Weakening democracy lol

[bilby]

The average IQ of a population is exactly 100, by definition.

That always seemed simple to understand. If you could IQ test an entire population, the average score Would be designated IQ100. But what constitutes a population?
A country’s total inhabitants? The world’s? Including age-adjustments or only adult scores? If only adult scores, what’s an adult? If not, what is the age adjustment algorithm?
IQ is meaningless except as a measure of an individual’s ability to perform on IQ tests.
But the stupidity of the average human is a self evident objective reality that doesn’t need to be quantified.

A population is whatever the individual researcher is interested in.

A large fraction of studies are done on entire nations, or the entire world, and so there's a tendency to think of 'population' always referring to those groups; But it's perfectly legitimate to define a population in any way that suits your research - and no matter how you define a population, that population has members each with their own IQ, and with an average IQ of 100.

 

[Elixir]

it's perfectly legitimate to define a population in any way that suits your research

Exactly. And that’s one thing that makes IQ scales and tropes fertile ground for bigotry.

 

[bilby]

it's perfectly legitimate to define a population in any way that suits your research

Exactly. And that’s one thing that makes IQ scales and tropes fertile ground for bigotry.

Certainly IQ is useless for making comparisons between populations. Each population has its own distinct IQ range, So the average IQ of professors and the average IQ of ditch-diggers is 100 in each case, but that tells you nothing about which population is generally more or less intelligent than the other.

If we measured height this way, the average Harlem Globe-Trotter would have a height quotient of 100, and the average member of Snow White's entourage would also have a height quotient of 100. If Dopey has an HQ of 120, he still likely isn't as tall in an absolute sense as the shortest basketballer.

 

[lpetrich]

More on the ginkgo model of crisis.

US elites' willingness to compromise saved them from the fate of the elites of Tsarist Russia.

Advancing to the Great Depression, "Indeed, several scholars have pointed out that the Depression era in the US saw as many advances in life quality and societal stability as disruptions, especially compared with the experience of other affected nations such as France, Italy, and Germany (Bernanke 2000; Smiley 2002; Terkel 2011)."

Then discussing "Discussion: Can We Flatten Curves and Break Cycles?"

Something like Isaac Asimov's story Nightfall, where some astronomers work out that the civilization-destroying disasters that their world suffers is the result of people craving light in a long eclipse. So they start an effort to break the cycle, by passing on their findings.

"The more pessimistic interpretation stresses the role of somewhat exogenous factors in minimizing the severity of outcome." In all four cases, the polity had expanded its territory before suffering its crisis, and sometimes during and after it. The expansions provided places for disaffected citizens to go to, and having to fight wars means that the elites have to care for the common people to get them to fight.

"The more hopeful take is to focus on the success of institutional reforms in restoring popular well-being and alleviating tension in all four cases." Then going into the reforms of Republican Rome, Victorian Britain, Alexander-II Russia, and New-Deal US. "These reforms all led to meaningful improvements in well-being for large segments of the populace, reducing popular immiseration."

 

[lpetrich]

"As noted above, the ability of certain elites to foresee the imminent crisis, or at least recognize that the society was unstable and not adequately providing for the well-being of all members, stands out as critical as well."

But other elites were not willing to do much, and that led to disasters like the French Revolution.

"Conversely, in the four examples described above, a substantial proportion of those in power supported such stabilizing reforms, even at the cost of forgoing some of their wealth and advantages." They need to do that relatively early, in the stagflation or early crisis stages, otherwise it becomes much more difficult, like elites being too hostile to each other and a state being starved of revenue.

The state must be involved, either by spending programs (Britain, US), or by redistribution of wealth and resources (Rome, Russia).

Sometimes the reforms are not good enough to stop later disaster, like for Rome and Russia.

Foresight is important. In the stagflation phase, it is evident that trouble is upcoming, but the state is still well-financed and the elites are not too hostile to each other. But that is also the time when the elites' wealth increases the most, thus giving them an incentive to continue heading toward the crisis phase.

