Timeline for What would be the possible issues with an IQ based voting system
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28 events
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| Jun 18, 2017 at 13:54 | comment | added | Amadeus | @Daerdemandt Mine is different because I am not trying to judge whether they will be smart, but whether they can be trusted to act in the public interest. A politician can be both smart and an utterly self-serving sociopath that cares nothing about other people or their pain. Erring on the side of caution and ensuring politician's brains do react normally in all respects to images of pain and suffering (regardless of what they say or their faces express) is a different test; and isn't just a random "measurement" of a dead salmon, but a specific pattern of reactions over time. | |
| Jun 18, 2017 at 13:48 | comment | added | Daerdemandt | Again, if you can use the method to prove obviously false statement then the method sucks. Some researchers would adopt more rigorous methods. Some would keep amplifying the noise and creatively interpreting it. Guess which ones would work in evaluating candidates? I agree that IQ test for vote eliglibility wouldn't be good in the wild, but I don't see how your proposal is different from that. | |
| Jun 18, 2017 at 10:36 | comment | added | Amadeus | @Daerdemandt I don't think we should let dead salmon run for office. :-) Psychopathy is not IQ, we can identify specific structural deficits in the brain. Like any test (or criminal trial) it could have false negatives (a psychopath is allowed to run for office) and false positives (a normal person is prevented from running), but those consequences are nowhere near those of a criminal going free or an innocent person being criminally convicted. Yet our society accepts those outcomes on the grounds that if mistakes are rare we are still better off, on balance. The same argument applies here. | |
| Jun 18, 2017 at 4:15 | comment | added | Daerdemandt | You should look through the scale you offer. Some metrics are pretty transparent proxies for poverty (and race) or orientation, some are so subjective they're mostly measuring whether the evaluator likes the subject or not. fMRI scans are no silver bullet either - if you can show activity in the brain of dead salmon, you can justify any conclusion with right methods. Sure, being tough on others is natural and shows you are a good tribesman, but if you'd regret giving gay-detectors to 19th century people, maybe 22nd century people might regret us having some other-detection tools. | |
| Jun 16, 2017 at 9:46 | comment | added | Amadeus | @OscarBravo Read my comment 2 above yours; fMRI brain scans can distinguish sociopaths/psychopaths by their lack of emotional activation. That tells you if they are lying on this specific test for psychopathy, which is the only thing that matters for this application. It is not a generall lie detection we need, but a specific one for whether a person feels sympathy or empathy, and they can't fake the electrochemical emotional response because their brains are faulty and and incapable of that, just like a paralyzed person cannot fake movement. No lacunae; at least on my side. | |
| Jun 16, 2017 at 8:36 | comment | added | Oscar Bravo | I was thinking this was a good answer until you mentioned "lie detection". You have some lacunae in your knowledge if you think that is a real thing... | |
| Jun 13, 2017 at 15:13 | comment | added | Sulthan | Also, most IQ tests are created by men and they are slightly biased by the male thinking, therefore females usually get a bit lower scores. Creating unbiased IQ tests is really really hard. IQ is hard to define objectively. Two different IQ tests can produce very different results. Most political votes are highly emotional anyway. The same as religion, political opinions are often "hereditary", that is, copied from parents. | |
| Jun 12, 2017 at 9:49 | comment | added | Amadeus | @DRF recently shown brain scans (fMRI) can be highly predictive of psychopathy; they can't fake emotions [brain responses] they don't have. I'll agree a written test is insufficient and we'd need something that involves more human judgment. | |
| Jun 12, 2017 at 9:31 | comment | added | DRF | If you got rid of people who score high on sociopathy test from politics, there would be no politicians left in almost any country. Even just sorting out psychopaths would probably leave a decent dent. Of course they would soon learn how to cheat the tests. The trouble with pretty much all standard form psychological tests is that they can either be learnt or aren't predictive. Usually both. | |
