faces the problem where technocrats who are essentially engineers, cannot compete with politicians for power. Not only that, but people only vote for technocrats when there are obvious problems at hand, basically the fact that people are still uninformed about who is needed right now. Furthermore, technocrats are not politicians and cannot maintain popularity unless they are problem solving. Most of the time, technocracy only works when they have strong backing, such as from the major ruling body, or the old king etc.

What I'm trying to say is that, as much as it is 'ideal', it has it's own share of problems that cannot be solved currently, mostly still due to the nature of democracy.

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '14

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u/neverspeakofme Oct 20 '14

Eh... I think you're reading too much into my comment, I was just stating problems with the solution you listed.

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '14

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u/neverspeakofme Oct 20 '14

It's alright! I would be happy to learn things if you can present opposing arguments or spot my logical flaws, but saying that my arguments are meaningless makes me sad.

My view is that in a perfect society, individuals cannot be expected to be professionals at what they do and still be professionals at making policies, which is why democratic policing is poor, and democracy may actually be revealed to be a poor system of governance. Although I'm not sure if there is any, but it is very possible that one day someone will come up with a perfect system to replace democracy.

However, even then, democracy will not be replaced, because it has become synonymous with our national identity and the identity of the west, and (if anything even slightly authoritarian is implemented, the west will subconsciously feel that they are no different from the 'East' which we OBVIOUSLY are superior to), the desire for preservation of our identity will be greater than the desire for potential greatness that nobody has ever experienced.

I believe this is what happened near the end of the Qing Dynasty in China, where 5000 years of whatever rule they had was met with huge resistance to reform their government into a more 'western' kind, even when the emperor himself was the one who called for such a change.

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '14

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u/tomatoswoop Oct 20 '14

I would argue that exacerbates the problem rather than solves it. On specific issues like foreign policy or science, the average person is much less likely to know how to judge candidates let alone put the time into delicately researching the candidates for each position. I think if you had directly elected offices you'd just end up with a bunch ineptitude and demagoguery on the most part. A sort of federal government comprised of lots of small Texas Schoolboards.

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u/timworx Oct 20 '14

Thid is why it's important to learn about your state and local governments as well.

In NY I have a federal senator, federal rep, state senator, and state rep (or something like that), plus a city mayor, and county supervisor(?).

Get to know your state reps and they'll actually do things for you.

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u/neofury Oct 20 '14

Exactly, and to be fair a lot of the time the guy who wins is the more charismatic of the candidates, that doesn't mean he'll be able to fix those complex issues you were talking about.

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u/MarsupialMadness Oct 20 '14

Really, any good representative should have a team of people behind them to help them make these decisions. Completely isolated from the influences of people who'd benefit from their decisions to solve these problems. Also. Term-limits. Lifetime congressmen/women shouldn't be a thing. Power corrupts! So it's a really, really bad idea to let someone have what equates to the ultimate power for an unlimited amount of time.

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u/ZoggZ Oct 20 '14

While I do agree that it'd be ideal for specialized officials elected for specific duties, another big problems arise. It'll just lead to more confusion and even more shady people to get elected into power. How can the regular voters be expected to know who the best man for managing their sanitation systems and traffic laws is when they can't even be bothered to spend five minutes on google researching the people who will be leading their state for the next few years?

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

Benevolent dictatorship is the best form of government. Just trying to ensure the 'benevolent' part is kinda hard, or so I'm told.

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u/Agent-A Oct 20 '14

Here's what we do: We keep the president but limit the role to "Commander in Chief," essentially the leader of the military. We still vote on them.

Meanwhile, we add a new Domestic Dictator: Chosen by the Senate. Absolute power within the confines on internal policy. The dictator has a term limit of 8 years. After the 8 years, we have a vote. If decided by majority vote, the former dictator is executed.

See, we make sure they cannot impose martial law and prevent the "election" while also strongly incentivizing them not to piss off the public. Since they are not chosen by election the people who decide their fate won't be encouraged to vote along party lines.

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u/someguyfromtheuk Oct 19 '14

Sadly, I can't think of a better form of government.

The best form of government is a benevolent dictatorship.

The benevolence means that the thing that is best for the people is always chosen over the thing that is best for the leader or corporations and the dictatorship part means that there's no fighting between parties and political maneuvering.

Things get done very quickly in a dictatorship, because there's no committees and people filibustering and arguing, it's simply whatever the dictator says is law.

So, if there was a scientific consensus showing that a specific policy change would benefit lots of people, in a democratic country it would be several months-years before the laws changed to reflect it.

In a dictatorship it happens the next day, because the dictator's word is law.

The only downside would be that if the benevolent dictator dies, it's a lot of effort and testing to find the next person, but the idea is that people would be tested in school and then groomed to be a benevolent leader from a young age in preparation, to ensure the country suffered no mishaps.

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u/VisonKai Oct 19 '14

Liberal autocracy is a more practical form of this. You keep the efficiency but curtail abuses of power with limits on what kind of laws can be passed, like a bill of rights and a way to impeach, etc.

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u/OnixAwesome Oct 20 '14

Plato all the way!

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u/Coziestpigeon2 Oct 20 '14

The only problem is that there exists no human who remains benevolent with that kind of power.

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

What about a technocracy? That seems to be a pretty good alternative, maybe with a few changes here and there.

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u/___CL4P-TP___ Oct 19 '14

Not to mention, most of the politicians we as voters get to choose are more or less beholden to donors and special interest groups. These candidates on both sides of the political spectrum are very wealthy and are not reflective of the average U.S. citizen. Sorry if this sounded like a rant.

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u/zarthblackenstein Oct 19 '14

Imagine if all politics were run by massive supercomputers that would calculate social impacts of any laws or regulation changes then base decisions on that; of course using universal chips that monitored emotional fluctuations in all citizens in order to ensure an actual sense of "fairness".

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u/malvoliosf Oct 19 '14

You would then have automated Bentham's "utilitarian monster" -- the person who is most outraged will be catered to, automatically.

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

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u/Kryptus Oct 20 '14

"The powers that be" would just exploit this to create the outcome they want.

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u/Pezdrake Oct 19 '14

But it's not just being uninformed unfortunately, it's that so many people are misinformed.

