There's your twenty percent.

[Elrohir]

tl;dr.

This would be more interesting if it wasn't based on an online poll. (And I'll admit, if someone asked me if Obama was the anti-christ, I'd probably say yes. Not because I think he's possessed by Satan, but because making polls say outrageous things is funny.)

 

[cardgame]

tl;dr.

This would be more interesting if it wasn't based on an online poll. (And I'll admit, if someone asked me if Obama was the anti-christ, I'd probably say yes. Not because I think he's possessed by Satan, but because making polls say outrageous things is funny.)

READ IT

 

[Askthepizzaguy]

I believe you will get similar results from a standard man-on-the-street poll or a telephone poll. I've never, ever seen a poll where the nutty answer wasn't at least in spitting range of one out of five, if the people being polled are randomly selected. I suppose if you just focus on a college campus or a place of business, you might get more intelligent answers. But look at the polls where everyone is allowed to respond.

 

[Elrohir]

READ IT

I read it until it got uninteresting and I figured out what it was talking about.

I believe you will get similar results from a standard man-on-the-street poll or a telephone poll. I've never, ever seen a poll where the nutty answer wasn't at least in spitting range of one out of five, if the people being polled are randomly selected. I suppose if you just focus on a college campus or a place of business, you might get more intelligent answers. But look at the polls where everyone is allowed to respond.

Pardon me if I find this idea rather entertaining. Most college students are less sensible than the average adult. Intelligence isn't just taking classes, it's also the capacity to reason, and experience thinking and considering things. Time is a better teacher than universities in most cases, and that's something most college students haven't seen a lot of. College students probably suffer from "OMG OBAMA'S A MUSLIM COMMIE HITLERITE" delusions less than the general population, but they're generally just deluded in a different way. Perhaps you're just talking about this particular sort of weirdness, but I'm talking in general.

 

[Askthepizzaguy]

College students probably suffer from "OMG OBAMA'S A MUSLIM COMMIE HITLERITE" delusions less than the general population, but they're generally just deluded in a different way. Perhaps you're just talking about this particular sort of weirdness, but I'm talking in general.

Do explain. Any examples?

 

[Kerozine]

A distinction is to be made between power hungry individuals and morons in the last bit.

 

[Lord Baal]

Excellent, excellent post. Though I have to agree with Elrohir that college students are at least as idiotic as most adults.

 

[downtown]

Good post.

Quasi-related, but I personally greatly respect John Avalon's work. His book "Independent Nation", which was a history of American centrism and how they be relevant in American Politics today, is the best political book I've ever read. I actually bought it twice because my first book is so dogeared. I'll buy his second book.

And yes, it scares the crap out of me.

 

[Earthling]

Hard to say really when college students have IQs 30 to 40 points over the average black person for instance. Backed up by SCIENCE!

 

[Askthepizzaguy]

@ post 27


They can be, especially when experimentation with excessive drug and alcohol use is involved, and around that age is when some people go for that. But you'll find that outside of college too. It's that age. Common sense is lacking in such people. But is their knowledge so out-of-whack with reality as to believe a political figure in this country is Hitler incarnate, or the prince of darkness? I also have to ask, which college? Are we talking Ivy league, or another respected school, or are we talking Bovine University school for wacko cult members and future ditch-diggers? Some colleges are more exclusive than others, and tend to keep out some of that 20% I was referring to.

I don't mean to say getting into college necessarily makes you better, that's not what I was suggesting. I'm just saying that if you can handle college level math and science courses, you also generally have a critical thought process that is familiar with the concept of "being wrong" and you have a mechanism that corrects that. It is a place where your opinions are challenged by science, reason, mathematical proofs, and evidence. Otherwise you'd never pass such courses with respectable grades.

It's also a bit of a tangent. The main point is there is a considerable minority, more than you might expect, that hold beliefs that could very easily be disproved, or beliefs that go toe-to-toe with reason and fail miserably, based on nothing but propaganda and the desire to be accepted by a fringe group.

You can also pick on the poll itself, (fair game) but I've seen any number of mainstream CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, FOX polls, whatever poll you want, which gives you comparable numbers of nuttiness. Show me a larger, more mainstream poll that asks the same questions and has radically different results, I challenge you.

I would be very, very pleased to be proven wrong on this, and I'd also be quite relieved.

 

[Lord Baal]

@ post 27


They can be, especially when experimentation with excessive drug and alcohol use is involved, and around that age is when some people go for that. But you'll find that outside of college too. It's that age. Common sense is lacking in such people. But is their knowledge so out-of-whack with reality as to believe a political figure in this country is Hitler incarnate, or the prince of darkness? I also have to ask, which college? Are we talking Ivy league, or another respected school, or are we talking Bovine University school for wacko cult members and future ditch-diggers? Some colleges are more exclusive than others, and tend to keep out some of that 20% I was referring to.

