You’ve probably noticed that opinion pollsters go out of their way to include as many morons as possible in surveys. That’s called a representative sample. And what it means is that the opinion of Einstein, for example, counts as much as the opinion of the guy who thinks The Family Circus comic is sending him secret messages via Little Billy.
You might argue that my example is bad because Einstein is dead. But according to physicist Erwin Schrodinger, Einstein is neither dead nor alive until we dig him up and open the casket. If he’s alive, he might want his brain back, which I understand is in a Ziploc bag in some guy’s freezer. And this is a perfect example of why examples always distract from the main point.
My point, if I can remember it, is that it’s dangerous to inform morons about what their fellow morons are thinking. It only reinforces their opinions. And the one thing worse than a moron with an opinion is lots of them.
The only polls I want to see are ones that exclusively includes the people in the top .01% of intelligence who are also highly informed on whatever topics the polls include. Let’s call those people the Well-Informed Super Geniuses. If most of the people in that group have the same opinion, and it’s different from mine, I’m willing to change my opinion. After all, I don’t tell my doctor where to find my appendix. Why would I tell a Well-Informed Super Genius what to think about the global socio-economic implications of a particular foreign policy or monetary decision or whatnot? (The exception would be if he had some financial or other interest in the outcome.)
But what if the Well-Informed Super Geniuses have wildly divergent opinions on a particular topic? That’s just as good to know. It means that being smart and well informed doesn’t help as much as you’d think. Then I could keep my squirrely opinions and bask in the smugness of knowing that at least a few Well-Informed Super Geniuses agree with me.
In all seriousness, when the next presidential election rolls around, I’m considering funding some polls that only include the Well-Informed Super Geniuses, assuming they can be found. Wouldn’t you want to know what they think before you try to remove your own appendix, metaphorically speaking?