Homo Imbecilicus

by Devin Ray Freeman


It's business as usual for humans to keep on doing something blitheringly idiotic for generation after generation. If folks even think, they think "everybody does it that way" of their methods, and of knowledge "everyone should know that by now," and seek not. They point to history for examples of customary idiocy, enthralled with humanity and immersed in the self-satisfaction that we've arrived at maturity and wisdom in our own time. They react condescendingly to anybody who elucidates the fact that the 21st Century is rife with conventional knowledge and methodologies that are steadfastly and growingly imbecilic.

I invite you to elucidate with an example of ongoing human imbecilicism.
I'll give one example myself. Here I'll not elaborate, but illustrate in brief.

The much vaunted "democracy" word is worse than bereft. It gets drubbed routinely and mercilessly. People continue to vote for only one, even when there're more than two choices. This is positively imbecilic. If it's a methodology for arriving at two pseudofactions you seek, seek no further.

Better ways to go about voting are more than a few and there are many worse ways too, partly depending on just what you're trying to do. Generally, we'd all be far better off on a five-star voting method. Just rate each choice on a scale of 0 to 5 (0 to 10 if you want half-stars) or some other number of increments. It's called Range Voting.

Or, if you want to keep it as simple as possible, just rate each on a scale from 0 to 1. That's called Approval Voting. Just vote up or down for each choice. This miniscule change from the standard method would be a huge improvement. Here's why. The simpler the better. What's the simplest way too vote? Folks think it's the current method. It's not. The current method is correctly stated as "Choose one of the ones you want." That's fine if between two, but if there're more it's not fine. It's a world of trouble. The simplest is "Choose the ones you want." That's Approval Voting.

If a kindergarten teacher were to try to determine the most popular color in class, how would that be done? "Hey kids. What's your favorite color? Not all at once. Let's vote! Blue? Raise your hand! Red? ..." And on through the rainbow and neutral colors. Now then, does the teacher count the total marks on the chalkboard, and if it exceeds the number of children, reject the results, insist on only one vote per student and start over? No. The picture of true preferences is already on the board, because the kids voted for the ones they like, not one of the ones they like. That's how simple.

So self-enthralled is Homo Imbecilicus that we can't even figure that one out.

by Devin Ray Freeman, 2020, the twenty first year of the century of new lows, September 30th