Hacker News Reader

Only if all the political parties benefit from people being able to make good judgements. If you have a party that benefits from an uninformed or misinformed public then it's significantly easier to lead them around through fear and lies than it is to govern well. Once they gain power they can reduce education spending, meaning they have more people they can direct more easily. Meaning they can get more power, and repeat the cycle.

View on HN

If this is true in a two party system, would it not be logical to expect that the party that does not want to exploit an ignorant population would be directing significant attention and resources to educate the public while they hold power (and engaging in non-stop rhetoric on the matter at all times), which if all goes well could gain the support of the educated, permanently?

I sometimes wonder if people have somehow been conditioned to not think about this topic with the seriousness it deserves. I wonder, if we were to search through various academic literature about the nature of humans, might we find some theories about how it may be possible to pull something like this off?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com