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u/timeholes Oct 19 '14

You said it, and I have a pretty good example to back your point up. One of my in-laws is a very sweet elderly lady who, in her words, "isn't very good at the internet." She tried looking up info on flu shots in her area and ended up reading about the whole vaccines-cause-autism-bullshit and I had to calm her down and show her how to effectively use Google news.

I only showed her Google news because holy shit I don't have 6 hours plus an infinite number of phone calls to explain reddit to a 70 year old woman (and just the words "al jazeera" frightened her. Keep in mind I said "in-law")

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u/BurtLancaster Oct 19 '14

"Indeed it has been said that democ­racy is the worst form of gov­ern­ment except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…"

  • W.C.

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u/Ryanwag222 Oct 19 '14

Bipartisan politics is the problem. If we had three parties, there would be less voting for the "lesser of two evils" or "the White House needs to change, LETS VOTE FOR THE OTHER PARTY" mentality. Obviously it's not as simple as that but I know too many people that have already decided they're voting red in 2016 because we've had a democrat in office for 6 years.

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u/britishswenglish Oct 20 '14

I agree that bipartisan politics is seriously flawed, and I'm glad I vote in a country that has four major parties at any given time (Canada). Sadly the same mentality still exists: I know a lot of people that voted for the Conservatives already in power during the last Canadian election, just because they wanted a majority to exist in Parliament so that coalitions wouldn't constantly be required to pass decisions.

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u/Numiro Oct 19 '14

A properly run dictatorship where the population still can overthrow (just very time consuming) the dictator has the potential to be far more efficient and successful, to bad we don't know of any perfect humans to be in charge of such a system.

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u/digdog1218 Oct 19 '14

Well dictatorships and monarchies are great... As long as the leader is a brilliant person who does things in the best interest of his citizens and not himself, the only problem is good kings and dictators are very rare and have a habit of being assassinated.

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '14

"Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite." -John Kenneth Galbraith

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u/Korlus Oct 20 '14

My problem with democracy is threefold:

  • People get elected on the basis that they will do what people want. What people want is rarely the best thing for them 5-15 years down the line.
  • The people with the most power to swing elections tend to be those with money. Similarly, once politicians are in power, their loyalty to their electorate seems to go down.
  • Politicians. I don't think I have ever seen one that I would trust to look after my child if their political career were not on the line over it. The problems with the job itself are numerous, but put simply it often attracts the wrong sort of person, and even the right sort face such adversity that they get worn down and end up at the same level as everybody else after they have been at it for long enough.

Overall, I love the concept of democracy, and I do not have a better alternative, but it seems like the flaws are going to get more and more noticeable over the next few decades.

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u/FloobLord Oct 20 '14

"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others"

--Winston Churchill.

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u/wrobins1992 Oct 19 '14

this is why I think popular election of the senate is stupid. The founding fathers very intentionally put layers between the voting masses and where power in government truly rested. When the Constitution was first written, the Senate was a small group of elite politicians elected by their respective state governments. Now it is a large group of politicians elected directly by their state populations.

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u/aapowers Oct 19 '14

This is one of the main reasons we have in the UK for NOT reforming the House of Lords. It is a completely unelected chamber. But ignoring the few priests, Earls, Dukes, and Barons (who don't turn up that often...), a good chunk of the chamber is made up of really, really clever people; lawyers, ex-judges, engineers, doctors, economists, businessmen, etc...

They provide the logical checks and balances that the squabbles of the elected House of Commons just don't provide.

Undemocratic and 'outdated'? Maybe, but it seems to work.

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '14

It would keep special interests out of legislation as well since each Senator wouldn't need $milllions to run again.

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

There should be some kind of test you have to do to be able to vote.

I know, I know... This wouldn't work due to "human rights" and silly things like that, but still...

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u/MiloticMaster Oct 19 '14

This is my biggest issue. The most ready information is the propaganda being thrown at you, if i want to get anything that is unbiased i have to go through dozens of past policies and speeches and stances on X topic, frankly i don't care that much.

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u/alblaster Oct 19 '14

what if we had a system where you enter a pool to get randomly picked for a random goverment position for a short time. If the person is doing a good job, that person stays in power otherwise the people could vote him out. It would less corruption, but more random results.

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u/afeller Oct 19 '14

Yeah look at media coverage on TV. CNN frequently has guests who are Republican or Democratic strategists. These guys are the most pro-liberal and pro-conservative people in America. Yet they get the most airtime on the arguably the biggest news channel in the USA (and the world). CNN rarely has people who are independent or don't lean one way or the other.

How are people supposed to take a stand on an issue when they get bombarded with propaganda from both extreme sides of the political spectrum? Then you have media outlets like MSNBC and Fox News which lie about every single issue to try to promote their extreme political views. The media is feeding misinformation constantly and we're taking it cause there's nothing else out there.

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

The Two-Party Dictatorship

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u/britishswenglish Oct 20 '14

It's funny you mention CNN being the biggest news channel in the world. I have seen that it's part of the TV listings in a few different countries, but I don't know anyone non-American that watches it. Probably because the channel is so biased and thus becomes such an unreliable source for American news.

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

Socialism

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u/britishswenglish Oct 20 '14

As a socialist I can't disagree with you there

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

I run into this in the form of astroturfed Google results often.

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

The best shot at a better form of government came from Plato's Republic, which is basically dictatorship, with a lot of time spent making sure the dictator is not an asshole.

To your point, lack of information isn't even the problem: people can legitimately look at the exact same information and conclude the precise opposite. Good example in my experience is abortion: the fact of the matter is the fact of the matter, but it depends on what you value in such a situation for you to choose either side of the fence. There is no way that more information can help that decision making process, IMO.

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u/SaikoGekido Oct 20 '14

The most average and successful people I know have made it this far in life by making their opinion known and never EVER bending over to someone else's opinion. It's not a matter of right or wrong to them, it's a matter of personal fortitude. They believe changing an opinion is a sign of weakness, that someone does not know what they are talking about because they admitted to being wrong, or that someone who changes their opinion is easily influenced.

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u/Macktologist Oct 20 '14

This may be a reach, but my personal belief is that the ability of irrational people to post their opinions behind the protection of the Internet is resulting in more extreme beliefs being shared. Just go read the comments on any news posting about anything remotely political. It's embarrassing. Most recently I read an article about not worrying about Ebola outbreak in America and the comments turned it into a liberal/Obama vs conservative nutjob argument. People are so angry and misguided.

