As an interesting phenomenon, I’ve noticed that when I question people in-depth about their beliefs on specific issues what they actually want is often seriously at odds with the political group to which they claim to adhere.
It’s almost like political affiliations are tribal memberships and people engage in double-think to not risk those memberships even when having that membership doesn’t form a coherent whole with the rest of their ideology.
To the extent which IQ actually matters, I’ve noticed two patterns:
Firstly, to a certain extent, those with higher IQ tend to spend more years of their life in school, and most schools have a very definite liberal or conservative culture and actively punish “wrongthink” to a certain degree. So IQ correlation with political faction may be more indicative of the ratio between schools than anything else.
Secondly, once a person’s IQ gets into the 130+ range you seem to start finding a higher fraction of people who really despise the stupidity and waste of primate social politics and so prefer consistency of internal logic over maintaining good tribal standing. These people are actually interesting to talk to about politics because they’re actually interested in what the facts are and in whether or not policy actually meets its goals. Even when you disagree with their conclusions, you don’t have to spend all your time pointing out the same contradictions again and again.
As an interesting phenomenon, I’ve noticed that when I question people in-depth about their beliefs on specific issues what they actually want is often seriously at odds with the political group to which they claim to adhere.
It’s almost like political affiliations are tribal memberships and people engage in double-think to not risk those memberships even when having that membership doesn’t form a coherent whole with the rest of their ideology.
To the extent which IQ actually matters, I’ve noticed two patterns:
Firstly, to a certain extent, those with higher IQ tend to spend more years of their life in school, and most schools have a very definite liberal or conservative culture and actively punish “wrongthink” to a certain degree. So IQ correlation with political faction may be more indicative of the ratio between schools than anything else.
Secondly, once a person’s IQ gets into the 130+ range you seem to start finding a higher fraction of people who really despise the stupidity and waste of primate social politics and so prefer consistency of internal logic over maintaining good tribal standing. These people are actually interesting to talk to about politics because they’re actually interested in what the facts are and in whether or not policy actually meets its goals. Even when you disagree with their conclusions, you don’t have to spend all your time pointing out the same contradictions again and again.