Hobbits, Hooligans, and Vulcans

Sunday, September 25th, 2016

Jason Brennan divides people into three groups based on their orientation to politics:

“Hobbits,” who are apathetic and ignorant; “Hooligans,” who are engaged but hopelessly biased, convinced that fans of other political teams are “stupid, evil, selfish, or at best, deeply misguided”; and “Vulcans,” who “think scientifically and rationally about politics” and whose “opinions are strongly grounded in social science and philosophy.”

That third group is largely theoretical.

Brennan’s Against Democracy follows “previous libertarian broadsides against democracy,” such as Bryan Caplan’s The Myth of the Rational Voter and Ilya Somin’s Democracy and Political Ignorance.

Comments

  1. Alrenous says:

    Vulcans aren’t theoretical, but something on the order of 3% of the population, so electorally negligible.

  2. Graham says:

    I’m going to assume here that the true definition of “Vulcans” is more like “group of Hooligans who agree with my preferred worldview and therefore are rational according to my own cognitive biases.”

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