The Least Intelligent Among Us

Every day there is some new conspiracy coming out of social media….from eating babies to flat earth to voter fraud to alien half breeds….it seems the least capable of critical thinking are the ones holding the day.

Why is this?

New research published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied suggests that people often overestimate their understanding of political facts. This tendency to be overconfident appears most common among individuals who actually know the least about politics and those who lean conservative. The findings provide evidence that psychological traits, like a desire for quick and definitive answers, help explain why some voters struggle to accurately judge their own political knowledge.

Erika K. Fulton, an associate professor of psychology at Idaho State University and head of the META Lab, led a team of scientists to investigate how well people gauge their own grasp of political information. The research team noticed a gap in the existing scientific literature regarding this specific type of self-evaluation. Most prior studies on political knowledge were conducted by political scientists, who often use different analytical methods than cognitive psychologists.

The scientists wanted to apply the strict measurement standards of cognitive psychology to political knowledge. As the researchers explained, “Metacognition is broadly defined as thinking about one’s own cognition. The type we studied is called metacognitive monitoring accuracy, or the degree to which judgments of what one knows matches what one actually knows.”

In simpler terms, this concept refers to a person’s ability to accurately recognize when they are right and when they are wrong. “People tend to be overconfident regarding what they think they know, and this has serious consequences in the political realm, such as when people vote on candidates and issues that they don’t understand as well as they think they do,” the researchers stated.

“We couldn’t find any political metacognition studies conducted by cognitive psychologists, specifically metacognition researchers, only by political scientists,” the researchers told PsyPost. “Experimental psychology has very specific measurement criteria that guide our study designs, and we wanted to employ those for a fuller, more nuanced understanding of political metacognition.”

https://www.psypost.org/people-with-the-least-political-knowledge-tend-to-be-the-most-overconfident-in-their-grasp-of-facts/

Fascinating! Social media is driving this erroneous thinking.

The reason social media is so influential is a person’s attention span….

In 2004, researchers at the University of California, Irvine, found that the average attention span on any screen was about two and a half minutes, Houlihan explained in the clip. By 2012, it had shrunk to 75 seconds.

In the last 10 years or so, the average attention span has plummeted to an abysmal 47 seconds, with the median being roughly 40 seconds.

What better place to tap into the short attention span to influence people than social media.

There is the problem that needs repair…..but sadly in a world that demands instant gratification we will not find the repairs we need.

The turmoil we face today will be with us for a very long time no matter the damage it does to the people….

And that is the name of that tune…..

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Tech Bros And Billionaires

I will dial back the research and ranting for the next few days of this year to let my brain recharge from the drain from the holidays…..a slow down not a pause.

This country has always been at the mercy of the rich….even in the beginning and it has not slowed down at all….now since Donny’s has taken over the nation these wealthy patrons of his are controlling everything….and I do mean everything.

Technology is moving ever faster and those leading the charge are the noveau rich….the tech bros….and soon they will have it all….

“Our world is being actively remade with profound implications for national and international security,” Metreweli declared in her first statement as chief of MI6. “Power itself is becoming more diffuse, more unpredictable as control over these technologies is shifting from states to corporations and sometimes to individuals.”

She also noted that “we’re now operating in a space between peace and war.”

“This is not a temporary state or a gradual, inevitable evolution,” she continued.

Over the past few months, politicians from the ruling Labour party have grown increasingly frustrated at political meddling from tech billionaires like Elon Musk, who called for the overthrow of the UK government at a far-right rally in September.

Notably, Metreweli stopped short of calling out any billionaires by name or identifying the systemic issues that got us here, according to The Paper. Instead, she followed other ministers in centering a vague loss of public trust, rather than the profit-driven forces reshaping global power for their own interests.

“The foundations of trust in our societies are eroding,” she said. “Information, once a unifying force, is increasingly weaponized. Falsehoods spread faster than fact, dividing communities and distorting reality. We live in an age of hyper-connection yet profound isolation. The algorithms flatter our biases and fracture our public squares.”

https://futurism.com/future-society/mi6-tech-billionaires-government

There is nothing that is safe from the prying eyes of these Tech bros….everything you do, say or write is their weapon against you, the people.

