Liberals vs Conservatives, Who's Smarter?

[Ben Kenobi]

As requested by Agathon.

Who's smarter, (leaving aside the assumption that intelligence is correlated with the amount of schooling that one acquires,) Liberals or Conservatives?

[Nugog]

WTF is a High School Diploma?



Also the terms liberal and conservative are quite polar - what about the intelligence levels of "middleground" people?

[Ben Kenobi]

It's your certificate mate.

According to agathon there is no middle. There are liberals and there are conservatives.

Just pick the one that applies most to you.

[Aeson]

There are no right answers. Or left.

[Nugog]

Is the diploma like NCEA, or School Cert, or Bursary?

Hmm - confusing......



What about liberal conservatives?

Oh the angst.............

[Ben Kenobi]

Serves me right for mistaking a Kiwi.

Certs, Bursaries, they are all the same thing as the hs diploma.

[Nugog]

School C you used to get at 15 years, Bursary at 17/18.

Don't even start me on UE or NCEA................

[GePap]

Let me just point out that this is a self-selected group in which most people as far as I can tell have degrees, meaning that Poly is no no way a valid statistical sample.

This is not even getting to the fact that what is defined as "liberal" and "conservative" changes accross states, and Poly is an international site.

So the outcome of this poll will be invariably invalid.

[Gatekeeper]

Re: Liberals vs Conservatives, Who's Smarter?

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
As requested by Agathon.

Who's smarter, (leaving aside the assumption that intelligence is correlated with the amount of schooling that one acquires,) Liberals or Conservatives?

Neither.

Moderates are the smartest folks of all. Too bad they're a dying breed. The world sure could use more of them ...

Gatekeeper

[Nugog]

Yep - sorta what I was getting to - but not as directly as you have stated it GePap.

[onodera]

I'd vote, but the definitions here are reversed.
We have right liberals (they want to liberate the market) and left conservatives (socialists).
So I'm a conservative here, but I'd be a liberal in the US and A. And I have a specialist's degree.

[Agathon]

Re: Re: Liberals vs Conservatives, Who's Smarter?

Originally posted by Gatekeeper

Neither.

Moderates are the smartest folks of all. Too bad they're a dying breed. The world sure could use more of them ...

Gatekeeper

Oh they are not.

Moderates are people who just don't want to take a position, so they split the difference.

There's no virtue in sitting on the fence, all it leads to is sore testicles.

[SlowwHand]

10. I'm a conservative and I have a bachelors degree



I'll never understand the lack of comprehension as regards moderate independent.

I'm calling for this to be labeled an Invalid Poll.
Banana hasn't a thing to do with it, either.

[Agathon]

This poll is not a scientific poll. On the other hand, there is a well known meta study called "Political Conservatism as Socially Motivated Cognition" that associates conservatism with mental rigidity and inability to deal with complexity, much as the study cited in the other thread claimed.

Similarly, research into political authoritarianism tends to correlate with the same lack of mental capacity. Authoritarianism in modern societies is almost exclusively a right wing phenomenon.

Of course conservatives whine that these studies show liberal bias, but that's just due to the fact that reality has a liberal bias.

Add to all this the continual failure of conservatives to even define their own position in a way that does not immediately invite ridicule, and you've got the whole enchilada.

It's not all the right wing people. Libertarians can give a concise definition of their political philosophy, which, although I happen to disagree with it, I wouldn't accuse it of lacking definition. Similarly, some religious people have a well defined political philosophy based on divine command.

Conservatism is amorphous and is really just a name for a collection of authoritarian prejudices. It's not a respectable political ideology because it isn't really an ideology in the accepted sense of the term.

[SlowwHand]

Do you think all "conservatives" were always "conservatives"?
If so, you're a daisy.