Stupidity, cult mentality, “my sports team” mentality, religion, and single issue voters.
Anger, Self-Loathing, and misguided Hate
Anger is like a fire. They’re a useful yet dangerous tool that burns and breaks stuff. When handled correctly, fire can shine light in the dark, give warmth in the cold, cook meals for the hungry, or protect you from wolves. In other words, a well controlled Anger is good at getting work done.
Not everyone has learned how to manage their Anger properly. Some let their Anger go too dim, making it hard to do stuff. Some redirect their Anger at themselves, out of fear of hurting others or believing they deserve it. Some let their Anger spread without a care of who it hurts, as long as it gets the job done. Some learn to concentrate their Anger into a beam of Hate, but don’t know who or what to aim the beam at.
Going back to the question “why do people vote against their own interests?” It is Self-Loathing. It is people who are so used to having a piece of themselves set on fire by others that they start setting themselves on fire of their own volition. It is misguided Hate. It is people who know there’s a problem and want to fix it, but have been misled about the source of the problems by people who are interested in not getting targeted by Hate.
“Why do they vote to benefit the rich?” We don’t have a choice there when either vote would have benefited the rich and powerful anyway. Just choosing between different types of benefits. Money and Power have a tendency to rise upwards, so any aid we give to those struggling at the bottom will end up benefiting those at the top anyway. But I hear ya, giving benefits to the poor and letting it rise away still beats just giving it to the rich and hoping it’ll trickle down someday.
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Because propaganda works. If propaganda didn’t work, companies would not advertise products and politicians wouldn’t run campaigns. Rich sponsors fund politicians who promise to look after their interests. Well-funded politicians run better campaigns and win.
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Because politicians are, nearly without exception, above middle class, if not outright rich. They won’t act too radically against their own class interests.
The only solution I know comes from ancient Athens. Sortition -> you hold a lottery to draw representatives. A few extremely stupid people will be drawn into parliament, but idiots are far better than sociopaths, and the current system gives undue representation to sociopaths (willing to climb over bodies if that gets them to power). If one then dislikes the idea of a considerable percentage of bumbling fools (as opposed to cunning predators) in parliament, one must feed everyone well, treat all childhood diseases and educate everyone as well as possible. As if their rational decisions were needed tomorrow.
Randomized representatives can still be propagandized, bribed, and have hunger for power.
True.
Hunger for power would exist, but a critical feature that currently exists - the means of returning to power - would be absent.
Bribes would be a concern, so good pay and anti-corruption mechanicms would still be required.
the means of returning to power - would be absent.
Unless the randomized reps decide they like their newfound power, and change the rules to allow them to maintain/extend/return to power.
Bribes would be a concern, so good pay and anti-corruption mechanicms would still be required.
Direct bribes are only part of the problem. Corporations would still do the things they’re doing now, where they bribe politicians with cushy jobs once they leave their government positions. Good pay on the job while at the government doesn’t stop that.
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The sooner you realize the vast majority of humans are simply not very intelligent, the more everything starts making sense. And the more depressed you will be.
It is a combination of this and the power of propaganda.
When you can control the information that people consume, you can have a huge influence over what they think.
If you can influence the thoughts of a big portion of the populous, you can create control structures. You use these control structures to move people into their emotional decision making more often. The more often you can keep people in their emotional decision mode, the easier you can control what they do.
The thing is, the easiest way to keep people in their emotional thought mode, is to pull the fear and anger levers. Keep people afraid and angry, and you can steer society.The other problem with this is, the people who see through this kind of thing are not the majority.
The people who can see through the techniques, are not always the traditionally “smart”; but higher intelligence is certainly an advantage.This is true. Always has been, always will be. Many Trump voters are already regretting their decision after seeing the early consequences of Trump’s statements. But that won’t be permanent. Many will likely be duped again by another conman using the same tactics.
I need to mention that old school ‘patent medicine’ (ex: snake oil) in the 19th to very early 20th was not destroyed by advancements in actual medicine and education and awareness… it was done by simply banning the patent medicines and forcing others to disclose their ingredients. When buyers of said medicine were aware of the bullshit of old snake oil, they just moved onto another brand of snake oil (which may or may not have been made and sold by the same guy).