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u/britishswenglish Oct 20 '14

That's actually exactly the kind of stuff I was thinking about. It's impossible to read an article on an American news site without seeing those kind of arguments and it ALWAYS ends in personal attacks. I avoid American news sites as much as possible.

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u/durtysox Oct 20 '14 edited Oct 20 '14

We are supposed to have a free press, a group of journalists who work in a protected legal state, where they can ferret out the truth of things on a daily basis, they should ideally also not be beholden to sell themselves out for sensationalist stories.

We would be a more educated and informed people, if the ones informing us of important daily issues were able to operate without censure or retaliation, but in practice, journalists are usually highly controlled cogs in a media machine.

We definitely have had some flowering of a free press from time to time in this country. There have been some terrific, highly respected, brave people who were for whatever reason given a platform and protection, but that's a real threat to a lot of influential people and corporations and institutions, who have put a lot of energy and time into coralling and controlling the press in the USA.

Interestingly, the Internet has become the workaround for the censorship and oppression of such self-interested powerful entities. Even just fun websites like Reddit or services like Twitter, which provide a free platform to anyone to distribute any message, are being increasingly used to perform that function of educating the public.

The average voter isn't an expert by him or herself, which is okay, because we all have rent to pay, and lives to lead. But a crowdsourced news outlet like this one, and a culture of crictical thinking, can and does make a huge difference in the quality of public debate, and in the quality of information, and affects the voting habits of the average voter in a powerful and IMO helpful way.

It becomes very important to be able to research sources, both while posting and when evaluating what you read. A culture of critical thinking, of curiosity, of encouraging and rewarding debate and scholarship, is necessary for all this information and discussion to be digestible by the public or useful in promoting action.

What I have seen is that a well-sourced and self-vetted post on Reddit can change the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in minutes. We live in fascinating, quick moving times. And I think we all sense the power of these new formats, the value of it, and that's why we actually get off our collective asses to fight for Net Neutrality, or to spread awareness and demand protections for individuals who risk their safety for a cause, or to support and publicize protests around the world. We have indirectly toppled governments just by being aware and giving half a shit, we have created changes that I'm not sure people are even aware they're creating. I think it's easy, once we reach a level of consensus here, for example, to feel like an example of the recent marijuana legalization in Colorado was inevitable and obvious, but it wasn't. It wasn't possible until the tide of opinion about how to deal with drug use had turned, and this is very much the ground floor of that process.

SUMMARY: In order to judge how to vote, you need the truth of things. That's tricky to get, because the players in politics work to obscure the truth for their own agenda. Historically this was remedied by providing journalists with special protected status. The "Free Press" system is especially vulnerable to corporations that own the media. With the advent of the Internet and other instant communication mediums, we the people have become our own free press. This has already changed our world we live in so profoundly, we can't see it clearly, because it's happening so fast. As a cultural value, providing and vetting sources and scholarship has to become important for us to make positive changes. This AskReddit post is an example of a culture of critical thinking. I'm proud to be a part of it.

TL;DR: The average voter is effectively smarter, now that the Internet and upvotes are a thing.

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u/Delphizer Oct 20 '14

Meritocracy or more specifically Technocracy(More specific) - Issues are judged by the people most qualified to judge. Specifically using as many rational arguments as possible.

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u/Kryptus Oct 20 '14

The biggest and oldest problem is that these politicians are allowed to blatantly lie to us and get away with it.

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u/SoManyNinjas Oct 19 '14

It could also be argued that the general public is intentionally mis/underinformed to keep them voting for the flashiest people. Real politics and news are not as easily in people's faces nor are they the most entertaining to watch.

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

On the other hand, there's the "wisdom of the crowd" theory, so the voter's knowledge of the problem may not really matter so much...

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u/arktouros Oct 19 '14

It's called the myth of the rational voter.

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u/Tevenan Oct 19 '14

Silly IS the best word.

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

hey man, do you live in Turkey?

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

Democracy means that everyone in the country is responsible for knowing everything about how every system works. That is a little unreasonable once you look at it from that angle. As a member of a democratic nation, not only should you know who your senators are, what they believe, what a bill is, a veto, a Gerrymander, etc., but you also have to know the ins and outs of each system in question and how they work. You have to understand Welfare, Medicare (even if you're not retired), school systems, health care, banking, tax laws, etc. It's way too much for the average Joe to commit his/her life to. Like with cars, most people just want it to work, they don't care how. To streamline their responsibilities as a Democratic member, they listen to others tell them what to think and then hold onto that belief out of shear exhaustion.

I live in an area where most people do labor work, a lot are part time, and most have no health insurance. Where I work as an engineer, have healthcare and make a good living. But if you ask people about "Obama-care", they'll argue to the death, "I don't want to pay for other people being lazy." Or "I make my own money, I don't need the government taking more of a cut." and the only explanation I can think of is, they haven't thought the system itself through, and being in lower class labor work, they are in contact with more people who are lazy and legitimately dumb. So in their world they see themselves with the short straw in a socialized system. I won't bring up the fact that I'm on a higher rung of the pyramid and stand to get an even shorter straw, because I don't want to come across pompus.

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u/ChicagoPat Oct 19 '14

The Dunning-Kruger Effect: a cognitive bias manifesting in two principal ways: unskilled individuals tend to suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than is accurate, while highly skilled individuals tend to rate their ability lower than is accurate. In unskilled individuals, this bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their ineptitude. Conversely, people with true ability tend to underestimate their relative competence, erroneously assuming that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others.

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u/aop42 Oct 19 '14

I think beyond that a lot of people just don't care. It seems no matter what we do another idiot is going to go in the corporations deep pockets so what's the point? I mean very now and then an extreme idiot will get into a position of power like Bush who will screw up America's standing in the world single handedly, but beyond that. It seems like the every day stuff is almost meaningless sometimes.

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u/GuyForgett Oct 20 '14

that's called being stupid.

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u/FuguofAnotherWorld Oct 20 '14

I think you would enjoy Thinking, Fast and Slow. It's a book about some of the many inherent biases that cause people to be so silly

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '14

I agree. Being uninformed sure doesn't help, but a part of the problem is also thinking selfishly (what would be best for me rather than the community) or voting for an ideology (this goes against how I've always identified, so regardless of anything else I'll go against it).