| Jun 11, 2017 at 21:33 | comment | added | Amadeus | @Pharap I did not say it was the only reason, I said it is not necessarily a stupid reason to vote for a clearly unqualified, duplicitous, lying candidate. When voting for the "lesser of two evils" seems to produce an unbroken chain of increasing evil, the only way (for a common voter) to break that pattern is to not vote at all, or to vote for the greater evil, in the hope of shaking things up. I think many in the USA and UK felt that way, and (perhaps intuitively) decided to try and break the pattern: The reasons they gave may sound plausible, but it could really just be frustration. | |
| Jun 11, 2017 at 21:20 | comment | added | Pharap | @Amadeus Brexit was more complicated than that. There were many different reasons people chose to vote one way or the other. Some people voted because of how it affected their job (scientists voted remain because they got funding from the EU, farmers voted leave because they were fed up with EU red tape making their job harder), some voted because they wanted change or wanted things to stay the same, some people voted because they like/dislike multiculturism etc. There undoubtedly were people who voted just to go against the politicians, but they weren't the sole reason for the result. | |
| Jun 11, 2017 at 21:07 | comment | added | Pharap | Ah, my old nemesis order effects, we meet again. | |
| Jun 11, 2017 at 20:08 | comment | added | NotThatGuy | @Amadeus I don't disagree, but I'd be extremely surprised if even 1-2% of voters followed that line of reasoning. | |
| Jun 11, 2017 at 19:49 | comment | added | Amadeus | @NotThatGuy On the contrary; intelligence requires sight beyond the immediate consequences; or nobody would ever get surgery: It hurts! It disables you! But temporarily. Voting for a moronic buffoon and compulsive liar that breaks the system at least has a chance of reforming that system when it has to be repaired; whereas voting for a status quo, boring candidate has zero chance of leading to reform. Making things worse temporarily in the hope that will make things better in the long run can be intelligent. Like quitting a job without another lined up: It forces action, now. | |
| Jun 11, 2017 at 18:19 | comment | added | NotThatGuy | @Amadeus It doesn't make sense to vote for a compulsive liar who's made countless near-impossible-to-keep promises to get away from liars who break promises (i.e. it's not intelligent). Although I think the political system in the US (and probably most other countries too) is fundamentally flawed - it also doesn't make sense to vote for one person (or even a set of people) to make so many decisions in so many areas for you, never mind doing so while there isn't an easy way to hold them accountable for what they've done. Neither intelligent voters nor addressing corruption does much about that. | |
| Jun 11, 2017 at 18:01 | comment | added | Amadeus | @NotThatGuy If they believe the "well thought out" candidate is a liar and thief, why vote for that? If all the "well thought out" candidates always end up betraying you, breaking their promises and throwing you under the bus, why vote for that? Half of American voters have become contrarians and just want anything but the same old empty promises and empty rhetoric, even if it frikkin' kils them. They know something has gone horribly wrong and they don't know how to fix it, so they are voting for the person lashing out. Same story in Brexit. Unchecked Corruption is the problem, as I said. | |
| Jun 11, 2017 at 14:34 | comment | added | NotThatGuy | "The problem isn't stupid voters" - going by recent US elections, it definitely is. I would agree that IQ is probably not the best measure of this, but "intelligent" (and informed and concerned) voters would not vote for someone constantly contradicting him/herself in the public eye in big ways and would see right through obvious attempts at emotional manipulation and instead favour someone having good, well-thought-out, concrete plans for office. You don't need some other (also flawed) tests for candidates if voters know what they're doing (thanks to e.g. proper education). | |
| Jun 9, 2017 at 22:10 | comment | added | WGroleau | Maybe. Then again, I might get angry at the stupidity and walk out. :-). Like I keep getting angry when bankers still think mother's maiden name is a security question. | |
