I, Cue

[vovat]

I've now seen several links and references to a list of states and who they voted for, ranked by IQ. While I agree that people who voted for Bush might not be the brightest individuals, the whole thing kind of bothers me. Not because the numbers might well be inaccurate, but because I get annoyed when people act like IQ is THE measure of intelligence, instead of just how well you do on some standardized test that nobody even seems to remember taking. I think it's more important for a voter to recognize the issues and what's at stake than to be able to solve logic puzzles. Maybe I'm just bitter because my mom tells me I gave up on the IQ test. Of course, I doubt they told me it was anything important. If I were to take the test now, I'd probably do pretty well on it. I've done well on the online IQ tests I've taken. I don't think this means I'm smart in any practical way, though. Indeed, if I were forced to rely on my wits to survive, I'd probably be dead within the week. And I don't have physical strength or good looks to fall back on, either.

Anyway, here are some quiz results.

You Are a New School Democrat

You like partying and politics - and are likely to be young and affluent. You're less religious, traditional, and uptight than most Democrats. Smoking pot, homosexuality, and gambling are all okay in your book. You prefer that the government help people take care of themselves.

What political persuasion are you?

Hmm...some parts of that are correct, but I'm not "into partying." In fact, I generally don't like parties at all, and when "party" is being used as a verb, I'm even less likely to want to participate. Really, trying to determine someone's personality based on their political positions is an exercise in futility. I wouldn't say I'm "okay" with pot-smoking, either, although I don't think people should be thrown into jail for it.

My age

26 How old are other lj users are compared to me:

Younger My age Older 87% 2% 11%

There are 39220 lj users the same age as me.

Enter age:

LJ Age was bought to you by
_imran_ and MemeLand.org



Wow, I didn't know I was THAT old, relatively speaking. I figured I would be closer to the middle. I guess there ARE a lot of kids around these parts, though.


Wow, I'm pretty bitter today, aren't I?

Comments

[zaph.livejournal.com]

That quiz seemed biased by right wing or Libertarian rhetoric, especially on the size of the government question. "Big government" generally isn't a term you hear Democrats use at all.

I really have a hard time believing the IQ thing, too. It's amusing, certainly, but given that the average IQ of all people is 100, I just can't believe there'd be a 28 point spread between the lowest and highest. I also can't believe that enough people from Utah and Mississippi are verging on being mentally retarded to bring down their averages.

A more interesting measure would be to see the education levels of states that went for Bush or Kerry. But even then, the country is so purple that even in a lot of the red states, a lot of people voted for Kerry.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I agree about the quiz, and the "big government" question in particular. As I've said before, I think the government is too big in some areas, and too small in others, and that wasn't an option.

[tisok.livejournal.com]

aside from that, i think that's honestly what most people believe, so it wouldn't really tell you much.

[3x1minus1.livejournal.com]

hah, i got the righty vibe from it too. i got he same results.. something about the words "partying," "okay in your book," "uptight" and "affluent"...

[vovat.livejournal.com]

How many young people are particularly affluent in THIS day and age, anyway?

[revme.livejournal.com]

That IQ thing (aside from the problems you mention) has been debunked a few times. Even though, apparently it got printed in a Big-Time Magazine that I'm forgetting, maybe the Economist (but I would hope it's not that one, but it's something like that IIRC). So, uh, yeah. Hooray for that, anyway.

Also, this is me, apparently:

You Are a Liberal for Life

You've got a bleeding heart - and you're proud of it. For you, liberal means being compassionate, pro-government, and anti-business. You believe in equality for every person, and you consider yourself universally empathetic. Helping others is not just political for you ... it's very personal too.

What political persuasion are you?

Which is to be expected, but it almost seems that it just bases it on the Candidate You Choose. I might go through and say, do Dean again with "THROW EVERYONE IN JAIL!!!" as my options and see what I get... (Ah, nope, I did it basically the opposite of all my choices except for "Dean" and "Democrat", and got "You are a Religious Republican!", so.. yeah. Which is good, I suppose. But yeah, second me for another "Libertarian/Right" bias -- I find it odd that you can only be a Democrat, Republican or Libertarian. If they're going to put third parties in, I think they should have added "Green" as a fourth. But that's just me. As for the description, I suppose it more-or-less fits in a vaguely mocking way. I'm not necessarily anti-business, but I'm distrustful of _big_ business. But I am a-OK with Capitalism (though I tend to go for regulation), and I like that I can pretty much buy anything, so... yeah.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I'm not really a big fan of the whole competition part of capitalism, since I'm more into peaceful co-existence. Maybe peaceful co-existence isn't entirely practical in the world of trade, but I do wish we could at least start working toward that, instead of having the large corporations trying as hard as they can to bankrupt everybody else, and then raise their own prices.

[revme.livejournal.com]

I'm fine with Some competition, i.e. the part that makes it so it's not a monopoly, but yeah, I"m not a fan of the WalMart Style O' Capitalism, where they basically come in, raze everything, and own the world. I'm not sure what could be done in cases like that (it's hard to think of a particular thing to regulate; perhaps the way they screw their distributors and end up making unreasonable demands and bankrupting companies (there was a good article about this a while ago, I think it used Vlasic Pickles as the example), but... yeah. I'm not cool with that stuff. I'm more cool with the Ideal Of Capitalism, where, you know, there's lots of choices to choose from and everyone's basically happy and there's rainbows and lollipops for everyone.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Even though our country isn't as totally laissez-faire as it was under, say, Harding and Coolidge, I still think there's a tendency to let businesses regulate themselves, which really doesn't work. I mean, people will say things like, "Giving tax cuts to huge corporations will provide jobs and stimulate the economy!", which I'm sure is true to a certain extent, but it strikes me as a huge leap of faith to trust that the corporations are actually going to use their extra money to hire people, and not to send their executives on extended paid vacations to Hawaii or something. That's not to say that I think the government should run everything (since I don't really trust them either), but I think they should put more effort into making sure everyone who's willing and able can work, and that its citizens are provided with their basic needs (which, to me, include health care, but don't try telling that to a hardcore Republican). More assistance to failing businesses and less to huge, successful ones might also be nice.

While I can definitely see some of the benefits to competition, the word itself kind of rubs me the wrong way, because I'm not a naturally competitive person. I don't see myself as a naturally COOPERATIVE person either, though. My philosophy in that respect is basically that I'll do my part to help out society as long as society, in turn, helps me. I'm sure a lot of people share that philosophy, but a lot of them are in a position where they really can't benefit from society OR be of benefit to society. While I'm sure there's no one cause for the whole mess, I think poor organization is largely to blame.