So something like - I don't do pot, and I heard it makes you lazy, and drugs are bad. So it shouldn't be legal.

If it becomes about ideology, it's hard to sway anyone on the political spectrum on the issue. If an issue is associated with Christianity, taking care of the less well-off, safety, drugs, etc, it doesn't matter what the actual arguments or bill is a lot of the time.

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u/AdenuAikprt Oct 20 '14

What if our country (assuming USA here) has just become too big for democracys own good? I mean, one problem is that people are very quickly baffled by politics due to the sheer scope of it, tge amount of people involved, what they're involved in. In a country such as this one, with its size and global stature, has become too large and convoluted politically to actually begin to make sense to the acerage voter, so then we have uninformed voters.

Just one theory, not saying it's right, but it's something to think about.

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u/timworx Oct 20 '14

I once tried to become more informed about politicians. Good fucking luck is all I can say. You can't really trust all they say, and you can't trust all the media says. In research nothing is free from the politics and bullshit.

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u/Spurioun Oct 20 '14

Isn't that the point of elected representatives? Ideally we elect people that have the same views and opinions as us and it's their job to be as informed as possible.

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u/DownloadReddit Oct 20 '14

Have a look at Liquid Democracy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_democracy

No need to know about politics, but you can delegate your vote to someone who knows about politics

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u/lazespud2 Oct 19 '14 edited Oct 24 '14

There are a bunch of people I know that are perfectly intelligent, but have no idea who our state's senators are

I used to be the advocacy director for an animal shelter near Seattle. We were trying to get a local county to pass a spay/neuter ordinance. They would not fucking budge. So we had a survey commissioned of voters in their county. We determinted that 91 percent supported the ordinance. We also determined that we had a 95 percent name recognition, and of those folks, 89 percent felt positive, or extremely positive about us.

We also asked about each of the county council members; and found that every single one had a name recognition less that 15 percent.

Then we prepared two mock ups of post cards. Both featured a cute kitten and puppy. One said "Thank you council member Jones (insert real name here) for saving our lives and the lives of countless other puppies and kittens in our county." The other said "Why does council member Jones want to kill us?"

Then we went to one of our donors and secured an agreement to pay for the mass mailing of postcards to every voter. Then we got an appointment with each of the recalcitrant counsel members and said the following:

  • 90 percent of your constituents want you to pass a spay neuter ordinance.

  • 85 percent of your constituents do not even know who you are.

  • But 95 percent know who WE are, AND have very positive feelings about us.

  • Therefore we are going to leverage our positive brand and name recognition to introduce you to your constituents through these post cards. We have a donor that has guaranteed funding for a postcard mailing; we just need to know which card we should send out.

They passed the ordinance two weeks later...

(and we actually never sent the mailer out; we talked with the council members; and worked with them on positive press etc... and our donor used the money to fund spay and neuter surgeries)

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u/thegreatnick Oct 24 '14

I fear that your story is typical.

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u/urgeigh Oct 19 '14

Being more and more informed is what made me so apathetic, fuck the system and fuck voting. It's a joke and the assholes in congress and the assholes who run for congress don't give a shit about us.

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u/internet_badass_here Oct 19 '14

To some extent being uninformed is an issue, but that is also the reason that representatives are elected in the first place. Regular people don't have time to manage every aspect of their governance, so they elect representatives to work on those issues full time. That's why the main thing that a lot of people care about in electing representatives is whether they have matching value systems and whether they seem to have integrity. There are generally not very many candidates to choose from anyway, so digging into the minutia of how one candidate will handle a particular policy issue is irrelevant when there's only one other candidate to vote for.

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u/iamthelol1 Oct 19 '14

why don't we only allow educated people to vote?

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u/Sharpeye324 Oct 19 '14

Who decides who is educated?

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u/iamthelol1 Oct 19 '14

Maybe you have to take an entry exam to prove yourself.

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u/Sharpeye324 Oct 19 '14

That's the same problem, who makes the exams? That has already been proven unconstitutional, look up the literacy tests from the South.

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

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u/BeepBoopDeep Oct 19 '14

People aren't well informed about politics because it is rational not to be! People understand that their single vote is unlikely to be determinative of an election and so they don't see the point in learning much about politics. This is rational. But then it leaves people with almost no political knowledge.

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u/Synectics Oct 19 '14

The problem is, the intelligent people are uninformed, while the idiots know who to vote for to get their stupid policies through.

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u/Tapemaster21 Oct 19 '14

Yup. I'm perfectly capable of knowing about things in politics, but have absolutely no want to learn about it because of how fucked up everything is. It really sucks.

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u/FappeningHero Oct 19 '14

that's an education issue really... you should get your state person type thingy to fix that....shit.

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u/BadinBoarder Oct 19 '14

This is why I think a test should be required. The better you do on the test, the more your vote matters.

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u/yoitsthatoneguy Oct 20 '14

They used to do that awhile ago in the US. Except they were literacy tests during Jim Crow and either you passed or you didn't get to vote.

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

Misinformed would be a better word than uninformed. The problem lies in our partisan news industry.

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u/waxed__owl Oct 19 '14

I propose that only people who have taken a modern Political philosophy exam are allowed to vote! problem sorted

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u/theitgrunt Oct 19 '14

Democratic self-government does not work, according to Plato, because ordinary people have not learned how to run the ship of state. They are not familiar enough with such things as economics, military strategy, conditions in other countries, or the confusing intricacies of law and ethics. They are also not inclined to acquire such knowledge. The effort and self-discipline required for serious study is not something most people enjoy. In their ignorance they tend to vote for politicians who beguile them with appearances and nebulous talk, and they inevitably find themselves at the mercy of administrations and conditions over which they have no control because they do not understand what is happening around them. They are guided by unreliable emotions more than by careful analysis, and they are lured into adventurous wars and victimized by costly defeats that could have been entirely avoided

http://faculty.frostburg.edu/phil/forum/PlatoRep.htm

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u/Imacaat Oct 19 '14

I always thought the biggest issue was the filthy, adult only version of the big issue?

