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Academia vs Joe Sixpack

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  • Total voters
    51

a351

#NeverTrump
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A recent quip by a fellow poster here inspired me to create this poll. Bear with me, while it may seem patently absurd to some, it is strictly for my own amusement and serves only as a sociopolitical barometer of sorts. Would you rather our governing body be comprised of the faculty of various Ivy league and highly accredited academic institutions (i.e. Harvard, MIT, Stanford etc.) or the first 535 individuals selected at random from your local phonebook?
 
A recent quip by a fellow poster here inspired me to create this poll. Bear with me, while it may seem patently absurd to some, it is strictly for my own amusement and serves only as a sociopolitical barometer of sorts. Would you rather our governing body be comprised of the faculty of various Ivy league and highly accredited academic institutions (i.e. Harvard, MIT, Stanford etc.) or the first 535 individuals selected at random from your local phonebook?

Intellectuals. It's not even a contest.
 
Hmm. I'd like to say academics, but in playing devil's advocate, giving the reins of government to a single demographic isn't a representative democracy. If that continues, we could see serious self-perpetuating stagnation, corruption, and general disconnect with the rest of the nation, especially if Ivy League (or wherever you take them from) remains inaccessible to the majority of the population. I think giving it to Average Joes is a safer choice, in the long run.

Wait: when you say our governing body, what are you talking about? I think moving the discussion to a nation besides the US could change the context considerably.
 
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The academic faculty, even though I think both would do a poor job.

At least the academics would be able to demonstrate an understanding of basic logic... well most of them hopefully.
 
Wait: when you say our governing body, what are you talking about? I think moving the discussion to a nation besides the US could change the context considerably.
The US congress strictly, apologies for any lapses in clarity.
 
A recent quip by a fellow poster here inspired me to create this poll. Bear with me, while it may seem patently absurd to some, it is strictly for my own amusement and serves only as a sociopolitical barometer of sorts. Would you rather our governing body be comprised of the faculty of various Ivy league and highly accredited academic institutions (i.e. Harvard, MIT, Stanford etc.) or the first 535 individuals selected at random from your local phonebook?

I'd rather have people who are qualified for the job, so probably neither.
 
Average joes by a long-shot. They would most likely be more grounded with reality of human nature and have had more experience with real life.
 
A mixture of the two. Why go black and white on the issue? We need some academics, but also some average Joe's so the government doesn't get out of touch with the majority of our population.
 
I wouldn't want my governing body to be made up simply of either one of those. But with the choice that you gave, I'd have to go with the intellectuals. Out of touch maybe, but probably far likelier to be qualified to govern than just 535 random people.
 
I'm going to be honest 535 random individuals. That would clear out all this corruption and insanity currently going on, sure our nation would economically collapse, but that's just waiting to happen. The sooner the better. After that we could rebuild.

All the people saying intellectuals. Ivy League does not = intellectual. Ivy League = rich family (in most cases)
 
I prefer them to be skilled, professional politicians. I do not presume the that the intellectual community is somehow without faults, because it's definitely not (perhaps the smartest dumb people out there), but I am not of mind to believe in the faculties of the regular person. I'm more hesitant to be that much of a believer in mass democracy. I'm more of an elitist.
 
A mixture of the two. Why go black and white on the issue? We need some academics, but also some average Joe's so the government doesn't get out of touch with the majority of our population.

I'd have to agree with having some of both. Of course, you'd need the average joes to be equipped to listen to what the academics say. Not to necessarily do what they say, but at least to understand
 
I want doctors in charge of health policy, I want engineers in charge of infrastructure, I want biologists and ecologists in charge of the EPA, I want economists in charge of commerce regulation and I want accountants in charge of budgets. I guess that makes me a technocrat.
 
A recent quip by a fellow poster here inspired me to create this poll. Bear with me, while it may seem patently absurd to some, it is strictly for my own amusement and serves only as a sociopolitical barometer of sorts. Would you rather our governing body be comprised of the faculty of various Ivy league and highly accredited academic institutions (i.e. Harvard, MIT, Stanford etc.) or the first 535 individuals selected at random from your local phonebook?

We live in a representative democracy because that is the best form of government in which to form a social contract.

Therefore, I would prefer it that our government be representative of both academics as well as "Joe Sixpacks".
 
A recent quip by a fellow poster here inspired me to create this poll. Bear with me, while it may seem patently absurd to some, it is strictly for my own amusement and serves only as a sociopolitical barometer of sorts. Would you rather our governing body be comprised of the faculty of various Ivy league and highly accredited academic institutions (i.e. Harvard, MIT, Stanford etc.) or the first 535 individuals selected at random from your local phonebook?

Many of our elected officials attended ivy league schools,many of them are lawyers, some of them are doctors and some are of other professions that require advance schooling.So those voting for Academic Faculty should ask themselves how good a job are these people doing right now.


Personally I want a mix of people seeing how this is a representative democracy. I also want strict term limits to eliminate professional politicians.The professional politician is what is wrong with this country right now.
 
I prefer them to be skilled, professional politicians. I do not presume the that the intellectual community is somehow without faults, because it's definitely not (perhaps the smartest dumb people out there), but I am not of mind to believe in the faculties of the regular person. I'm more hesitant to be that much of a believer in mass democracy. I'm more of an elitist.

The problem with a technocracy is when different spheres of technical knowledge interferes with each other.