There also is a dark side to the resilience that these societies displayed through periods of crisis. Namely, the reforms enacted and gains made in alleviating popular immiseration in all four cases were relatively incremental. The appeasement of popular unrest while maintaining many of the structures that supported elite wealth and privilege may be seen as a missed opportunity for more dramatic systemic change.

Like in Rome and Russia.

 

[Tigers!]

I'm a progressive liberal. But I'm also for democracy. I don't want my values forced upon anyone. I don't want anyone's values forced onto anyone. I think conservatives also have a right to be heard.

Quite the radical aren't you. Good for you.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Science and education have advanced, yet Stupidism and other symptoms are still rampant, even among the "educated." Brexit and Trump are obvious examples where today's democracies seem not particularly "wise." Stupidism feeds on lies, and it is with modern communication that lies travel at breakneck speed.

I think it's just a result of the Internet. Before Internet journalists had immense power.

Two points:

(1) You ignore my point that politics once was primarily LOCAL. A farmer was interested in how a politician's policies affected his farm. Local schools were an issue. Largely ignored was crap like lies about Hunter Biden's laptop. Voters are wll informed when the focus is on local issues.

I don't know about that. We're all myopic. We care about what's in our bank account. I don't think that has changed. What has changed is the world political stage. What kinds of stuff impacts our bank account. Economic globalism is a major driver of world economy now. Back in the day we were more focused on how to refine stuff we've extracted from the colonies.

Voters are well informed about stuff immediately relevant to them. Nothing else. They may say they care about other stuff. But our knowledge of stuff not immediately relevant will always be shallow. The biggest lesson in this was from when I was 18 and had a girlfriend from a farmer family. Well and truly rurals. It became apparent that there was just so many opinions of my middle-class urban friends (also of me) which were based on complete fantasies of rural life. And the rurals held many opinions about urban life which also were equally ill informed.

Another good example is environmentalism and global warming. People are talking so much shit about this. So much. Why? Because it's not immediately relevant to anyone. So we barely spend any time reading up on it. We just skim something fast and then act in forums as if we have a clue.

(2) Journalists reported to editors and publishers. They, in turn, were influenced by advertisers. An "elite" had great influence. with journalists their investigative branch.

Some members of the "elite" favor policies to make the rich richer. Other "elites" have more progressive humanitarian values. Provided that information channels are not swamped with lies, citizens may be able to make good guesses about which sort of "elite" is speaking to them.

... journalists ... had collectively total control of what we thought and valued about politics. But they were also a very specific group of people. They were urban, well educated, middle-class and privileged. So policies tended to benefit that group. This group lost their ability to control the public discourse.

What has happened since is that people who traditionally have been locked out of having a public voice, have now been given a voice. So it's the voices of rural, working class, non-privilged and/or non-educated. I don't see it as a problem that they have now been given clout and a political voice. ...

Your ideas may have merit in Scandinavia — I don't know. But in the U.S.A. the average voter is surprisingly ignorant and stupid and 49% of voters are even stupider than that! Hitler came to power democratically in the early 1930's; today's American voters may be even stupider than those Germans.

I suppose the average IQ is 100+, and much of the stupidity manifests itself only on political topics. I have a smart friend who composes music, operates a business, and built a good App, but he thinks that Covid cases are ordinary flu, that magnets prove that Covid vaccines are malicious bots. Obama was born in Kenya, the FedRes is a scam that should be abolished, etc. Remember: This is a smart guy! (His village got hit hard with Covid-19, with him and his family refusing to vaccinate or wear masks; they all got seriously sick. "I guess it was a bad flu" he told me, evidently refusing to take the $3 test.)

People will call me elitist for saying so, but DrZ's perspective turns America over to the FauxPotato/QAnon crowd and has bad consequences. Within the decade I'm afraid this will be proven all-too-true.