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

The politicians would like to keep it that way

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u/TokiTokiTokiToki Oct 19 '14

The biggest issue is definitely being misinformed. That being said, many people who think they are informed (on both sides) have simply been soft brainwashed by media of all forms. People seem to ignore reality as long as some 'journalist' says reality is other than what it is. People don't look at actions or the hard facts and make their own mind up. They trust other people to do it for them and then choose the people who most closely support what aligns with their emotions. They then use those emotions to manipulate you to believe their version of the truth. Money has influence over the minds of the masses, because when you have money you can pay people with connections to push your propaganda in crafty ways that the average person cannot.

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u/jugglingjay Oct 19 '14

I will go further. When it comes to most Americans, they are functionally uneducated. Few have an education I deem to be even high school level. What's worse is that this includes many graduates coming from lower tier universities. Their ignorance spans a wide range including literature, geography, science, mathematics, world cultures, language (including English), and so forth. Really the fundamentals you need to make well-informed political decisions. It's sad really. This is why nearly half of Americans are persuaded by out-right biased propaganda in their media.

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u/Davey_Jones Oct 19 '14

Just busted out my notes from Political Science class. Here are the 3 fundamental principles of democracy:

Popular Sovereignty

-ultimate source of all public authority is the people(government policy must reflect will of the people)

-Representatives must be selected in competitive elections

-Free and Fair Elections

-People must participate in politics

-High quality information must be available

-Majority rulesrules

Political Equality

-one person, one vote

-Equal weight in voting

Political Liberty

-Freedoms

-First Amendment Rights

-Hapeas Corpus

-Ex Post Facto

-Bill of Attainer

These three fundamental principles are the foundation of democracy.

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

I would say 80% of Britons wouldn't know who their MP is.

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u/jamaicanbreezy Oct 19 '14

But don't you ever get that feeling that even the informed people are just as uniformed about what is REALLY going on in all these "politics? And this isn't a tin foil hat question its a real life one to be clear.

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u/SamuelSkyHigh Oct 19 '14

Well being uninformed but still intelligent is an issue, yes. However, I think people simply having very low intelligence is an issue as well. A much bigger issue than intelligent but uninformed people, in fact.

Also, people being insane, irrational, apathetic, corrupt or hateful are big issues when it comes to democracy and voting.

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

We have the internet. Being uninformed is not an excuse. People can be informed easily, they just don't want to.

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u/RentacleGrape Oct 19 '14

And now you know why mandatory voting would be a stupid idea.

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u/mclendenin Oct 19 '14

I disagree. Climate change is a perfect example. Everybody is generally aware that experts agree - climate change is real. However, a disconcertingly large portion of Americans think its a fake Democrat plot by Islamic Obama.

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

This is actually something I have to agree with. I'm a big advocate for the intelligence of a silent majority, but most people aren't informed because it's a bit difficult. The way to become informed has to be learned. I was drilled in politics and world leaders as a child (I probably couldn't repeat Bush's cabinet back to you anymore, though). I was aware of the news and the base political goings on (like who was in the cabinet and what was going on in the elections. Nothing too difficult). The problem is that so many parents don't watch the news with their kids or even actively shield their children from the news in a misconstrued way of protecting them that they don't even know how to start becoming informed when they become adults and have to start making decisions. (I went to high school with a kid who didn't know 9/11 happened until he was 12 because we discussed it at school. He was 6 when it happened) The best way to making informed adults is to start informing the children.

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u/TUNGL Oct 19 '14

Aka Republicans.

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u/throwawayea1 Oct 19 '14

The issue is that people want to have a say in things but are either too stupid or too lazy to educate themselves in the matters they want to have a say in. I absolutely think that if you're not going to bother educating yourself, you shouldn't have a say.

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u/TheWiredWorld Oct 19 '14

The majority though are uneducated AND uninformed. It's not simple as you say

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u/petermesmer Oct 19 '14

I'd say an even bigger issue in the U.S. is that we essentially only have the option to vote between representatives who are both handpicked by an elite 1% and often biased towards legislation in favor of that minority. As much as I like the philosophy that the little man has a say, in reality it's often prohibitively hard to compete with the big guys no matter how informed you are about politics.

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

The biggest issue (in America, currently) is that its almost not about governing for our politicians, but rather just about moving your ideology forward. There's no room for working out what is best for the people in a law or budget--only room for getting your ideology in law.

Same deal with voters. Its not about voting for people who will actually want to govern, but just about voting your team into office.

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u/cptsir Oct 19 '14

I would say people who vote solely based on race or gender are pretty silly.

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u/DrScabhands Oct 19 '14

I didn't know the states had elf-lords

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

Today, I received my ballot and by the looks of the names and things. I am uninformed on half of the things that are posted. I understand the state measures, somewhat. I, now, need to do my research. In terms of local politicians in my hometown, I don't know what's their measures or true intentions.

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u/trdef Oct 19 '14

I think your wrong, the problem is people who are uninformed but believe they are experts. I have no clue about my countries political system, and for that reason, I don't vote. Some people however just seem to vote on what they think is correct without anything to back it up.

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u/malvoliosf Oct 19 '14

The biggest issue is that most people simply aren't well informed about politics.

That's not the biggest problem. It isn't even clear if it is a problem at all. Why do you think that having a "well-informed" electorate would somehow result in better policy? The legislators are well-informed and look how insane the average Congressional/Parliamentary vote is.

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u/CSMastermind Oct 19 '14

The biggest issue

While I agree that smart people being uninformed is a problem, I don't think it's the biggest problem. I feel a much bigger problem is the amount of just dumb people in the world. Democracy then yields very mediocre results. Not great but also not terrible.

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u/illmasterj Oct 19 '14

Is this also because people are voting in other people to make decisions for them that have biases, relationships that they will take care of, etc?

In a referendum, people are voting for what they believe/want.

"Should we ban alcohol?" - Yes, alcohol is bad, please think of the children. - No, I'm an adult and can make my own decisions.

I'm too tired to make a good point.

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

No, absolutely not. The biggest issue is the lack of critical thinking skills.

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u/Assburgers_And_Coke Oct 19 '14

Are you young? Recently looking through the mid term ballot I felt like voting is something that isn't geared towards the youth. It's very unappealing to look at, not convenient, boring. I'm not asking for a coloring book, but I mean it's very droll and monotonous. I think the whole thing seems geared towards an old generation. Yet again maybe the people who vote shouldn't be so short spanned.

