Low-IQ voters can’t identify good policies or wise politicians; democracy favors political actors who can successfully propagandize and mobilize the largest number of people, which might not correspond to good governance. A political system with non-democratic elements that offers more formalized control to actors with greater competence or better incentives might be able to choose better policies.
I say “non-democratic elements” because it doesn’t have to be a strict binary between perfect democracy and perfect dictatorship. Consider, e.g., how the indirect election of U.S. Senators before the 17th Amendment was originally intended to make the Senate a more deliberative body by insulating it from the public.
(Maybe that’s all wrong, but you asked “what’s the model”, and this is an example model of why someone might be skeptical of democracy for pro-social structural reasons rather than just personally wanting their guy to be dictator.)
I do not expect voters to actually become much smarter just because in principle they have access to intelligent advice (in some domains, which is sometimes totally wrong). In fact, I think voters have a time-honored tradition of ignoring intelligent advice, particularly when it is hard to distinguish from unintelligent advice.
So, even if this is true in theory, it will not manifest how you’re suggesting in practice.
Advice can’t be intelligent or unintelligent; it’s too inanimate for that. And I didn’t suggest any particular manifestation.
I kind of feel like you are using the word “intelligence” as an effective synonym for “good”, such that you were interpreting the subtext of my claim as saying that voters will now be good, whereas I rather intend the subtext of my claim to be that theories about lack of voter intelligence are now uninteresting because other dynamics are dominating.
I don’t know if other dynamics are dominating, but I seriously doubt that LLMs are qualitatively changing the dynamics of voting through the mechanism you seem to be suggesting—possibly loose persuasion bots on the internet are affecting voting behavior somewhat, but I don’t think people are intentionally using chatbots to make smarter voting decisions.
Honestly, I am no longer sure I understand what you’re trying to claim at all.
TheSkeward is trying to unspecifically shame Cremieux for criticizing multiethnic democracy with very low-IQ demographics. localdeity inferred that TheSkeward’s criticism was probably about how Cremieux was talking about taboo racist stuff, and pointed out how TheSkeward’s shaming doesn’t make sense in the light of that. yams pointed out that basic numeracy would show the problem to be overstated and also that the general discourse is pretty sketchy.
Said Achmiz and Zack Davis were objecting to the basic numeracy point by arguing that unspecified people (presumably including Cremieux but excluding Said Achmiz and Zack Davis) might think that one of the biggest problems with democracy in general is lack of voter intelligence, not just when restricting consideration to a few % of the population.
It’s unclear whether [intelligence being the constraint] has ever been true. Today it’s more likely that voters are constrained by something else (e.g. tribal dynamics or wisdom or intrinsic conflicts or mental illness or etc.; even excess voter intelligence is more likely of a problem than insufficient voter intelligence), either because intelligence was never the constraining factor or because AI etc. has made intelligence too cheap to meter. So while the unspecified people might still believe that one of the biggest problems with democracy is lack of voter intelligence, we don’t really need to consider their opinion anymore, since even if it was ever true, it’s clearly outdated.
I agree that we’re not seeing improvements in voter behavior, on the contrary it seems to be getting worse. I think that’s because it was never a big problem to begin with, but I’m open to alternatives e.g. that there’s new exogenous factors that cause a deviation from the trend of improving access to intelligence.
Low-IQ voters can’t identify good policies or wise politicians; democracy favors political actors who can successfully propagandize and mobilize the largest number of people, which might not correspond to good governance. A political system with non-democratic elements that offers more formalized control to actors with greater competence or better incentives might be able to choose better policies.
I say “non-democratic elements” because it doesn’t have to be a strict binary between perfect democracy and perfect dictatorship. Consider, e.g., how the indirect election of U.S. Senators before the 17th Amendment was originally intended to make the Senate a more deliberative body by insulating it from the public.
(Maybe that’s all wrong, but you asked “what’s the model”, and this is an example model of why someone might be skeptical of democracy for pro-social structural reasons rather than just personally wanting their guy to be dictator.)
Oh, this is all familiar to me and I have my reservations about democracy (although none of them are race-flavored).
The thing I’m curious about is the story that makes the voting habits of 2-3 percent of the population The Problem.
Yep. The fact that 50% of people have IQ 100 or less is much greater problem in elections than the fact that 2-3% of people have IQ 70 or less.
Luckily now we have AI too cheap to meter, so voters aren’t constrained by lack of intelligence anymore.
This is not true in any operational sense
What do you mean by the qualifier “operational”?
I do not expect voters to actually become much smarter just because in principle they have access to intelligent advice (in some domains, which is sometimes totally wrong). In fact, I think voters have a time-honored tradition of ignoring intelligent advice, particularly when it is hard to distinguish from unintelligent advice.
So, even if this is true in theory, it will not manifest how you’re suggesting in practice.
Advice can’t be intelligent or unintelligent; it’s too inanimate for that. And I didn’t suggest any particular manifestation.
I kind of feel like you are using the word “intelligence” as an effective synonym for “good”, such that you were interpreting the subtext of my claim as saying that voters will now be good, whereas I rather intend the subtext of my claim to be that theories about lack of voter intelligence are now uninteresting because other dynamics are dominating.
I don’t know if other dynamics are dominating, but I seriously doubt that LLMs are qualitatively changing the dynamics of voting through the mechanism you seem to be suggesting—possibly loose persuasion bots on the internet are affecting voting behavior somewhat, but I don’t think people are intentionally using chatbots to make smarter voting decisions.
Honestly, I am no longer sure I understand what you’re trying to claim at all.
TheSkeward is trying to unspecifically shame Cremieux for criticizing multiethnic democracy with very low-IQ demographics. localdeity inferred that TheSkeward’s criticism was probably about how Cremieux was talking about taboo racist stuff, and pointed out how TheSkeward’s shaming doesn’t make sense in the light of that. yams pointed out that basic numeracy would show the problem to be overstated and also that the general discourse is pretty sketchy.
Said Achmiz and Zack Davis were objecting to the basic numeracy point by arguing that unspecified people (presumably including Cremieux but excluding Said Achmiz and Zack Davis) might think that one of the biggest problems with democracy in general is lack of voter intelligence, not just when restricting consideration to a few % of the population.
It’s unclear whether [intelligence being the constraint] has ever been true. Today it’s more likely that voters are constrained by something else (e.g. tribal dynamics or wisdom or intrinsic conflicts or mental illness or etc.; even excess voter intelligence is more likely of a problem than insufficient voter intelligence), either because intelligence was never the constraining factor or because AI etc. has made intelligence too cheap to meter. So while the unspecified people might still believe that one of the biggest problems with democracy is lack of voter intelligence, we don’t really need to consider their opinion anymore, since even if it was ever true, it’s clearly outdated.
I agree that we’re not seeing improvements in voter behavior, on the contrary it seems to be getting worse. I think that’s because it was never a big problem to begin with, but I’m open to alternatives e.g. that there’s new exogenous factors that cause a deviation from the trend of improving access to intelligence.