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Should politicians be forced to take a SAT test or some other structured middling form of academia and this be public knowledge? I mean our current politicians are dumb-rear end villains. Wouldn't it be nice if you could remove half of that problem initially? And if not, wouldn't you rather live in a world where everyone knowingly elects retards and rock yourself to sleep at night? Like for debates, have it be perfectly normal to list that score when someone is discussing global policy? I don't understand why this should be taboo. 
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Nov 30, 2015 11:37
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Yes. But the question is do you want politicians to balance the interests of different people and possibly to guide the discussion towards whatever the latest opinion poll says, or do you want politicians to have a clue about what they're managing so they can identify when some consensus opinion is just dumb and wrong and unrealistic as policy and actually lead.
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Nov 30, 2015 11:54
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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Just look at what the Republicans did with "Dynamic Scoring" for the Congressional Budget Office. If they can't get out of a test, they'll re-write the rules for how it's graded. Besides, Republicans have the infrastructure in place to sing from the rooftops if they were to do better than Democrats, and to decry the whole thing as a partisan ivory tower circlejerk if (when) they do worse. I can even see a scenario where doing poorly on such a test is regarded as a source of pride, and people refuse to vote for someone who has scored too highly.
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Nov 30, 2015 14:56
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I believe Ted Cruz had very good SAT and LSAT scores. So what does that accomplish?
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Nov 30, 2015 14:59
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Jestah posted:Should politicians be forced to take a SAT test or some other structured middling form of academia and this be public knowledge?
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Nov 30, 2015 15:54
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Why stop there? We could require people to take a test before they vote, too, just like in good old 1868!
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Nov 30, 2015 16:19
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SedanChair posted:I believe Ted Cruz had very good SAT and LSAT scores. So what does that accomplish? Politicians being stupid is only one of many problems. I don't think Cruz is stupid, I think he's crazy.
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Nov 30, 2015 16:26
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Main Paineframe posted:Why stop there? We could require people to take a test before they vote, too, just like in good old 1868! there is a difference between saying people should not be allowed to express what their interests are and making sure the functionaries charged with actually implementing what the populace needs are smart enough to do their jobs.
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Nov 30, 2015 16:28
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I'm the picture of Hillary smiling
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Nov 30, 2015 17:27
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Also, you will find that the President of the United States is actually a pretty smart guy, as are many politicians. Intelligence or general knowledge tested by the SAT are not necessarily indicative of a person's worldview or ideology!
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Nov 30, 2015 17:30
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Vivian Darkbloom posted:Also, you will find that the President of the United States is actually a pretty smart guy, as are many politicians. Intelligence or general knowledge tested by the SAT are not necessarily indicative of a person's worldview or ideology! Why do we have to limit this to presidential politics? Of course the leader of any country is going to be a pretty intelligent person. It's the local representative from East Bumblefuck that I'm more concerned about -- the ones who deny science outright, use phrases like "legitimate rape" and generally demonstrate a middle schooler's understanding of the world. The President can be as smart as anything, but if the legislature is stacked with utter cretins, then he isn't going to be able to get anything done.
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Nov 30, 2015 17:41
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PT6A posted:Why do we have to limit this to presidential politics? Of course the leader of any country is going to be a pretty intelligent person. It's the local representative from East Bumblefuck that I'm more concerned about -- the ones who deny science outright, use phrases like "legitimate rape" and generally demonstrate a middle schooler's understanding of the world. The President can be as smart as anything, but if the legislature is stacked with utter cretins, then he isn't going to be able to get anything done. Stupidity is not the main factor at work here. You do have some genuinely stupid yokels like Virginia Foxx and Louie Gohmert out there, sure, but for the most part politicians are acting exactly as stupid as their base wants them to act. They know that climate change is man made and Obama was born in the US. Hell they probably even know that funding programs adequately leads to better outcomes. They just don't care, because they're evil. They don't care about anything but fundraising and winning elections. Stupid people want them to say stupid things and so they do.
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Nov 30, 2015 17:47
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Wanna see this for representatives. Don't know if anyone remembers this: http://gawker.com/5955371/this-baffling-ad-for-a-south-dakota-congresswoman-is-an-excellent-ad-for-her-democratic-opponentVivian Darkbloom posted:Also, you will find that the President of the United States is actually a pretty smart guy, as are many politicians. Intelligence or general knowledge tested by the SAT are not necessarily indicative of a person's worldview or ideology! I can't see this for Reagan or Dubya.
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Nov 30, 2015 18:45
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This is the most American response to government corruption and dysfunction ever. "The problem with our society cannot be power imbalances among the citizenry! It's just that our leaders are somehow unworthy."