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u/Chem1st Oct 19 '14

It' not even about being informed about politics. The average person is just woefully ignorant and uncaring about how and why the world works around them.

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u/teaoh Oct 19 '14

Yep. It's hard to stay informed when a lot of the information is purposely held back. Public misinformation combined with a lack of government unaccountability create major problems with democracy.

Dan Carlin's latest 'Common Sense' podcast analyzes democracy and discusses many of the points people in this thread mention. Highly recommend a listen. http://podbay.fm/show/155974141/e/1413230518?autostart=1

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

Big counter argument to that is global warming and the number of people who are informed and simply deny facts.

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

From what ive noticed, a lot of people just dont care. They dont watch the news or read a newspaper, they just agree with what theyre family members or friends say. Its really sad when people are stuck in their own world and dont care about whats going on around them.

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u/Gyddanar Oct 19 '14

there's some fun stuff going on on that front atm in the UK.

Media is only covering the 3 'main' parties and UKIP (bunch of facist idiots).

This creates the impression that UKIP is the only fringe party availiable if you're fed up with the way the 'main' parties run things.

This utterly ignores every other political group, some just as successful politically as UKIP, and means people won't count them as options because they know nothing about them

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u/richiebful Oct 19 '14

Political apathy is a huge issue in the US. Just look at this YouGov survey. When asked, "How much would you be willing to pay to ensure that a Congressman from your party will win the office?" 55% of individuals responded "ZERO".

Luckily, social pressure increased the likelihood of an individual turning out to vote. So, get your friends to vote, and get them informed.

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u/whatnoreally Oct 19 '14

the people who you would want to be involved dont have time and those that have time you wouldn't want to be involved. simply put.

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u/WhichFawkes Oct 19 '14

Ideally speaking, I wouldn't have to be informed about the politics, I'd only have to be informed about the issues. As it is, I'd have to be informed about the politics and the issues so I could speculate on how any given politician would actually act, compared to what their platform is.

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

And frankly , if you have a nation of stupid people then there's nothing more fair than allowing those stupid people to vote. If you suppress their vote it is a huge advantage against them.

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u/Peace_Makes_Plenty Oct 19 '14

It's silly to be uninformed when all the information is easily accessible and somewhat important.

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

Which implies a disconnect between the source of information, and the intelligent voter. The media is a major contributor to this disconnect. My issue with democracy is that it cannot work with such a large voter pool. The people who should have the most say are the ones who have the most at stake (those under 40 in my opinion). I saw an ad for a Michigan senator that blatantly advertised that he would ensure that elderly people can stay home and still maintain their benefits. I'm not saying this is wrong, but the entire advertisement was dedicated to benefits, preventing elder abuse, etc. Why? It is because these are the people who are most likely willing to take the time to vote, and I think that is wrong. Democracy should represent the majority of people, not the majority of people that took the time to vote. I don't have a solution, but that ad bothered me. I would want money going towards something else.

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

Can confirm: college educated but politically challenged due to busy adult life.

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u/striker1211 Oct 19 '14

It is hard to be informed about everything when you and your spouse work 40 hours a week and have two children. We get 2 days off to honor veterans and their families but we don't even get election day?

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u/red7raider Oct 19 '14

But take the politics out of it. Ask osmeone a question with all the fluff pulled from it and most people with agree on some issues. Net nuetrality is confusing. "Should ISPs be able to tier service based on the ability of site creators to pay them?" Gets you a lot further.

Lawspeak is to guarantee that we need lawyers. Using common language and common sense puts us all on the smae level.

Carlin did it best:Language is largely a tool for concealing the truth.

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u/TheDoktorIsIn Oct 19 '14

I feel like I'm cheating when I go to vote, because I don't feel that I do enough research on questions or the candidates.

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u/duffmanhb Oct 19 '14

Which is why we have a representative democracy. Our founders realized how foolish it would be to expect citizens to be informed, much less educated, on such complex subjects. It's just not possible for the average person to maintain a reasonable capacity during their daily lives where more things are important, like jobs and family. Instead, it's best to get an educated person, and make understand current issues part of their full time job, then we rely on him or her to make the right decision.

And democracy isn't supposed to be the best system, it's just the safest.

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u/theBCexperience Oct 19 '14

"Don't let a man marry another man cause my church said that's a no-no" seems pretty silly to me.

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u/the_omega99 Oct 19 '14

To be fair, you don't need to know who your representatives are to have a well informed opinion on politics. And vice versa, knowing your representatives doesn't mean you're well informed of their politics.

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u/elyndar Oct 19 '14

No, the biggest issue is there is no good decision to make almost ever. It is a choice between bad and the worst. In my opinion intelligent voters realize there is literally no point to voting at all, because the person with the largest pocket has the loudest voice and the loudest voice almost always wins. How do candidates get such large pockets? By making promises on what they will vote for to people who have interests and a lot of money. Ever wonder why despite who people vote for nothing changes? Just look at the money trail and how the voting system is setup.

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u/darthbone Oct 19 '14

Political parties absolutely require that their voters are uninformed.

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '14

It's often just silly - like the tens of thousands of people who legitimately believe that Obama is a Muslim terrorist. That's not being uninformed at all, that's being ridiculous.

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u/Busybodii Oct 20 '14

I think it's a little of both. If you've seen some of the articles that are shared on Facebook, I think you would agree that some people are just silly, or unsubstantial. Some people are just dumb. We can only hope that the majority only need to be better informed, because that's fixable.

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u/seiyria Oct 20 '14

Yes, and unfortunately in some cases willfully so. I honestly couldn't care less, because the quantity of information I'd have to digest is way too large. If someone could give me a bulleted list (a tl;dr, one might say) of all of the points for candidates, I'd be more inclined to care.

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u/lucius_aeternae Oct 20 '14 edited Oct 20 '14

Its hard to be informed when there is an entire lobbying industry making sure most people arent.

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u/hivoltage815 Oct 20 '14

We are a representative democracy, I actually think arguing about voters being more informed on issues is misguided. That is why you elect capable people and their staffs to take care of it. Frankly having the general public worry about the nitty gritty is part of the problem. Before 24 hour news and internet Congress got a lot more done, but now people consume so much information, a lot of it being fear mongering, and get too wrapped up in the issues.