For example, take an agriculturist and a ecologist.

An agriculturist would want to grow as much food as possible for people. Such includes the clearing of wilderness to use as farmland as well as the use of pesticides to acquire the highest yield of food.

However, an ecologist is concerned solely with maintaining the natural ecosystem and wildlife of flora and fauna.

And so, despite both being of intellectual scholars of academic learning, their agendas are somewhat in opposition to each other.

Such opposition must be resolved in order to determine which policy the government should pursue.

And that's what we have politicians for - to decide such policy of allocating limited resources despite opposing interests that differ on how resources should be used.

Which is why we need generalists to manage all those more technically skilled bureaucrats so that the whole can function despite the internal opposition among its components.
 
I find choices between two extremes to be pointless. Neither choice is suitable or workable in my opinion. Some Joe Sixpacks are shrewd and streetmart and practical and have good IQ's if not academic credentials. But you wouldn't want an entire Congress comprised of them. Same goes for the Academics. Real world practical experience is meaningful. Living your life in a thinktank isn't useful.
 
I find choices between two extremes to be pointless. Neither choice is suitable or workable in my opinion. Some Joe Sixpacks are shrewd and streetmart and practical and have good IQ's if not academic credentials. But you wouldn't want an entire Congress comprised of them. Same goes for the Academics. Real world practical experience is meaningful. Living your life in a thinktank isn't useful.

Aaaaand that pretty much wraps it up.
 
I prefer the intellectual. If you did pick from the phone book (literally) you'd get a huge amount of elderly people. A lot of younger people tend to not have land line phones nowadays. I know this from helping with polls, LOL.
 
A recent quip by a fellow poster here inspired me to create this poll. Bear with me, while it may seem patently absurd to some, it is strictly for my own amusement and serves only as a sociopolitical barometer of sorts. Would you rather our governing body be comprised of the faculty of various Ivy league and highly accredited academic institutions (i.e. Harvard, MIT, Stanford etc.) or the first 535 individuals selected at random from your local phonebook?

I noticed you did not say "randomly selected" academia types, only about Joe Sixpack. So its not a fair straight up question. IF it were entirely random for both, I'd go with Joe Sixpack, as they could hire appropriate expertise and they would instead be setting policy standards, not the details.

Josephine and Joe Sixpack (a demeaning way to put it) more live in the real world rather than the zippy pinhead fantasy ideological world of academic eggheads.

We do not need another dogmatic Woodrow Wilson ideologue. We need another Eisenhower pragmatic manager.
 
Josephine and Joe Sixpack (a demeaning way to put it) more live in the real world rather than the zippy pinhead fantasy ideological world of academic eggheads.

More simplistic populist, mass democratic nonsense meant to stroke your egos.

Joe Sixpack doesn't live in the consequential real-world of complex financial institutions, international diplomacy, and so forth. They are stuck to their localities, if that. How much more fantasy-land can you get than that? Is it any wonder why we had bred people like Henry Stimson?

We do not need another dogmatic Woodrow Wilson ideologue. We need another Eisenhower pragmatic manager.

Wilson is practically the Godfather for modern bureaucratic structure and civil service. He wasn't just some idealistic schmuck that screwed over the Fourteen Points and made the hopelessly naive sentiments about the last Great war among men.
 
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More simplistic populist, mass democratic nonsense meant to stroke your egos. kinda agree with this here

Joe Sixpack doesn't live in the consequential real-world of complex financial institutions,neither do most ivy league intellectuals, with no life experience outside of a school campus international diplomacy, and so forth. They are stuck to their localities, if that. How much more fantasy-land can you get than that? Is it any wonder why we had bred people like Henry Stimson?



Wilson is practically the Godfather for modern bureaucratic structure and civil service. He wasn't just some idealistic schmuck that screwed over the Fourteen Points and made the hopelessly naive sentiments about the last Great war among men.
Calling Wilson the godfather of the bureaucratic structure is really not a compliment

Basically trying to decide from either of the 2 groups is a waste, acedemia types tend to live in their ivory towers with no clue on how things work outside of academia, Joe sixpack same thing, if we are going with stereotypes, they know more about nascar, NFL stats than real world problems. BTW I am assumign stereotypes based upon the poll question, not all of academia is out of touch proffessor types and not all of the working class (what I am assuming is the joe sixpack term means) is incapable of thinking intelligently on all subjects.
How about you try and get the best qualified regardless of whether they are form academia, NFL stadium seat warmers or whatever.
 
Calling Wilson the godfather of the bureaucratic structure is really not a compliment

Basically trying to decide from either of the 2 groups is a waste, acedemia types tend to live in their ivory towers with no clue on how things work outside of academia, Joe sixpack same thing, if we are going with stereotypes, they know more about nascar, NFL stats than real world problems. BTW I am assumign stereotypes based upon the poll question, not all of academia is out of touch proffessor types and not all of the working class (what I am assuming is the joe sixpack term means) is incapable of thinking intelligently on all subjects.
How about you try and get the best qualified regardless of whether they are form academia, NFL stadium seat warmers or whatever.

Bureaucracy is great. Reorganization attempts are what suck. The people listen to their politicians feeding them the same nonsense about bureaucracy when it's not really true. It's one of the best things to happen.
 
I'd rather have people who are qualified for the job, so probably neither.

Anyone who is actually qualified for the job probably wouldn't want to do it in the first place.
 
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