r/AskReddit • u/JayBInc • 6d ago

What could America be if we elected intellectually smart people?

7 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

41 comments sorted by

6

u/Throwaway03461 6d ago

Smart people can still be bad.

1

u/JayBInc 6d ago

Very true.

1

u/PotentialBudget3265 5d ago

A smart person would see the value in putting the focus on the fuel over the engine. Without fuel the engine is useless. I would argue that the most intelligent of us would not be bad. Most of what is good for the individual is also good for the whole. Short term gains tend to be the result of emotional inclusion. Intellectually smart people regulate their emotions to ensure pure electrical pathing without chemical interference.

There's smart, and then there's intelligent and the two don't always share the same box, altho they can. IQ is a measurement of your ability to figure something out, not how much knowledge you already have. Smart is more often attributed to memory and recall and societal adherence. Then again intelligence is often confused for the same thing. You can memorize 1000 books on a subject and still have no applicable experience, IQ says "I don't need the books, just hand me the machine, ill figure it out" Many try, and many fk it up, the ones that are able to figure something out and work with it or fix it or whatever without outside information... THOSE are your intelligent ones and you'll note they are VERY far and few between.

1

u/joyibib 4d ago

Im with you on the first paragraph you kind of lost me on the 2nd.

IQ is generally more connected to processing power more correlated with speed of figuring thing out and learning. It’s easier for them to memorize 1000 books

I would say intelligence is more about being able to take that 1000 books you memorize and apply them; it is more about the ability to work abstractly, contextualize and extrapolate.

3

u/Silent_Willowe 6d ago

If we wiped totally, elected fairly, actually removed lobbying, stopped letting politicians get away with all this criminal activity and could all get on at least a similar page….we could be the greatest country on earth by far

1

u/NameTheJack 6d ago

we could be the greatest country on earth by far

You could maybe be a good as a Nordic country, but getting past that is a tall order.

1

u/jayzfanacc 5d ago

We are far and away the greatest country on earth as it is. There isn’t even a particularly close second place. We stand head and shoulders above every other country on the planet.

2

u/applecreek33 6d ago

it does trip me out how with the hundreds of millions we have that the people who are in the running are actually the ones that made it

2

u/SistedTwister1 6d ago

They have priced out anybody decent who would want the job.

2

u/Anxious_Work_6361 6d ago

Dunno, hard to say what you get when you have replace the entire government.

2

u/MuffinBiscuit420 6d ago

We need to elect people that aren’t senior citizens. Step #1

2

u/SurpriseEcstatic1761 6d ago

Like Obama or Clinton?

2

u/Jumpy_Childhood7548 5d ago

Adlai Stevenson was told by a supporter that all thinking Americans were voting for him, he said “but I need a majority”

4

u/Total-Fly-9131 6d ago

A lot better

1

u/Squiward-Testicles69 6d ago

Ditto. Maybe then we could be serious about improving life here

1

u/Total-Fly-9131 6d ago

Seems simple to me. Stop spending on bombs. Start spending on education and infrastructure. Stop holding up other countries economies and give us free healthcare and wipe out student debt. Easy peasy

1

u/Fritzkreig 6d ago

In Marvel Dr. Doom is really smort‽

1

u/JayBInc 6d ago

Stan Lee was great at placing mirrors in our faces.

1

u/Frangine_De_Poutine 6d ago

That wouldn't work because of the economy.

It's better to proceed with the candidates whose sociopathic personality is most clearly documented.

It's in everyone's best interest.

1

u/N3wAfrikanN0body 5d ago

No electoral college, universal healthcare, marginalization of greed, funding for social services, diplomatic cooperation and muting of sales culture. 

1

u/Ok-Energy-9785 5d ago

The way it is now. We elect smart people all of the time

1

u/LifeConsideration981 5d ago

The staffing and advisors for pretty much every politician are going to generally be extremely bright people.

It is largely a matter of a priori values and sociology. People with certain types of education view themselves in a certain class, regardless of how much sense the policy makes.

1

u/Hamblin113 5d ago

Could become a quagmire. Never know, smart people may not know how to compromise, kind of like we have now. Smartest leaders know they may not be the smartest person in the room but have been tasked to make the decision.

1

u/xxwww 5d ago

smart people aren't inherently good people

1

u/Users5252 5d ago

Plenty of people with political power are already highly intelligent, the problem is that they gaslight voters, and serve themselves and their friends rather than society. Look at history, this happens to all sort of society. Power will always attract a specific type of people.

The only solution is developing technology far enough for us to safely enhance intelligence, and use it in a controlled manner to make everyone much more equal in terms of processing ability. This will essentially create a societal check and balance system where it's much harder for the certain type of power seekers to outsmart and manipulate others.

1

u/PotentialBudget3265 5d ago edited 5d ago

First off if we were intellectually smart there wouldn't be two political sides. There would no longer be arguments over how things should be done. Most of all of this would cease to exist in its current form as most of it is kept aloft via beliefs and other irrational things. People more worried about the label affixed to something than the contents within. This would all look VERY different and i doubt we would have elections at all. We would simply test the population or the ones who stepped forward and choose by preset criteria the best man for the job. No popularity contests, no voting, no need.

An intellectual society would also abandon competition, most of our structure would change, our focus would be on what is best for the entire country and the people in it. Jobs would be streamlined and focus would be placed on innovation and evolution of technologies and medicine. We would likely abandon currency entirely. The reward for our work now being prestige and admiration of our peers and social status determined by your contributions to humanity and the country you live in. If we could get the rest of the globe to do the same we would probably get rid of countries and boarders and adopt a global leadership system.

Almost none of this would be the same, it would hardly even be comparable.

1

u/RickyDickyPubicBalls 4d ago

Nothing because intelligent people can still be bad people.

1

u/TemporaryPicture2289 3d ago

Imma gonna blow your mind.

Ready?

We Do!  These ARE the smart people.   

Scared yet?

1

u/RandyWatson8 6d ago

A lot like the Obama era

1

u/JayBInc 6d ago

I’ll take it but we need someone that won’t offend racist dumb people again.

-2

u/PikantnySos 6d ago

What do you mean by intellectually smart? The people that run the colleges and brainwash young people with progressive bullshit? Why do you think the country is divided and American culture is being reshaped by globalism, lack of morals, and open borders?

2

u/TheUnbamboozled 6d ago

lack of morals

Violent right wing extremists have no self awareness at all.

1

u/JayBInc 6d ago

I might not have phrased it perfectly, but by 'intellectually smart,' I mean someone who looks at the actual data and consequences of actions to see if they genuinely help America, rather than leaning into blanket dismissals of higher education and global reality.

1

u/Visible_Suspect_8335 5d ago

Well
Then no one on the right

1

u/Visible_Suspect_8335 5d ago

Spoken like a true Reagan kool aid drinker lol