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Nov 30, 2015 20:29
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blowfish posted:there is a difference between saying people should not be allowed to express what their interests are and making sure the functionaries charged with actually implementing what the populace needs are smart enough to do their jobs. So...SAT tests for mid-level bureaucratic functionaries? Politicians don't implement anything except Senate rule changes and committee reshufflings; their role is to act as representatives of the public in making the decisions for someone else to implement, and to choose the people to choose the people to do the implementing. guidoanselmi posted:I can't see this for Reagan or Dubya. Bush's SAT score (which we know, thanks to the invasiveness of journalists) was above average - somewhat low for Yale, supposedly, but significantly above the mean. Comparing it to our current scores is somewhat meaningless since the SAT scoring mechanism has gone through several rounds of rescaling and inflation since GWB was in high school, so I'm not giving the raw number, but his overall score was probably in about the 80th percentile, or a bit higher.
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Nov 30, 2015 20:41
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Inferior Third Season posted:Just look at what the Republicans did with "Dynamic Scoring" for the Congressional Budget Office. If they can't get out of a test, they'll re-write the rules for how it's graded. No matter how hard they curb the test we'd still have the contrast between scores to out the dumb rear end. I don't think that partisan infrastructure should dictate policy. That just seems like a recipe for disaster. Scoring slightly better shouldn't be that big of a deal and obviously intelligence isn't the only quality you should judge candidates by. I just think that if somehow the integrity of the test was maintained by an outside entity or something that we'd have a better grasp of how reasonable our candidates are. I mean granted, governance doesn't require most of the tangible and measurable branches of the concept of intelligence. History proves that time and again. I just think the public should have a system that explicitly outs objectively stupid people.
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Nov 30, 2015 22:56
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ah yes, objectively stupid people. Like that one guy who came up with the standardized testing of politicians. Undeniably, objectively, retarded. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 1, 2015 02:22
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I don't think testing will fix any of the things you think it will though. Anti-science politicians may or may not actually be morons. Some will say what will get them elected, some are dumb but the voters will vote for them because they agree with them anyway and the third option is that sometimes smart people believe some really dumb poo poo. You're assuming someone sufficiently intelligent would always believe the "Correct" thing.
RagnarokAngel fucked around with this message at 08:23 on Dec 1, 2015 |
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Dec 1, 2015 08:01
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Politicians should have to play each other in Jeopardy
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Dec 1, 2015 08:10
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I dunno about the SATs, but a mandatory psych eval seems like it could do some good.
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Dec 1, 2015 08:11
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Jestah posted:No matter how hard they curb the test we'd still have the contrast between scores to out the dumb rear end.
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Dec 1, 2015 12:28
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I'm sure politicians wouldn't be self-serving cronies of private power if only they knew more or were smarter!!!
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Dec 1, 2015 12:38
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It won't help but we should do it for comedy reasons, also it might humble/humiliate them a bit. The right wing in the UK absolutely love to go on about how GCSEs are getting easier (possible, probably due to the proliferation of exam boards brought in by very stupid education ministers) and kids these days are so thick and they don't know how good they've got it not like in our day I was working down the mines for tuppence a day before I could crawl blah blah blah Part of this involves quoting some really basic question from an exam paper that it's expected most students will get, because there have to be hard questions and easy questions to differentiate people of different abilities, except they willfully ignore that and pretend that's the caliber of all of them. Anyway, Michael "Pob" Gove kept doing it in parliament so Ed Balls asked him some ever so slightly trickier ones (they're still embarassingly easy). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNR0AuGnoUg XMNN fucked around with this message at 13:42 on Dec 1, 2015 |
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Dec 1, 2015 13:39
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blowfish posted:there is a difference between saying people should not be allowed to express what their interests are and making sure the functionaries charged with actually implementing what the populace needs are smart enough to do their jobs. then why is the sat, a test known for only testing your ability to take it, the measure being suggested
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Dec 1, 2015 14:23
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Actual career performance and public statements are better indicators of future performance. Unfortunately, there is so little info to gather outside of the federal races. How am I supposed to know whether a judge is any good unless they did something bad enough to make the news? That said, Alfred P. Pseudonym posted:Politicians should have to play each other in Jeopardy
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Dec 1, 2015 14:36
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Literally the only thing the SAT measures is how good you are at taking the SAT. I don't think a lack of good test takers is what's wrong with American politics, op.
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Dec 1, 2015 15:27
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Imagine an adult telling you he should be trusted because he got a perfect score on the SAT, like holy moley
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Dec 1, 2015 15:28
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Literally The Worst posted:then why is the sat, a test known for only testing your ability to take it, the measure being suggested Swan Oat posted:Imagine an adult telling you he should be trusted because he got a perfect score on the SAT, like holy moley
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Dec 1, 2015 17:00
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Jestah posted:I mean granted, governance doesn't require most of the tangible and measurable branches of the concept of intelligence. History proves that time and again. I just think the public should have a system that explicitly outs objectively stupid people. What makes you think there's a significant number of objectively stupid people in national politics? I think you've fallen into the partisan trap of "I disagree with what this person says, therefore they are dumb and stupid" and now you're just searching for solid proof to validate that your partisan beliefs are objectively more intelligent (something that conservatives sometimes do as well), as well as an excuse to exclude those who oppose those beliefs from politics on the grounds of the intellectual inferiority you believe them to possess. It's also typical to overestimate the degree that politicians believe what they say, and attribute real belief to what's actually a carefully focus-grouped statement that has been meticulously calibrated to the exact sensibilities of a large and enthusiastic group of likely voters, lobbyists, and donors. Sure, the popular conception is that Bush II was dumb and stupid. But his SAT scores were in the top 20% of test takers that year, and he scored higher than Kerry on the SAT (and possibly Bill Clinton, but I can't find even a mention of where the score I found for him supposedly came from). And while Romney's SAT score isn't known, his grades at Harvard were supposedly extremely good.