Maybe it is time to resurrect the ‘Luddites”…..

Luddite?

“Luddite” is now a blanket term used to describe people who dislike new technology, but its origins date back to an early 19th-century labor movement that railed against the ways that mechanized manufacturers and their unskilled laborers undermined the skilled craftsmen of the day.

The original Luddites were British weavers and textile workers who objected to the increased use of mechanized looms and knitting frames. Most were trained artisans who had spent years learning their craft, and they feared that unskilled machine operators were robbing them of their livelihood. When the economic pressures of the Napoleonic Wars made the cheap competition of early textile factories particularly threatening to the artisans, a few desperate weavers began breaking into factories and smashing textile machines. They called themselves “Luddites” after Ned Ludd, a young apprentice who was rumored to have wrecked a textile apparatus in 1779.

https://www.history.com/articles/who-were-the-luddites

It is time for a movement against these Tech Bros and their growing power over us all….

Thanx to AI what I called for is beginning….a new ‘Luddite’ movement….

There is a genuine, Gen Z-driven Luddite renaissance building as some people reject the tech platforms that have clamored for our attention (and money) over the past two decades — a movement that seems to get stronger as those platforms, such as Instagram and TikTok, are flooded with increasingly sophisticated AI-generated content.

The original Luddites were textile workers in rural 19th century England who rose up against the rise of automated machines that threatened them with joblessness and starvation. And while the term today is often lobbed as a kind of insult for someone who doesn’t understand technology, the modern Luddites are redefining it.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/08/business/ai-luddite-movement-screens

My wish is that it expands until it is national and effective…..that may be wishful thinking…..I hope.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

On The Road To “Gilead”?

My good friend Pete over at https://beetleypete.com/ (Visit often for Pete is an accomplished writer and storyteller) has commented on the events taking place in the US by comparing it to Gilead of the Handmaiden’s Tale (to be honest I have not watched it but it is on the list for us to partake)….and recently I read an article that confirms what Pete has been saying all this months.

Warning: The following contains discussion of physical abuse, sexual abuse, abortion, FGM, and death.

While watching The Handmaid’s Tale, it may be easy to dismiss the horrors of Gilead as mere fiction, however the uncomfortable truth of Margaret Atwood’s book and the adjoining television adaptation is that much of the story is based on true events and real situations that occurred throughout human history, and some that still happens today. The Handmaid’s Tale originated as a 1985 dystopian novel written by Margaret Atwood that developed into a television series produced by Hulu in 2017. The story follows June, a young woman forced to be a surrogate mother in a horrifying futuristic world wherein women are forced into sexual servitude to increase the human population.

he Handmaid’s Tale is one of the darker dystopian TV shows, and unfortunately, some of its worst moments are also scenarios that have happened in real history. In a sense, this fact only serves to emphasize the terror of the story, and more than that, makes clear that even the most nightmarish situations have connections to our reality. While some aspects of The Handmaid’s Tale happened quite a long time ago, others are still occurring today and are a serious problem for women’s rights and society at large. All in all, The Handmaid’s Tale shows that, at times, we are not so different from villains on-screen.

Innocent Women Were Persecuted During The Salem Witch Trials

One of the most clear examples of history that The Handmaid’s Tale uses is the persecution of innocent women during the Salem Witch Trials. From 1692 to 1693, various towns in colonial Massachusetts conducted hearings and executions, accusing women of witchcraft. Although little evidence supported these claims, these women were publicly executed, and over 200 people were accused during that time period. This historical event is a disturbing one because of its unfair rulings and condemning of innocent women. These themes shine through in The Handmaid’s Tale as the show’s characters must follow Gilead’s rules exactly, lest they become victim to the misogynistic system.

(Read on there is so much more)

https://screenrant.com/handmaids-tale-real-life-gilead-history/#innocent-women-were-persecuted-during-the-salem-witch-trials

The similarities will amaze you….especially if you have not been paying attention.

So I thank Pete for his insights and the recommendation.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”