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> An engaged and well-informed public has always been the foundation of our democracy Is there even a shred of scientific evidence to support this hypothesis?

> An engaged and well-informed public has always been the foundation of our democracy Is there even a shred of scientific evidence to support this hypothesis? I see it in print so often that it appears to be a axiom that is considered so correct as to be unquestionable.

supernova87a 6y ago
Since you bring it up, I agree with you! I would say that in the past, the engaged and well-informed public (and few honestly) were valued by the policy/decision makers because they generally were or closely related to the decision makers. The democratization of opinion and influence has not gone well for technical experts and correct information getting to (or influencing) people in positions of responsibility. Everyone (no matter how ill-informed) is so able to issue opinions and "make their voices heard" that people in responsibility get confused who they should worry about satisfying. Sometimes democracy (and democratization of information) is not a purely good thing.
- phkahler 6y ago
  >> that people in responsibility get confused who they should worry about satisfying. That's a problem too. Worry about who to satisfy compromises science, truth and long term goals.
mod 6y ago
I agree. In my lifetime I have never known the average person to be engaged, nor informed. I think they're mostly mis-informed for the past 10+ years. People just believe whatever outlandish title comes across their facebook feed. I had about 12 people ask me if I heard the news--that wayfair was selling missing children on their website, disguised as fancy cabinets. It took me about 12 seconds to find out it was a theory with no evidence put forth by an anonymous reddit poster. 2/12 changed their minds when I showed them that.
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  I made the terrible mistake of trying to convince someone out of this insane view only to remember the old quote, "You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into". Maybe we should just devote the entirety of a school year to basic rationalism and logic...
  - throwanem 6y ago
    If we start now, that will start to make a difference in a couple of decades. What do we do until then?
    - Filligree 6y ago
      Hang on as best we can. The best time to plant a tree is a century ago, but the second best time is right now.
  - jccc 6y ago
    It's difficult, tiring, and demoralizing to keep on and on trying to maintain sincere and reasoned argument with seemingly unreasonable and ignorant people. But we really can't give in to that cynicism. These conversations almost always have an audience, and the point isn't just to convince this person in front of you and win, but to keep your side of the argument alive and in front of as many people as possible. And to practice your own patience, sharpen your argument, and maintain bridges and relationships. I'm sure most people can't do it, but if you can please don't throw up your hands and walk away, depriving perhaps many other people from hearing a point of view they might not otherwise ever hear. [Edit: Of course I'm speaking generally here about climate denialism, etc., not specifically about the crazy conspiracy theory mentioned above.]
    - lopmotr 6y ago
      Do you also put that much effort into arguing against climate exaggerationism? Claims like the world is on fire, civilization will end or humans will go extinct because of it? People who won't have children because they believe the world will no longer be suitable for human habitation during their lives.
boxed 6y ago
It's the foundation of everything good in the democracy. Not everything period.
jfengel 6y ago
Democracy has never really relied on people being well-informed. The "wisdom of crowds" incorporates a lot of ignorance. It just assumes that ignorance is random, while informed opinion will tend to have a bias in favor of reality. If 49% of the people make a random guess one way, and 49% of people make a random guess the other way, then 2% of people who actually know something will put the best-informed answer over the top. So democracy is robust against ordinary ignorance. It's just not robust against deliberately-induced ignorance[1]. The nudge towards reality is easily overwhelmed by a thumb on the scale of the wrong answer. Ignorance has never been really random, but the press of misinformation is more widespread than ever. As is the press of information, but when people don't know which to choose, misinformation is often more attractive. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnotology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnotology
- LordFast 6y ago
  Huh, never thought about the math like that. It makes a lot of sense, thanks for sharing. P.S. Before the age of social media, was there not the same level of risk of induced ignorance through traditional media campaigns and propaganda? If not, why not?
  - jfengel 6y ago
    Propaganda has always been a problem, and it's hard to quantify if it's actually worse now or merely different. Even if it's merely different, though, it feels like it's the kind of problem that should be solvable. In so many cases people aren't merely misinformed but actively hostile to science in a way that should bite them in the butt sooner rather than later. Surely, one thinks, that should make it possible to resolve it, at least a little.
    - stallmanite 6y ago
      I imagine people who are hostile to science would change their attitude after going without electricity and hot water for a couple weeks.
    - JadeNB 6y ago
sandworm101 6y ago
>> well-informed public has always been the foundation of our democracy I'd say maybe a well-informed electorate. Until very recently, the majority of "the public" wasn't allowed to vote and so had very limited input into "our democracy".
- dragontamer 6y ago
  Can you elaborate? The two major extensions of our electorate were (former) slaves and then women. Do you believe that these groups are more easily manipulated? Or are you talking about some other group that I forgot about?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Jetrel 6y ago
    So - AFAIK, originally most white men weren't allowed to vote, in the US; I can't remember when this got changed, but in the very earliest formulation, there was a strong limitation where only certain kinds of landed property owners were allowed to vote. I believe this had several intents behind it; one of them was of course just plain-old elitism/cronyism, but I think there were also some elements of using it as a proxy for education, shared-culture, and (presumed) fiscal responsibility. There also was probably a surprisingly pragmatic problem of logistics; a small register of settled-down property owners was probably far easier to collect votes from that a wild array of migrant laborers, whalers, fur-trappers, and frontiersmen. (Yeah, I just checked up on this, and it looks like this was gradually abolished, over the course of the century before the civil war, on a state-by-state basis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_rights_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_rights_in_the_United_St... )
vadansky 6y ago
In "Amusing Ourselves to Death" they made the point that Americans used to be much better read, and would attend lectures as a past time. They said Presidential Candidates would travel the country and in-depth structured debates that went on for hours and would attract a huge mass of people. Never really bothered to confirm it but the idea sounded interesting.
baddox 6y ago
I think it's more of an assumption required by models which say "democracy is a good idea that will work well." In other words, the typical civics class model goes something like "democracy is a good idea that will work well, assuming that (among other things) the public is engaged and well-informed."
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  That ironically isn't true - it can work well for reasons seperate from good decisionmaking even when excluding incentives as a component (democracy gives a wider array of relevant interests in decision making). For one democracy is a good pressure relief valve - far from the monarchist fears they were way more stabme compared to the regular secession civil wars of monarchies and rebellions. Election results let a potentially hotheaded minority faction know "you won't win you know, you got only 30% of the vote - let alone what percentage would actually fight for you. You are outnumbered so chill, campaign, and wait for the next election".

