Men with high net worth are more conservative leaning?! Isn't that weird. Learning about the world builds compassion, while feeding your own greed breeds self interest. So weird. Remind me why we ask the opinions of rich people again?
this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2026
730 points (98.5% liked)
politics
29384 readers
2605 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Because if we make them feel valued they might give you some money. Do this enough times and you can be a rich asshole too!
Yeah, well, I've never felt smarter than when conversing with a conservative.
Here's a link to the paper, so you don't have to read an article about an article.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289625000893
Higher IQ is also associated with higher Critical Thinking Skills, which help you recognize and avoid conservative propaganda.
So IQ is still a valid measuring method is it?
The criteria for what counts as "valid measure method" is not "metrics that would make your ingroup look good".
Of course. There's a reason why conservatives don't want the masses educated. Because they'd see how much they're getting fucked by said conservatives.
In USA, conservatives are fine with educating the masses, but they want it to be a Christian education.
Which I can tell you is practically worthless, I mean, look at me. Stuffed full of useless Bible knowledge that I can't discuss in civilized company. I didn't even learn about critical thinking until my 20s. Blew my mind
As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly. ~Proverbs 26:11
That's why they've been attacking public schools for decades, and why they push religion in schools.
The kids of the filthy rich go to private schools that teach capitalism the same way they have for generations.
And how to win at it and defend it from democracy
I will count of the list of Conservative scientists:
End of list
I honestly wouldn't have expected this, unless IQ was also correlated to empathy somehow
A lot of the sections in an IQ test involve prefrontal cortex which also handled empathy.
I think there was a big educational push to leverage empathy in planning.
Like adding in motivation for why Suzy has a need for two or your apples, that involves empathy drive up scores.
Perhaps you plan for one, but end up selecting for another accidentally.
Aaah a feel-good article for leftists.
Plenty of dumb dumbs among us, don't worry.
Aaah a feel-good article for leftists.
Eh. I don't feel particularly good that I'm surrounded by conservative idiots.
There's a reason universities lean heavily left
I would disagree on the "heavily" unless you accept the US definition of the right-left paradigm.
load more comments
(3 replies)
Highly depends on what university you go to and whether or not you participate in the Greek culture.
Can you elaborate on that?
Do you mean like "greek" college cults, like the alpha beta omega stuff? Or like Greek from the actual country, Greece?
Use your brain. Obviously it’s the Greek clubs. Everyone who replied to my comment doesn’t understand American Greek fraternities/sororities and the terrible culture surrounding them.
whether or not you participate in the Greek culture.
yogurt?
We're talking about Universities here, not the hundreds of bullshit liberal arts colleges that are just sleep camps for the Learning Annex.
It really doesnt.
Present! I don't even remember my times tables
load more comments
(2 replies)
IQ testing is pseudoscience. It's one of the preferred methods of the far right to try to differentiate between races for that very reason. Pseudoscience is a lot more malleable for their purposes than the settled science that says race doesn't exist biologically.
Having a "high IQ" is only proof that you're good at IQ tests.
Veritasium made a video talking about IQ tests, their validity and so on. https://youtu.be/FkKPsLxgpuY
One of my key takeaways: IQ tests have some validity as a diagnostic tool for asessing cognitive disabilities or illnesses, but they should not be taken as serious and significant as many less informed people seem to do.
For your own privacy, and the privacy of everybody else interacting with you.
When you share a YouTube link, if you don't remove the si=ID, anybody that clicks on that link will then be associated with you. It's one of the tools Google uses to track your internet usage.
Thank you!
Veritasium is the puppet of an investment firm.
Your takeaway on IQ is accurate.
load more comments
(2 replies)
It's not completely pseudo-science, as there are a lot of correlations with things like academic success or job performance:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Social_correlations
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
To be liberal requires empathy. A deep understanding of others and their situations and the knowledge that your own personal needs dont always automatically outweigh others.
Empathy requires emotional intelligence.
Its easy to see it in action. Pick a problem and then look at the solutions offered by populist politicians to solve them.
In the UK one of the problems is immigrants arriving on small boats. The populist "solution"? "STOP THE BOATS" shouted far and wide.
How we ask?
And then silence. And when pressed, the likes of Reform offer more soundbites like "use the navy" and "send them back" but without any substance.
Meanwhile Liberal politicians offer actual solutions that are not sound bites, and they won't work quickly. Things like working with the French to find and arrest the people organising it. Helping to improve facilities in France and the rest of Europe so the UK isn't seen as somewhere an immigrant needs to travel to.
Basically, intelligent people aren't fooled by meaningless slogans. Morons aren't able to understand that deep problems require deep and complex solutions.
load more comments
(9 replies)
from a logical standpoint, conservatism is lacking any kind of sense or logic. I think it's safe to assume that, in order to follow blindly an idea that crumbles as soon as you critically think about it, you have to lack the ability to critically think.
What I think tho is that it's empathy what we should link to intelligence (or whatever you want to call the skill set that allows you to question and critizice everything).
Conservatism is a lack of empathy (which comes with a lack of said "intelligence").
Actual conservatism is just as "logical" as libralism / leftism, or whatever you want to call the other side. Old fashioned conservatism is just the idea that traditional ways of doing things are good, so we should be slow in adopting changes.
Modern American conservatism isn't conservatism. It's an incoherent philosophy that resists some changes while making a lot of other very radical changes. There's no plan behind it. Even their "gameplan", project 2025, is a mess of contradictory ideas. The execution depends on the whims of an idiotic, incurious, and possibly altzheimer-addled man.
I also believe this, and want to add that conservatism is mostly a combination of ideals based on grievances and a complete lack of critical thinking thinking as well.
I know plenty of intelligent conservatives, but all them lack empathy for anyone outside their circle.
I don't think they are intelligent if they are conservative. Conservatism is objectively bad for the collective. Supporting it means, ultimately, hurting the planet even to the point of making it uninhabitable. And if you think that you, with all the money in the world, can survive in a world like that, then you are not very intelligent.
They are selfish, and they might have some skills. But I don't think they can be called intelligent when they lack the critical thinking skills to question the most basic concepts of conservatism.
There is literally always room for improvement, everyone knows this, everyone is taught this. Conservatism flies in it's face. Conservatism says "good enough". Conservatism says "I'm fine, thanks" without asking how you are.
This is because reality itself has a strong left-leaning bias, and intelligence makes you encounter that a lot more as you interact with reality.
Sure, there are highly intelligent right-wingers, but intelligence only gives you the cognitive tools to discover reality, it doesn’t force you to use them. Just because a person is intelligent doesn’t mean they can’t slide off into wharrderp fantasy land.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Fuck IQ. Literally political stance is a better measurement of intelligence.
Wait...
load more comments
(1 replies)
DAT ASS THO!
I'm going to ignore all the issues with this study, and just be happy there are people out there finding the data that shows conservatism is stupidity.
load more comments
(4 replies)
Duh
view more: next ›