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Dec 1, 2015 18:16
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blowfish posted:Because the OP is American. as am i, which is how i know that the SAT really only tests your ability to take the SAT and is thus a poo poo measure of intelligence
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Dec 1, 2015 18:18
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A world where below-median IQ people are barred from participation in public life and public figures are jeered for poor standardized test scores does seem like an improvement on the current society.
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Dec 1, 2015 18:33
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Actually, they should have to run through the Eliminator, op.
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Dec 1, 2015 19:54
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this is the worst suggestion I have ever seen may as well put all the dumbs in a field and shoot them while you are at it part of the allure of democracy is that (outside of standing fees which usually a party will pay for you) anyone can run for office, regardless of background or means. also your idea of what qualifies a person for office runs off of a normative testing system, which is bad because competency at a role or job has nothing to do with what those tests look for
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Dec 1, 2015 21:33
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Primaries should be decided by knife-fighting.
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Dec 1, 2015 23:09
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Main Paineframe posted:What makes you think there's a significant number of objectively stupid people in national politics? I think you've fallen into the partisan trap of "I disagree with what this person says, therefore they are dumb and stupid" and now you're just searching for solid proof to validate that your partisan beliefs are objectively more intelligent (something that conservatives sometimes do as well), as well as an excuse to exclude those who oppose those beliefs from politics on the grounds of the intellectual inferiority you believe them to possess. It's also typical to overestimate the degree that politicians believe what they say, and attribute real belief to what's actually a carefully focus-grouped statement that has been meticulously calibrated to the exact sensibilities of a large and enthusiastic group of likely voters, lobbyists, and donors. Again, why are you artificially restricting this to presidents or presidential candidates? Even senators tend to not be outright stupid. Representatives or state politicians, though... holy gently caress, there's some knuckle-draggers. It's not that I disagree with their opinions, it's that they're literally working off a completely distinct set of "facts" from reality itself.
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Dec 1, 2015 23:23
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Another Person posted:this is the worst suggestion I have ever seen Basically it would lead to a logical end point of replacing elected
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Dec 1, 2015 23:35
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blowfish posted:Basically it would lead to a logical end point of replacing elected no it wouldn't
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Dec 2, 2015 01:37
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Dubstep Jesus posted:no it wouldn't yeah, it really wouldn't And if it did, that system would be even worse. A technocracy blurs the lines of accountability, which is important in democracy, and bureaucracy is resistant to policy change, especially if it puts their pet department at risk. Google 'Richard Crossman Civil Service' for an idea of how unhappy civil service gets when you attempt to change what they are doing. A government built around what is basically an unaccountable civil service would be full of ever expanding budgets, inefficient pet projects which the pilots refuse to let the sun set on and an ingrained resilience to any alternatives sounds like a nightmare. Technocracy gets even worse when you consider the general background of what usually makes up the civil service or federal bureaucracy. Very white and middle class, typically from very similar social backgrounds. Even if democracy allows some ridiculous people through the door, it at least allows in a more representative picture of the total population compared to technocracy.
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Dec 2, 2015 01:49
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Mandatory drug tests.
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Dec 2, 2015 02:17
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SedanChair posted:Stupidity is not the main factor at work here. You do have some genuinely stupid yokels like Virginia Foxx and Louie Gohmert out there, sure, but for the most part politicians are acting exactly as stupid as their base wants them to act. They know that climate change is man made and Obama was born in the US. Hell they probably even know that funding programs adequately leads to better outcomes. They just don't care, because they're evil. They don't care about anything but fundraising and winning elections. Stupid people want them to say stupid things and so they do. I think your post deserves a little more affection. I agree with you. I guess it's possible in some sort of abstract way for there to maybe be a tiny group of genuinely stupid people involved in politics? I doubt there are many though. There's no shortage of intelligent politicians and intelligence/stupidity was never really the problem in any case. The real issue is that there is an abundance of morally loose, vastly cynical human beings who are willing to act in whatever way that they think may get them power. Those folks are then supported by any number of moneyed interests looking to make a return on their investment, and Bob's your uncle. Sometimes it's a short term investment over the long game, and sometimes they misread what the voting public wants or can be convinced of, sometimes it's something emotional, but for the most part this is how politics work.* I'm not even convinced that when a politician does something right and moral, even some fictitious example that is objectively and demonstrably so, that they're actually doing it because it's the correct thing to do. My guess is that 20% of the time, at best, they're doing or saying what they truly believe? *And what clouds all that is even bad people aren't all bad all the time.
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Dec 2, 2015 02:36
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