If they removed regulations on medicine and legalized many of the old hard drugs we would see a resurgence in patent medicine that caused so many problems in times past. There was actually a reason why people who avoided all medication in the 19th century actually had a longer than average life expectancy.
I have no science behind this (and am therefore a hypocrite) but I’m giving up on the assumption that people think. I suspect that most people feel and make decisions on those feelings.
Thinking happens later, if at all.Humans are animals that navigate life through the lens of emotions with logic being something that we have to work towards - so you may be closer to the truth than you think.
Keep in mind that if you are in a public space, about half the people around you have an IQ below 100.
Half of all people are dumber than average.
Replace ‘average’ by ‘median’ to be correct. The average can be distorted by especially dumb people.
Because civic education is lowly valued. It’s not, strictly speaking, intelligence. It’s that they were never taught what politics actually means, and after a while, they figure that since they’ve gone so long without it and things have been ‘fine’ in their life, it must not matter all that much.
Because they’ve successfully been conned into thinking that what’s in the best interests of the rich is in their own best interests too.
A lot of people have aspirations of themselves being rich and if they can vote like rich people they participate in the rich aesthetic.
Because the rich pretend like it’s in peoples interest, people believe them because oh they are rich they must know what they are talking about, and because people are stupid.
Because the rich control an overwhelming amount of the media we consume. They are capable of shaping the narrative to their benefit.
They also successfully killed public education, so literally the citizens are too stupid to understand they’re being conned.
This is the most important part.
And also they push religion hard which is inherently a system of control for the uneducated and exploited.
Not just control, but Christianity specifically (as well as a few others) is really good because it promises a paradise after you die.
You can get idiot plebes to spend their whole lives dreaming about it all being better after they die, because they were pious and accepted abuse during life.
So, control through fear and hope.
EDIT: Also Christianity is inherently misogynistic and that’s very appealing to disaffected young men who hate that women won’t fuck them. Angry young men with no direction or group to belong to are one of the most dangerous and destabilizing groups a country can have.
Exactly. The “love thy enemy” nonsense always got me too:
Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you
- Mathew 5:44
Think about slavery in history. Christianity was forced upon slaves in US history. Think about current era people working horrible conditions, factories, sweatshops, whatever. What a CONVENIENT verse for the slave owners.
Just be good, do what you’re told, don’t fight back, and love your enemy (exploiter/persecuter). If you do, promise of heaven like you said.
But if you disobey (commit murder, dare I say of the person exploiting you), infinite and eternal torture and suffering in hell.
Also don’t commit suicide, that’s a sin too so straight to hell if you do.
Its just so fucking obvious.
What a CONVENIENT verse for the slave owners.
reminds me of the joke that in another two thousand years, future archeologists will have no idea what is the difference between butt dial and booty call.
and yet here we are with piece of shitty fiction written two thousand years ago, being passed in oral tradition and rewritten and retranslated multiple times, and some morons are trying to use it and force it upon others as a guideline how to live a life in 21st century…
It’s just as good as any modern piety. Mormons, scientology, or any other weird sect or cult that’s emerged in the last 100 years isn’t more substantial to the modern person. I do hold a special place in my heart* for the love has won people.
*this was a joke if you are affiliated with love has won take your crazy ass mother god and stay the fuck away from me
i had to google love has won, but this is funny:
Leader: Amy Carlson (“Mother God”)
i imagine mother god must have pissed lot of people, so yay for feminism 😂
I was an atheist for the last 20 years and recently converted to Unitarian Universalist.
I would say that in the west, this characterization tends to be true. But I do think there are honest faith communities acting with good intent. Unfortunately, there are few.
I must’ve fallen through the cracks, because I went through the American education system and I’m not completely stupid.
It’s more that the system itself just leaves more and more children behind, as passing kids who aren’t actually making the grade has become the norm because parents are abusive and more apt to harass/harangue and schools are pressured with funding to make sure enough kids are graduating. Teachers themselves are left with few options and there’s still bright kids, they’re just waaaaay in the minority compared to the apparently teeming masses of absolute fuckwits.