I somehow doubt Scandinavians are on average smarter than Americans. Much like USA, Scandinavia is an anti-intellectual culture. Mastering poetry and philosophy, among people at large, is not something that has high status. While Kim Kardassian's ass and football seems to be very important. The main difference, as I see it, between Americans and Scandinavians is that Scandinavians love being obedient while Americans love the sound of their own voice. So Americans will say dumber things. But we seem to vote for about as stupid things. I think both people are mostly stupid. Our leaders are stupid. We get upset about dumb things. We vote for dumb things.

 

[Swammerdami]

I'm bookmarking lpetrich's post for the next time some moron writes "Blah blah blah both parties are to blame."

Here's what Newt Gingrich was like.

About three weeks after his election as whip, Mr. Gingrich called me into his office. He asked whether I was having dinner with Democrats. I was, I said: A colleague from Tennessee and I were hosting fellow freshman members for dinner regularly to share experiences. Mr. Gingrich demanded that I stop; he didn’t want Republicans consorting with Democrats.

I responded — not overly politely — that I was from Vermont and nobody told me what people I could eat with. But his demand was a harbinger of the decline of moderate and liberal Republicans. (Mr. Gingrich told The Times he did not recall the meeting, but noted that he was working to unify the Republican caucus at the time.)

What followed over the next few years was the deliberate quarantining of Republicans from Democrats: separate orientations for new members, a sharp curtailing of bipartisan activities and an increasing insistence that members toe the party line. The very idea of “voting your district” — which was alive and well when I was elected — became anathema within the Republican caucus. Simultaneously, the weaponization of the evangelical religious right and the organization of wealthy conservative donors was going on, largely behind the scenes, with money and organizing often used against moderate Republicans as well as Democrats.

Then the Republican Party started promising their base lots of things that they could not deliver or else would not want to deliver, things like cutting taxes, eliminating the deficit, reducing federal regulations, banning abortion, and cracking down on LGBTQ rights.

"As Republican voters and nominees adopted an increasingly extreme agenda, even a Republican Congress could not produce the results they had promised." and "These failures drove a further rightward shift that resulted in the rise of the Tea Party."

Some Northeastern Republicans were still moderate, like Sen. Jim Jeffords of VT, who became an Independent, and Sen. Olympia Snowe of ME. She favored "governing" over "controlling".

"But even in New England, long a bastion of liberal and moderate Republicanism, moderates are now losing in Republican primaries." and "There have been a few moderate and liberal Republican success stories, but they are anomalies, peculiar to the person or the situation." - like former Republican governors Larry Hogan of MD and Charlie Baker of MA, leaving only Phil Scott of VT and Chris Sununu of NH.

I believe that the current attempts to overthrow our democratic traditions will fail, but we must understand the successes produced by the right wing’s focus on control at all costs over governing.

Beyond Mr. Trump’s election, those successes include the numerous right-wing ideologues confirmed to federal judgeships, a major effort to restrict voting rights, the increasing presence of dark money in politics, the elimination of abortion rights and a lack of critical progress in combating the global climate crisis.

 

[lpetrich]

The ginkgo-model authors conclude that further work is necessary, like studying crisis phases in more detail, including cases of societies averting crises.

I've also found SocArXiv Papers | Structural-Demographic Analysis of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) Collapse in China

This paper analyzes the collapse of the Qing dynasty (1644–1912) through the lens of the Structural Demographic Theory (SDT), a general framework for understanding the drivers of socio-political instability in state-level societies. Although a number of competing ideas for the collapse have been proposed, none provide a comprehensive explanation that incorporates the interaction of all the multiple drivers involved. We argue that the four-fold population explosion during the 19th century, the competition for a stagnant number of elite positions, and increasing state fiscal stress combined to produce an increasingly disgruntled populace and elite, leading to significant internal rebellions. We find that while neither the ecological disasters nor the foreign incursions witnessed during the 19th century were sufficient on their own to bring down the Qing, when coupled with the rising internal socio-political stresses, they produced a rapid succession of triggering events that culminated in the Qing collapse.

I looked in SocArXiv Papers for a structural-demographic analysis of the Byzantine Empire, without success. I also looked in Google Scholar - nothing there either.