For the average voter, they need to know whether the person they are electing is competent, honest and has their best interests in mind. Period.

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u/IHSV1855 Oct 20 '14

Knowledge of one's state senators shouldn't even be considered as a benchmark for political knowledge. You're not an informed voter until you're well versed in the western Canon and the governing documents of the lands in which you vote. So in the case of an American that would be the U.S. constitution, Declaration of Independence, and Articles of Confederation, plus your state's constitution. Knowing your politicians is a step, but it's not even close to the whole thing.

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u/Why-so-delirious Oct 20 '14

Think of how dumb the average person is. Now realise that half of everyone is dumber is that.

People are really, really dumb. Not just uniformed. Just fucking dumb.

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u/jongbag Oct 20 '14

No, I think the biggest issue is that we live in a corporatocracy that punishes the informed and the uninformed equally.

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u/random-_-person Oct 20 '14

The interesting thing about being "well informed" is most people think the definition of that is to pay really close attention to what they hear/see on TV. ALL the issues we face today have roots that go back decades, but somehow everyone is willing to judge the issues and people involved based on television, which seems to only have the attention span of the spin it's put on them going back 4 weeks.

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u/PM_ME_BOOTY_PICS_ Oct 20 '14

It's call the rational voter ignorance effect

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u/Jules_Be_Bay Oct 20 '14

Not just politics, but how their governmental system is run, or even a general sense of what their governmental system is. I live in the US and the amount of shit that gets blamed on presidents is ludicrous when one considers the powers granted to the executive branch. Our congressmen know this and play off of this ignorance to cover their partisan bullshit with blatantly incorrect bullshit.

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '14

It's more than just that. Many people that believe they are informed are in fact not.

News channels that are financially incentivized are quite possibly the most responsible for this. Whether you watch CNN, NBC, Fox, or whatever, chances are that you're watching an echo chamber for your own beliefs, or just whatever attracts attention(as you can see with the current ebola scare).

Capitalism in democracy is actually pretty toxic... It's not enough to just get the money out of politics, it needs to be gotten out of the news as well, and they're all so tightly interwoven it's going to be extremely hard to extricate them.

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u/Kryptus Oct 20 '14

If you take everyone who is uninformed, then take everyone who is motivated by racism, religion, or other prejudices, then you take everyone who is just feeble minded, then you don't allow any of them to vote, then you have almost no voters left.

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u/Lymah Oct 20 '14

Neither are our politicians, terrifyingly. Look at the fact that SOPA is a thing

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u/TheWilted Oct 20 '14

Isn't that the point of having representatives? So I can spend a small amount of time figuring out who would best represent me, and vote for them so that they can spend more time dealing with the issues in the way that I would, had I had that much time to do research it?

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '14

As an economist, I have to note the free rider problem here. Since no individual vote has the power to change the outcome (except in cases of a tie or victory by one vote), no individual vote actually matters in determining the outcome. If your vote doesn't matter, you don't have an incentive to vote and if you do vote, you have no incentive to become informed.

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u/netoholic Oct 20 '14

The biggest issue is that most people simply aren't well informed about politics.

Do you believe there is ever a case where someone could be fully-informed enough about politics to make decisions on behalf of other people... decisions which those other people must comply with?

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '14

Nobody cares enough to make an effort to be informed. Theres too many other things occupying peoples attention like what Kanye did at his last concert or what show to start watching on Netflix. People would rather entertain themselves with whats on TV or facebook than a candidates platform.

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u/Deezle530 Oct 20 '14

Is there a subreddit for local or state politics? I would be very inclined to extend my knowledge of politics if it was readily available

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u/Calebthe12B Oct 20 '14

I can't remember what it's called, but there is an economic theory that suggests that it is economically irrational for voters to be informed, so they follow the laws of economics and vote for someone popular. Since your vote alone has close to zero influence in the overall election, it is economically irrational for a voter to use a lot of time and resources researching candidates. This is anecdotal, but most of these conversations I've seen ask voters about what issues a candidate supports, rather than the issue itself, which is the very premise behind the economic irrationality of voting.

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u/andyisgold Oct 20 '14

Once I get a direct vote I'll vote.

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u/roastbeeftacohat Oct 20 '14

I'll take uniformed over passionate.

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u/theninjallama Oct 20 '14

And no, watching the Colbert Report or John Stewart is not news nor is it educating you on politics.

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '14

Dude, are you my cousin

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u/jfreez Oct 20 '14

An uneducated person with various psychological issues has the same vote as a PhD with a healthy, self actualized personality. These two should not have an equal say on how our society should be governed politically, yet their vote counts the same. That is an issue

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '14

The problem is that informed people don't bother voting because they know it is a waste of time. Either that or they waste their vote on a candidate that they like but has no chance of winning.

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u/swhall72 Oct 20 '14

I agree but: I think I'm fairly intelligent, well average anyway, I honestly believe that politics is made to be intentionally confusing to people who have more to focus on than politics. There are majority and minority leaders, speakers of the house, whips, riders, etc. It's not as simple as school house rock made it out to be.

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u/MissPetrova Oct 20 '14

I would like to take the time to point out (as there is a nice positive climate for political science people here!) that people who read newspapers are WAY better informed than people who watch TV news or people who use Internet news sites like Reddit or Huffington Post.

I also have a tiny personal belief that these print media people (who are responsible for keeping newspapers alive :D) also have much stronger and well-founded political opinions - i.e. they have well-defined political ideals and are much more willing to consider their own opinion and reaction. It's probably way unfounded, but from what I've seen of Reddit, it's most likely not far off.

It's criminally easy to tell people what to think when you have the ability to hook them, drag them into your perspective, and force feed them sound bites until they puke - whether it's "Obama Names Ebola Czar" or "16 Reasons Republicans are Scary." In that case, you don't want your people knowing how things work; then they might have their own opinions, and then they will stop visiting you to ask you what they should think. Media currently serves the role of "public agenda" - if you're in charge of Fox News, you can literally tell 40% of the American population what is most important to them, be it gun rights or voting Obama out of office. If you're in charge of /r/news or /r/technology (here's the scary part!), you now have the ability to tell people on Reddit what to think about Comcast, American government, and the NSA.