supernova87a 6y ago

Since you bring it up, I agree with you! I would say that in the past, the engaged and well-informed public (and few honestly) were valued by the policy/decision makers because they generally were or closely related to the decision makers. The democratization of opinion and influence has not gone well for technical experts and correct information getting to (or influencing) people in positions of responsibility. Everyone (no matter how ill-informed) is so able to issue opinions and "make their voices heard" that people in responsibility get confused who they should worry about satisfying. Sometimes democracy (and democratization of information) is not a purely good thing.

phkahler 6y ago
>> that people in responsibility get confused who they should worry about satisfying. That's a problem too. Worry about who to satisfy compromises science, truth and long term goals.

mod 6y ago

I agree. In my lifetime I have never known the average person to be engaged, nor informed. I think they're mostly mis-informed for the past 10+ years. People just believe whatever outlandish title comes across their facebook feed. I had about 12 people ask me if I heard the news--that wayfair was selling missing children on their website, disguised as fancy cabinets. It took me about 12 seconds to find out it was a theory with no evidence put forth by an anonymous reddit poster. 2/12 changed their minds when I showed them that.

vorpalhex 6y ago
I made the terrible mistake of trying to convince someone out of this insane view only to remember the old quote, "You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into". Maybe we should just devote the entirety of a school year to basic rationalism and logic...
- throwanem 6y ago
  If we start now, that will start to make a difference in a couple of decades. What do we do until then?
  - Filligree 6y ago
    Hang on as best we can. The best time to plant a tree is a century ago, but the second best time is right now.
- jccc 6y ago
  It's difficult, tiring, and demoralizing to keep on and on trying to maintain sincere and reasoned argument with seemingly unreasonable and ignorant people. But we really can't give in to that cynicism. These conversations almost always have an audience, and the point isn't just to convince this person in front of you and win, but to keep your side of the argument alive and in front of as many people as possible. And to practice your own patience, sharpen your argument, and maintain bridges and relationships. I'm sure most people can't do it, but if you can please don't throw up your hands and walk away, depriving perhaps many other people from hearing a point of view they might not otherwise ever hear. [Edit: Of course I'm speaking generally here about climate denialism, etc., not specifically about the crazy conspiracy theory mentioned above.]
  - lopmotr 6y ago
    Do you also put that much effort into arguing against climate exaggerationism? Claims like the world is on fire, civilization will end or humans will go extinct because of it? People who won't have children because they believe the world will no longer be suitable for human habitation during their lives.

