I consider myself a staunch democrat (notice the lower case “d,” I am not a liberal), in that I am a strong advocate for democracy. But, maybe I, and others, need to rethink our positions on democracy. It doesn’t seem like a very good idea to have people who are generally ignorant of climate science, or science in general, deciding what US climate policy should be. We shouldn’t put questions like, “is climate change real,” to a vote. We have the scientific method for determining that, and It works so much better than popular opinion.
My defense of democracy generally comes down to: “yes, there are some ignorant people out there, but most people are well enough informed and reasonable enough.” Maybe that’s not always true.
I consider myself a staunch democrat (notice the lower case “d,” I am not a liberal), in that I am a strong advocate for democracy. But, maybe I, and others, need to rethink our positions on democracy. It doesn’t seem like a very good idea to have people who are generally ignorant of climate science, or science in general, deciding what US climate policy should be. We shouldn’t put questions like, “is climate change real,” to a vote. We have the scientific method for determining that, and It works so much better than popular opinion.
My defense of democracy generally comes down to: “yes, there are some ignorant people out there, but most people are well enough informed and reasonable enough.” Maybe that’s not always true.
An educated electorate works fine. The big problem is decades of attacks on education.
A lot of Americans have been voting to attack education, too.
Also social media algorithms supercharging confirmation bias.