I don't mean to say getting into college necessarily makes you better, that's not what I was suggesting. I'm just saying that if you can handle college level math and science courses, you also generally have a critical thought process that is familiar with the concept of "being wrong" and you have a mechanism that corrects that. It is a place where your opinions are challenged by science, reason, mathematical proofs, and evidence. Otherwise you'd never pass such courses with respectable grades.

Well, I'm Australian, so I can't judge US college students. Also, dumb Australians tend to be less dumb on average than dumb Americans, though that could simply be a case of dumb Americans being more vocal than dumb Australians. We certainly have our share of morons. I've never heard anyone say that Obama is the anti-Christ over here, but I've had a tonne of arguments over the moon landing.

You also have a fairly higher estimation of college students than most people have. Have you been to college? I assure you, many people go to college because of daddy's money, not their intelligence, and others go there simply because it means a further 3-4 years of not having to get a job. And most of these idiots don't pass with respectable grades. Far too many of them still pass though, which concerns me.

These college students probably make up about a fifth of the students in college, and yes, that fifth tend to be morons. So your thesis definitely boils over into colleges as well, unfortunately.

 

[Elrohir]

Do explain. Any examples?

A lot of college students suffer from similarly ill thought out arguments, just from a more socially acceptable side. I'd be hard pressed to count the number of times when I've heard someone say, in effect, "of COURSE we should ban all guns!" or "of COURSE we should legalize drugs for everyone!" I'm not necessarily saying that gun control or drug legalization are bad, but rather that most college students don't think through these issues coherently, on the right or the left. (I could similarly relate stories about more conservative people who think "of COURSE Obama is a socialist who should be impeached!" but since that's already been established in this thread, I don't really see the need.) The groupthink shifts from "white middle class suburbia" to "I'm on my own and I know better than daddy," but it's no less of a groupthink, which is to say, a bunch of people not thinking together. What I'm really getting at, I suppose, is a lack of critical thinking: it may seem crazier to unquestioningly think that Obama is a socialist than to believe unquestioningly that gay marriage is OK or guns should be banned, but that has nothing to do with the real problem, which is a lack of genuine reasoning. I'm less concerned with people believing Obama is Hitler II, and more with them not thinking at all. Even if what you believe is correct, I still think it's bad to not have a good basis for believing it. (And I'm not even addressing the number of college students who are just plain unintelligent or lazy. Many of them just barely skate by, and it astonishes me that they get diplomas. A lot really don't belong there.)

There are lots of exceptions to all of this, of course. (I'd like to believe that I'm among them, while acknowledging the possibility that I'm too deluded to see my own delusions) But by and large, I don't see more serious and deep critical thinking among college students than I do among the general population. (This could be selection bias on my part -- I don't go to an ivy league school, but it's an academically decent state school -- but I doubt it)

Now, I'm not trying to trash college -- I like it, and I think education is good. I just object to the idea that somehow college students are more intelligent or reasonable than people in general, because my experience doesn't back that up. There are reasonable and unreasonable people everywhere.

It's also a bit of a tangent. The main point is there is a considerable minority, more than you might expect, that hold beliefs that could very easily be disproved, or beliefs that go toe-to-toe with reason and fail miserably, based on nothing but propaganda and the desire to be accepted by a fringe group.

I suppose my objection to this would be asking if they're all the same people. Because from where I'm standing, while there's always crazy people, it seems like they're crazy in different respects (I believe this was addressed in the OP, but I'm not sure). You have crazy right wing militias, and crazy left wing anarchists. Crazy pro-lifers, and crazy pro-choicers. Crazy fundamentalist Christians and crazy fundamentalist atheists. Crazy anti-modern-medicine people, crazy moon landing people, 9/11 conspiracy theorists, etc.

And I'm pretty sure, if you added all those people up, most people would be crazy in one respect or another. (And most would be normal in most respects) In light of that, does it make much sense to talk about "twenty percenters," if way more than 20% is crazy, they just differ on what they're crazy about? If who is "normal" and "crazy" vary based on what we're talking about, then how much can we really get from that? I guess I'm not really trying to disprove what you have to say. I'm just skeptical of where you're going with it. To be fair, this could be because I didn't read everything you said in detail. For that, I apologize: I shouldn't have posted anything of substance without doing so. But since I don't have time to do so right now, I probably won't post anymore in this thread, unless I have time to do so. Oh, and yes, you should post more -- even if I disagree, you're more lucid than most of these whackos.

 

[Askthepizzaguy]

Much of what I state in my OP is based on anecdotal evidence and personal experience, as well as public poll results. Not scientific, for sure. It's just my opinion, backed up with a little (disputable) data.