boxed 6y ago

It's the foundation of everything good in the democracy. Not everything period.

jfengel 6y ago

Democracy has never really relied on people being well-informed. The "wisdom of crowds" incorporates a lot of ignorance. It just assumes that ignorance is random, while informed opinion will tend to have a bias in favor of reality. If 49% of the people make a random guess one way, and 49% of people make a random guess the other way, then 2% of people who actually know something will put the best-informed answer over the top. So democracy is robust against ordinary ignorance. It's just not robust against deliberately-induced ignorance[1]. The nudge towards reality is easily overwhelmed by a thumb on the scale of the wrong answer. Ignorance has never been really random, but the press of misinformation is more widespread than ever. As is the press of information, but when people don't know which to choose, misinformation is often more attractive. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnotology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnotology

LordFast 6y ago
Huh, never thought about the math like that. It makes a lot of sense, thanks for sharing. P.S. Before the age of social media, was there not the same level of risk of induced ignorance through traditional media campaigns and propaganda? If not, why not?
- jfengel 6y ago
  Propaganda has always been a problem, and it's hard to quantify if it's actually worse now or merely different. Even if it's merely different, though, it feels like it's the kind of problem that should be solvable. In so many cases people aren't merely misinformed but actively hostile to science in a way that should bite them in the butt sooner rather than later. Surely, one thinks, that should make it possible to resolve it, at least a little.
  - stallmanite 6y ago
    I imagine people who are hostile to science would change their attitude after going without electricity and hot water for a couple weeks.
  - JadeNB 6y ago

sandworm101 6y ago

>> well-informed public has always been the foundation of our democracy I'd say maybe a well-informed electorate. Until very recently, the majority of "the public" wasn't allowed to vote and so had very limited input into "our democracy".

dragontamer 6y ago
Can you elaborate? The two major extensions of our electorate were (former) slaves and then women. Do you believe that these groups are more easily manipulated? Or are you talking about some other group that I forgot about?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Jetrel 6y ago
  So - AFAIK, originally most white men weren't allowed to vote, in the US; I can't remember when this got changed, but in the very earliest formulation, there was a strong limitation where only certain kinds of landed property owners were allowed to vote. I believe this had several intents behind it; one of them was of course just plain-old elitism/cronyism, but I think there were also some elements of using it as a proxy for education, shared-culture, and (presumed) fiscal responsibility. There also was probably a surprisingly pragmatic problem of logistics; a small register of settled-down property owners was probably far easier to collect votes from that a wild array of migrant laborers, whalers, fur-trappers, and frontiersmen. (Yeah, I just checked up on this, and it looks like this was gradually abolished, over the course of the century before the civil war, on a state-by-state basis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_rights_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_rights_in_the_United_St... )

vadansky 6y ago

In "Amusing Ourselves to Death" they made the point that Americans used to be much better read, and would attend lectures as a past time. They said Presidential Candidates would travel the country and in-depth structured debates that went on for hours and would attract a huge mass of people. Never really bothered to confirm it but the idea sounded interesting.

baddox 6y ago

I think it's more of an assumption required by models which say "democracy is a good idea that will work well." In other words, the typical civics class model goes something like "democracy is a good idea that will work well, assuming that (among other things) the public is engaged and well-informed."

Nasrudith 6y ago
That ironically isn't true - it can work well for reasons seperate from good decisionmaking even when excluding incentives as a component (democracy gives a wider array of relevant interests in decision making). For one democracy is a good pressure relief valve - far from the monarchist fears they were way more stabme compared to the regular secession civil wars of monarchies and rebellions. Election results let a potentially hotheaded minority faction know "you won't win you know, you got only 30% of the vote - let alone what percentage would actually fight for you. You are outnumbered so chill, campaign, and wait for the next election".