| Jun 9, 2017 at 20:41 | comment | added | Amadeus | @WGroleau My point was that if you took an IQ test tomorrow, or ten years from now, and you saw this exact same question, you would answer it correctly. Perhaps with misgivings, but presumably you would score higher. Right? | |
| Jun 9, 2017 at 20:39 | comment | added | Amadeus | @PyRulez Some nutrition and drug issues can permanently affect IQ. That said, the brain (which I indirectly study through AI simulations) is constantly learning even in old age for most: My 80 year old retired neighbors continue to learn the names of new sports stars and their records, the plot lines of new TV series, the names of contestants they like on The Voice. Especially given the Internet, anybody motivated to get better at IQ puzzle solving can get better at it, just by practicing solving them. With the sad exception of many of the mentally disabled. | |
| Jun 9, 2017 at 20:36 | comment | added | WGroleau | The drawings were sufficiently detailed for me to recognize which type out of many for each tool. So for me, a user of tools since childhood, AND a speaker of more than just English, the letters KSSSS would never have occurred to me. If someone not in a test context suggested sorting goods in a store according to the spellings of their names instead of function, I would have thought it was a really stupid idea. So again, I could have gotten a higher score by psyching out the test writer instead of trying to be sensible. | |
| Jun 9, 2017 at 20:32 | comment | added | Amadeus | @WGroleau ... pronunciation (long vowel v short vowel, stress patterns, syllable count), spelling rule violations (weird is weird: i before e except after c or when sounded like "A" as in neighbor and weigh -- does not cover weird!). Knife is also the only one that starts with an unpronounced letter, and the only one that ends that way. Even with your alternative names (like Hacksaw). I consider this an awful IQ question; but after getting it wrong, you can't help but see K S S S S and be irritated but answer as expected. | |
| Jun 9, 2017 at 20:22 | comment | added | Amadeus | @WGroleau: Agreed; me too (but it is Knife, Saw, Spoon, Shovel, Screwdriver): The screwdriver is the only tool whose edge is NOT ever intended to cut something (Spoon 'cuts' pudding, jelly, semi-solids). Also the only one starting with 3 consonants. Shovel is only tool intended for dirt. (hack)Saw only tool typically intended to cut metal. (paring) Knife the only tool intended to remove a peel. Spoon only tool intended to be used with a liquid. Lesson: Test guess on other choices; see that function can't be it, so look to sound, spelling, shape, rotations, writing strokes, letter count ... | |
| Jun 9, 2017 at 20:22 | comment | added | Christopher King | "It is a lie that your IQ cannot be increased" it's also a lie because the ability to learn (what IQ tests try to measure) is affected by tons of environmental factors (nutrition, for example). | |
| Jun 9, 2017 at 19:58 | comment | added | WGroleau | Indeed. On one test, I was shown five pictures: paring knife, teaspoon, hacksaw, garden shovel, and standard screwdriver. Which one doesn't belong? After thinking about their functions in various ways, I finally chose the standard screwdriver as the only one that could not easily be used to separate substances. The official answer saw "the knife, because the others start with 's'" ! A case where more knowledge can actually lower your score. (Or a different native language.) | |
| Jun 9, 2017 at 18:44 | comment | added | Amadeus | @Alexander Absolutely. If you just spend a few months doing crossword puzzles, or Sudoku, you will be better than when you started. IQ tests are often puzzles about "what comes next" in a sequence, "What do these things have in common", "Which is the odd one out", or "think outside the box". Do a dozen of those, fail, learn what the 'right' answer is and why, and you get better at them. Same thing with memorization or vocabulary questions. Word logic problems succumb to practice & learning mental strategies or frameworks for solving them, too. It is, umm, smart to practice for an IQ test. | |
| Jun 9, 2017 at 18:08 | comment | added | Alexander | So it would be more important for people to train for their IQ test rather than go unprepared. | |
| Jun 9, 2017 at 16:02 | history | answered | Amadeus | CC BY-SA 3.0 |