Also, I’m in my 40’s and when I think of the quality and intelligence of the people I graduated with? Well, maybe it hasn’t gotten that much worse, actually. Because I remember thinking everyone around me was a fucking idiot, tempering that thought as I got older, but now I’ve come back full fucking circle to these people are fucking idiots, raising other idiots.
If kids are dumb today, millennials are on the hook for it, boomers didn’t do this one.
I always think of the George Carlin saying…
"imagine how stupid the average person is… then realize half of all people are stupider than that. "
Hey, not ALL millennials are on the hook for this one!
For instance, I never found anyone to love me, and have kids with. So THERE! You can’t blame ME for idiots today!
…but also yes. Kids in the 90s, that I went to school with were fucking idiots. Including me.
If kids are dumb today, millennials are on the hook for it, boomers didn’t do this one.
The bulk of older teenagers/college kids are from Gen X, not so much from millennials.
“There’s no educating a smart boy.”
— Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time (Discworld, #26)
GNU Sir Terry
Probably the exception to the rule. I did as well, and constantly find myself at a loss for how it simply doesn’t occur to most people to stop and think about something for a split second as opposed to just impulsively doing whatever.
…well…
And, social media, these days nearly as important, if not more important.
You (very understandably) hear a lot about state-sponsored (especially Russian) astroturfing, but very little about billionaire and company sponsored astroturing, which is very much a thing.
The majority of people vote with their gut and won’t look deep into what politician A is promising, so long as one of the promises is exactly the thing the person wants. For a considerable number of gamers, it’s dealing with woke culture. Trump is a fervent enemy of “the woke”, but he also promised hefty import tariffs on everything, so consoles can get really damn expensive. But hey, the woke sjw’s are getting owned!!
This piece on Aftermath touches an important point as well, that left leaning content often takes care to not spout random bullshit, while right leaning will just say whatever because haha engagement goes brrrrrrr.
Going off a tangent, the Brazilian right complains that “the poor vote with their bellies”, implying they’ll vote for whoever promises “free money” or “free meals”, usually in the form of govt programs. During election years, the right will try to claim they were the masterminds behind every sort of program meant to help poor people, such as Bolsa Familia, while loudly and constantly complaining about their existence and doing everything in their power to block money outside election years. It’s common to find people who depend(ed) on Bolsa Familia to survive that complain about “freeloaders” that “want to be fed by the government”. A good portion of right-wingers also believe that the govt pays a whole minimum wage to every person in jail, despite this bullshit being debunked several times already.
Ignorance and gullibility. I fall for misinformation all the time, especially when it confirms my own biases and it takes real effort to maintain a mindset of “yes this sounds true, but is it actually?” It is also terribly inefficient. If someone tells me, when I was a kid, that daddylonglegs spiders are the most poisonous, I am likely going to just go “neat” and now I think that and say it. If you stop and verify EVERYTHING EVER you have no time to do anything in life. This makes the filter of critical thinking…critical.
Also, it isn’t about being stupid (though that helps). Some of the smartest people I know are conspiracy theory nutjobs. They can easily draw parallels between disparate facts, but can’t filter their findings or understand correlation doesn’t equal causation.
Yep. Lost a good and very smart friend to the anti vax conspiracies and maybe others by now.
I’ve also had to really pay attention and tell myself that I live in a liberal bubble and need to balance that bias against what is truth.
If I’m struggling this much now then imagine how much harder it will be when I have to pay higher taxes
🤣 nailed it
Edit: also, me too (@ILikeBoobies)
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Because our brains are not wired for the modern complex world. Most decisions we make, we make thanks to heuristics that are heavily exploited by other people.
This question is actually pretty old. Already ancient Greek / Roman philosophers discussed this.
Google the word ‘anacyclosis’ if you want to learn more. Alternatively here is a video link. I marked the position where the cycle explanation starts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqsBx58GxYY&t=371