Of course you can do your own independent research. Look at how many people frequent the Flat Earth society's forum for scientific "debate" and you have to wonder if some people didn't realize it was meant to be a joke.

I have to tell myself that, because if it isn't a joke, then that's further evidence of my amusing, half-joking theory that one out of every so-and-so number is a total nutball, and the so-and-so number is much higher than you might expect. I've determined that it can range from 10-40 percent or so, depending on the conspiracy theory or wacko belief, but the median appears to be one out of five or one out of four. Benefit of the doubt, I have settled on one out of five. You do tend to get such a number in almost any crazy theory I can come up with that has been exposed to the mainstream.

It's very flexible though. If you're dealing with systemic propaganda, such as widely-held beliefs which don't match the facts, but persist due to political propaganda, then you'll get people who aren't usually that gullible included. If you're talking about a crackpot theory that hasn't gotten widespread attention yet, then you might get less people who believe it, merely because they haven't been exposed to it yet, or not by the right people.

 

[Elta]

I didn't read the OP

Now here is my opinion of it

 

[Lord Baal]

It's very flexible though. If you're dealing with systemic propaganda, such as widely-held beliefs which don't match the facts, but persist due to political propaganda, then you'll get people who aren't usually that gullible included.

That would explain why religion is so widespread.

If you're talking about a crackpot theory that hasn't gotten widespread attention yet, then you might get less people who believe it, merely because they haven't been exposed to it yet, or not by the right people.

And this would explain why my religion isn't.

 

[Elrohir]

More like,

"I skimmed the OP, and then saw some followup responses, and here's my opinion on the followup responses that I read in full. And now I'm going to stop talking (except to clarify why I'm posting, because I'm unable to stop posting when I say so. )""

Unconfuse you any?

 

[Narz]

Those are not the same questions as "best foods, best TV shows, best fashions," of which there are correct answers.

Probably shouldn't feed into such silliness but out of pure curiosity how would one determine what was "objectively" the best food, t-shirt or TV show?

Re : the OP, I think far more or far less of people can believe various inane things at any given moment in history. Also keep in mind hundreds of years ago people believed things we now know to be not only untrue but ridiculously so. In the future the beliefs of many intelligent people today will be viewed with amazement that they were ever believed.

Seems to me like the 20% number is arbitrary.

 

[Lord Baal]

Probably shouldn't feed into such silliness but out of pure curiosity how would one determine what was "objectively" the best food, t-shirt or TV show?

Which one I like the most.

 

[Askthepizzaguy]

I suppose my objection to this would be asking if they're all the same people. Because from where I'm standing, while there's always crazy people, it seems like they're crazy in different respects (I believe this was addressed in the OP, but I'm not sure). You have crazy right wing militias, and crazy left wing anarchists. Crazy pro-lifers, and crazy pro-choicers. Crazy fundamentalist Christians and crazy fundamentalist atheists. Crazy anti-modern-medicine people, crazy moon landing people, 9/11 conspiracy theorists, etc.

This is a very, very valid point.

But it actually makes what I'm driving at a bit scarier, don't you think? That the number of nuts is larger than one in five?

I'm also thinking about how we define crazy in the above quote. There's lots of pro-lifers and lots of pro-choicers, and I think you can take either position without being a nutball.

My point is that if you polled those people, you might find out that one out of five or one out of ten of those people believe that it is okay to threaten or even harm bodily people who disagree. Then you add that to that same fringe on the opposing viewpoint, and you've got your "twenty percent", whether it is exactly twenty percent or not isn't what I'm driving at (that's more of a joke on my part... more of a "hey, did you ever notice that one out of five people is just plain crazy?") but there is a minority, could be 5, 10, 30 percent, who are completely unreasonable, completely intolerant, and very, very militant. They also believe things that are easily and demonstrably disprovable.

I've noticed this everywhere I go... there's a nice and moderate, or at the very least fact-friendly majority, who regardless of actual belief don't get violent about it and don't consider everyone else to be Hitler. Then there's the everyone besides me is Hitler minority... and that fringe exists in every belief system.

On average, I think 20% is a good estimate for how many of those wackos are taking a stand on any particular issue, with an irrational or threatening posture, denying all other viewpoints and all other facts.

If we expand this theory into how many total wackos are there in society, adding all issues together, than you might indeed find upwards of 40% or something. That makes me a bit worried. That's not good news at all.

 

[Elta]

More like,

"I skimmed the OP, and then saw some followup responses, and here's my opinion on the followup responses that I read in full. And now I'm going to stop talking (except to clarify why I'm posting, because I'm unable to stop posting when I say so. )""

Unconfuse you any?