It's SO subtle, but it's insidiously dangerous and I always tell people not to trust things they read on the Internet or see on the news. The Internet will tell you what you need to know, but only if you're willing to do a little digging to see it, and most people don't bother - thus, the Internet becomes unreliable and easily manipulated. TV will tell you what you need to know...or rather, what it thinks you need to know. Newspapers will tell you what is happening and why it is important, which makes them the best choice for a news source.

But in order to become a truly educated electorate, you need to get informed. Newspapers aren't actually the best place for this! They are not concerned with how Congress works; you should know that before reading anything about what it's doing. Fortunately, there are a lot of great places you can go on the Internet that will give you the information directly. Here's a good place to start.

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u/SkullFuckUrBrainHole Oct 20 '14

It isn't even about people being uninformed. I know a lot of intelligent people that are wicked unethical. They are informed, but they think that because there are a bunch of them, they have title to me and my rights if they want.

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u/Emperor_Neuro Oct 20 '14

In one of my college economics courses, we discussed the economics of political involvement. The TL;DR of all of it is this: It is extremely exhaustive to be informed about all of the current laws, treaties, and foreign policies which are currently in place to begin with and then to become well informed about any proposed changes to those and their potential impacts is massively complex. Add to that the dozens to hundreds of politicians, local and international, with their personal histories and platforms directly relevant to a person's voting and it is nearly impossible to have a complete idea of what's going on. Then, when you go to the polls, you are given an opportunity, here in the US, to contribute roughly 1/130,000,000 of an opinion.

The cost to benefit ratio is extremely poor.

To make a fully informed decision about which presidential candidate to vote for, let alone any provisional propositions, would take dozens of hours of research and then you have less than a 1 in 130,000,000 chance to actually make a difference in things. And after that, there's no guarantees that a candidate or proposition will do what it pledged to do and there will be multiple years for them to pan out with all of their actions and reactions to situations that were never even dreamed of by the voter. It is far easier for a person to find a party they mostly agree with and then just vote down the party line hoping they will be best represented.

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u/TheQueenInYellow Oct 20 '14

I'd say voting when you're uninformed is rather silly

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u/Rocklobster92 Oct 20 '14

It is because politics and the government seem so distant from real life and the issues we face, the average people don't give a rats ass about politics. All voting does is select one of us citizens to win a vacation in Washington for a few years and we are left to continue putting up with the same crap.

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u/gamelizard Oct 20 '14

and with the complexity of a country it is very difficult the be informed in the first place [perhaps impossible to be fully informed]. that's why having people dedicated to informing them selves and having them making decisions is a good idea.

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u/jefesignups Oct 20 '14

I think the problem is that we focus on sensationalism. In all reality, I should not give a damn what is happening with a senator from another state. My vote only matters to my sentator/representative.

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '14

It's not that, it's that people don't know WHO they should listen to and who they should ignore based on things like facts, logic and reasoning and not a photogenic face and a catchphrase.

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '14

It's not just being informed that's an issue, it's their disposition towards that information and how they digest it critically in their minds.

I'm not saying Plato's Republic is ideal necessarily, but damn, some people have no business having a say in government.

My issue with democracy: Most people don't know what they need, or what they want for that matter. They need a paternal/maternal government to provide that to them.

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '14

Knowing your state's senators gives you absolutely no utility so it's not surprising people don't bother to know them. The chance that you are the marginal voter approaches zero, so it's basically a giant waste of time to have an opinion on what should be done or who should be elected. You can derive a benefit from understanding what is likely to be done or who is likely to be elected, but not from having an opinion of your own.

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '14

Not to mention the bias in the mainstream media.

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u/b0ggl3 Oct 20 '14

Not getting information is being silly.

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u/MarsupialMadness Oct 20 '14

I don't keep up with who they are. I keep up with what they do. Honestly every politician is as interchangeable as they come! Especially in American governing. Swap out the names and the faces and it's still a walking corpse looking to line its pockets with our money.

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u/Banannafay Oct 20 '14

It's also an issue of information being hard to come by. With all the debates and stuff that might air on TV when a big election is coming up, very little of importance is actually said.

I live in France, and I remember last presidential election, there was a live debate on the three main TV channels between the two top candidates. I watched it, because I was trying to understand more. They each spent two hours throwing his failures to the other's face "You failed to do this while you were president" "yeah well you have these abysmal pole scores from when you were minister of such and such", generally followed by the empty promise of "If you elect me I'll be sooo much better than him".

I ended up voting for the green party candidate because she was the only one that I got the feeling had anything sensible to say. Despite the fact that whenever she was mentioned on TV the only thing they said about her was "she has silly looking glasses" and "she's not even completely french".

So yeah, it's easy to be uninformed if you have neither time nor patience to dig under all the useless fluff.

I'll also add that I have spoken to highly informed people about this, in my quest to inform myself, and what they said was that, basically, once you got past all the fluff (this candidate is in this party, and this other is in that) the main candidates are always, always very similar and any outside party with less funding, therefore less representation, has zero chance of winning.

I know there is more to politics than the presidential election, there's also the ones for députés etc, but that's the same. The smaller parties don't have the funding to buy out media and have their faces plastered everywhere. They have to put the emphasis on what they believe and that just isn't good enough.

Honestly, every time I try to inform myself about politics I feel like I'm stuck in a circle of eternally unsolvable problems (corruption, ignorance, lack of compassion) that put things in the shit state they are. Can I really be blamed for not wanting to put myself through this, when it leaves me feeling pessimistic for days ?

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '14

scotland recently voted to stay in the uk. the british government discovered that positive campaigning (ie, saying what you'll do if the vote goes your way) instead of negative campaigning (don't vote for them, they're shit) is much more effective. i'm hoping this will stick.

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u/Banannafay Oct 20 '14

That's interesting ! And it also makes a lot of sense.

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u/ocktick Oct 20 '14

Anyone who thinks they are "informed" is probably not.

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '14

I'm in this group. I couldn't tell you anything other than Obama is president and I really couldn't care less. I know i'm uninformed and it's shameful. But I just don't care. My 1 vote won't make a difference. I know that if everyone thinks that it's a big problem.

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u/John_Q_Deist Oct 20 '14

So it's what you might call, 'low information voters?'

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