Though I found Retrodicting the rise, spread, and fall of large-scale states in the Old World | PLOS ONE

Nevertheless, in spite of various technological advances throughout the period, the modeled creation and spread of new agrarian states is a fundamental consequence of state collapse and internal civil wars triggered by rising ‘demographic-structural’ pressures that occur when state territorial growth is checked yet (warrior elite) population growth continues. Together the model’s underlying mechanisms substantially account for the number of states, their duration, location, spread rate, overall occupied area, and total population size for three thousand years.

So one can do a reasonably good job of modeling the rise and fall of preindustrial polities, overall even if not in full detail.

 

[Elixir]

I'm a progressive liberal. But I'm also for democracy. I don't want my values forced upon anyone. I don't want anyone's values forced onto anyone. I think conservatives also have a right to be heard.

Quite the radical aren't you. Good for you.

Guess I'm the uber-conservotard around here. I don't think ANYONE has any "right to be heard".
I'll stand up for anyone's right to make noise, but there is no guarantee that someone else has to listen.

 

[lpetrich]

Supreme Court Rejects Alabama Voting Map That Diluted Black Voters’ Power - The New York Times - "Voting rights advocates had feared that the decision about redistricting in Alabama would further undermine the Voting Rights Act, which instead appeared to emerge unscathed."

Supreme Court’s Alabama Voting Rights Case Has Implications for Other Southern States - The New York Times - "A decision that said Alabama’s congressional voting maps were detrimental to Black voters was celebrated by advocates — and could mean changes to voting in other states."

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who has often voted to restrict voting rights and is generally skeptical of race-conscious decision making by the government, wrote the majority opinion in the 5-to-4 ruling, stunning election-law experts. In agreeing that race may play a role in redistricting, the chief justice was joined by Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh and the court’s three liberal members, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

What Redistricting Looks Like In Every State - Alabama | FiveThirtyEight - Alabama's 7 Congressional districts are 1 Democratic, 6 Republican. That Democratic district is in central west AL, with projections sticking out to Birmingham and Montgomery. The  Black Belt in the American South stretches east-west across the state. The western half is included in this district, while the eastern half is divided among three districts. Some proposed maps had a second D-leaning district that stretches east-west across the state.

 

[lpetrich]

New Supreme Court ruling to result in redistricting for the Black Belt

Alabama lawmakers to convene to redraw maps US Supreme Court declared unfair to Black voters | AP News

Alabama’s governor on Tuesday set a special legislative session to redraw congressional district maps that the U.S. Supreme Court declared unfair to Black voters.

Gov. Kay Ivey set the July 17 session for the Republican-controlled Alabama Legislature after the high court upheld a three-judge panel’s ruling that the state illegally diluted the political power of Black voters by having only one majority Black congressional district. The three-judge panel gave legislators until July 21 to submit a redrawn map for review or the court will draw its own.

“The Alabama Legislature has one chance to get this done before the July 21 court deadline,” Ivey said in a statement. “Our Legislature knows our state, our people and our districts better than the federal courts or activist groups do.”

Supreme Court backs challenge to Alabama congressional map - Roll Call

 

[lpetrich]

More New York Times on Alabama:

The chief justice wrote that there were legitimate concerns that the law “may impermissibly elevate race in the allocation of political power within the states.” He added: “Our opinion today does not diminish or disregard these concerns. It simply holds that a faithful application of our precedents and a fair reading of the record before us do not bear them out here.”
Justice Clarence Thomas filed a slashing dissent. The majority’s approach, he wrote, “does not remedy or deter unconstitutional discrimination in districting in any way, shape or form.”

“On the contrary,” he added, “it requires it, hijacking the districting process to pursue a goal that has no legitimate claim under our constitutional system: the proportional allocation of political power on the basis of race.”

