politics

"Solid ice colder than liquid water, study finds."

from a logical standpoint, conservatism is lacking any kind of sense or logic. I think it's safe to assume that, in order to follow blindly an idea that crumbles as soon as you critically think about it, you have to lack the ability to critically think.

What I think tho is that it's empathy what we should link to intelligence (or whatever you want to call the skill set that allows you to question and critizice everything).

Conservatism is a lack of empathy (which comes with a lack of said "intelligence").

Duh

To be liberal requires empathy. A deep understanding of others and their situations and the knowledge that your own personal needs dont always automatically outweigh others.

Empathy requires emotional intelligence.

Its easy to see it in action. Pick a problem and then look at the solutions offered by populist politicians to solve them.

In the UK one of the problems is immigrants arriving on small boats. The populist "solution"? "STOP THE BOATS" shouted far and wide.

How we ask?

And then silence. And when pressed, the likes of Reform offer more soundbites like "use the navy" and "send them back" but without any substance.

Meanwhile Liberal politicians offer actual solutions that are not sound bites, and they won't work quickly. Things like working with the French to find and arrest the people organising it. Helping to improve facilities in France and the rest of Europe so the UK isn't seen as somewhere an immigrant needs to travel to.

Basically, intelligent people aren't fooled by meaningless slogans. Morons aren't able to understand that deep problems require deep and complex solutions.

Aaah a feel-good article for leftists.

Plenty of dumb dumbs among us, don't worry.

Of course. There's a reason why conservatives don't want the masses educated. Because they'd see how much they're getting fucked by said conservatives.

Higher IQ is also associated with higher Critical Thinking Skills, which help you recognize and avoid conservative propaganda.

IQ testing is pseudoscience. It's one of the preferred methods of the far right to try to differentiate between races for that very reason. Pseudoscience is a lot more malleable for their purposes than the settled science that says race doesn't exist biologically.

Having a "high IQ" is only proof that you're good at IQ tests.

"The current study showed that high intelligence does not, as one might assume, lead to radical political positions. Instead, highly gifted adults are on average just as politically diverse and moderate as the rest of the population."

Well that headline is...misleading.

Fuck IQ. Literally political stance is a better measurement of intelligence.

Wait...

This is because reality itself has a strong left-leaning bias, and intelligence makes you encounter that a lot more as you interact with reality.

Sure, there are highly intelligent right-wingers, but intelligence only gives you the cognitive tools to discover reality, it doesn’t force you to use them. Just because a person is intelligent doesn’t mean they can’t slide off into wharrderp fantasy land.

Here's a link to the study, so you don't have to read an article about an article.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289625000893

I think there's a litany of problems with this assertion.

Firstly the sample size is 150 people, too small for any meaningful conclusion.

Secondly the article doesn't make any attempt at a causal relationship. Are men with higher IQs more progressive because they have higher IQs? Or is there some other reason.

One hypothesis is simply that students in the 80s and 90s who were more comfortable with STEM work (and IQ tests) were more likely to go on to tertiary academic studies, and we know that there is a causal relationship between academic achievement and progressive politics. Given the era, perhaps women were less likely to follow that path than their male counterparts.

I'm not saying that's the answer, it's just an example of how statistical links aren't always helpful.

Edit: most of what I said is really dumb and wrong!

In before everyone trashes IQ for being racist and pointless.

And I'm not saying it isn't ethnocentric and a bit arbitrary. But walk around a Mensa meeting and you'll see things in common.

Mostly that everyone is really socially inept if not outright problematic.

But 90% liberal, yeah.

Men with high net worth are more conservative leaning?! Isn't that weird. Learning about the world builds compassion, while feeding your own greed breeds self interest. So weird. Remind me why we ask the opinions of rich people again?

Traditional values are a crutch for the intellectually unambitious and a cudgel for the ambitious.

I mean, I find it interesting that this pattern does not exist among women.

Too bad the article doesn't actually link the study.

"My social media isn't an echo chamber"

I'm bucking the trend

As a high IQ person I would like to remind everyone that IQ has been coopted by a scientific racism and eugenics agenda, and the originator, a French man by the name of Alfred Binet,

"stressed that intellectual development progressed at variable rates and could be influenced by the environment; therefore, intelligence was not based solely on genetics, was malleable rather than fixed, and could only be found in children with comparable backgrounds."

We can only assume that any correlation in beliefs and scoring is the product of an environment which tends to produce both or inhibits the production of both. IE Fox News makes you dumb, and Fox News makes you conservative, concurrently. The study does not mention TV.

Meanwhile, me:

*holding triangle block piece

...and you know what hole that goes in? That's right, the square hole.

Okay but I'm not smart.

A fact so obvious and apparent only a German would even bother asking.

....and are cunning linguists too!

hello ladies

I will count of the list of Conservative scientists:

End of list

Yeah, well, I've never felt smarter than when conversing with a conservative.