The decision itself: 21-1086 Allen v. Milligan (06/08/2023) - 21-1086_1co6.pdf
5-4
For: John Roberts, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Brett Kavanaugh
Against: Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch

Supreme Court Steps Aside in Louisiana’s Redistricting Case - The New York Times
The state's 6 districts contain only 1 majority-black map.

What Redistricting Looks Like In Every State - Louisiana | FiveThirtyEight

 

[lpetrich]

The Supreme Court has decided on  Moore v. Harper rejecting the  Independent state legislature theory the theory that only state legislatures have the right to decide on districting, and that state governors and courts have no right to be involved.

21-1271 Moore v. Harper (06/27/2023) - 21-1271_3f14.pdf
6-3
For: John Roberts, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett
Against: Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch

Moore v Harper decision: Supreme Court upholds North Carolina ruling that congressional districts violated state law - ABC7 New York - "The court repudiated the independent state legislature theory, which could have transformed elections for Congress and president."

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected the theory, with Chief Justice Roberts writing the Elections Clause "does not insulate state legislatures from the ordinary exercise of state judicial review."Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito dissented.

"In interpreting state law in this area, state courts may not so exceed the bounds of ordinary judicial review as to unconstitutionally intrude upon the role specifically reserved to state legislatures by Article I, Section 4, of the Federal Constitution," Roberts wrote.

In their dissent, Justices Thomas, Gorsuch and Alito argued the case should have dismissed given state-level developments. The North Carolina Supreme Court, under a new Republican majority, in April reversed its previous ruling that said the gerrymandered maps were illegal.

"This is a straightforward case of mootness," Thomas wrote. "The federal defense no longer makes any difference to this case- whether we agree with the defense, disagree with it, or say nothing at all, the final judgment in this litigation will be exactly the same."

Democracy Alerts - U.S. Supreme Court Rejects Independent State Legislature Theory in Moore v. Harper - Democracy Docket

“When state legislatures prescribe the rules concerning federal elections, they remain subject to the ordinary exercise of state judicial review,” the opinion emphatically states. This decision represents a repudiation of the ahistorical and unfounded ISL theory and allows state courts to continue to play an indispensable role in reviewing congressional maps — and other election laws regulating federal elections — enacted by state legislatures to ensure their compliance with state constitutions.

'Independent state legislature theory' after Moore v. Harper ruling : NPR
"But the ruling does leave open a complicated legal question about congressional elections"

"In interpreting state law in this area, state courts may not so exceed the bounds of ordinary judicial review as to unconstitutionally intrude upon the role specifically reserved to state legislatures by Article I, Section 4, of the Federal Constitution," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion.

Exactly what those boundaries of "ordinary judicial review" are, however, is unclear.

Meaning that Federal courts might override state ones -- settling that issue may involve more litigation.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So the GOP in Alabama did a double bird, kicked the blacks in the gut and gave them a stone cold stunner... and hope that satisfies SCOTUS.

Alabama Republicans, under orders of the U.S. Supreme Court to redraw congressional districts to give minority voters a greater voice in elections, rejected calls Monday to craft a second majority-Black district and proposed a map that could test what is required by the judges’ directive.

Lawmakers must adopt a new map by Friday after the high court in June affirmed a three-judge panel's ruling that Alabama’s existing congressional map — with a single Black district out of seven statewide — likely violated the Voting Rights Act. In a state where more than one in four residents is Black, the lower court panel had ruled in 2022 that Alabama should have another majority-Black congressional district or something "close to it" so Black voters have the opportunity to “elect a representative of their choice.”

Republicans, who have been resistant to creating a certain Democratic district, proposed a map that would increase the percentage of Black voters in the 2nd congressional district from about 30% to nearly 42.5%, wagering that will satisfy the court's directive.

This will be a good "Is Roberts full of shit" litmus test. The funny thing is, he help gut the Voting Rights Act... and the moment he raises an objection to clear civil rights violations to blacks in Alabama as the Legislature reduced their electoral power... we see Alabama do what the Voting Rights Act was designed to prevent and what Roberts suggested wasn't a problem anymore.

Makes him look pretty damn stupid.