Interesting implication that those 30% didn't even need a specific reason to bomb the city. Apparently it just being Arab was already enough in their mind? (Unless there was additional context in the question that the article was missing out)
> research designed to 'tease out prejudice among those who didn't understand the question'
The purported aim of the research:
> designed to explore the bias and prejudice of poll respondents.
And the research was from:
> Civic Science, an American market research company
The research worked as intended.
Its not bigotry nor is it clever. It’s just word play.
I feel like we need more data. It is possible that people just saying "No" because they don't know what they are, so assume that they aren't important. What if they asked about "Italian numerals", "Turkish numerals" or "Turtle Numerals"?
Way outside India's sphere
None of those are real things. "Arabic numerals" are a fundamental concept that, at one point, were quite clearly taught in schools.
> It is possible that people just saying "No" because they don't know what they are, so assume that they aren't important.
So your argument is that these people aren't bigoted, they're just incredibly stupid?
It sort of feels like this survey was hunting to find evidence of bigotry and pushed for that narrative. I think it is important that we don't just spin the stories we want out of crappy evidence.
Cancel that man, immediately! /s
The truth of it is most people are too dull and/or ignorant to vote, but we have to let them because the alternative ends up being even worse.
The ugly truth is that too much democracy always leads to populist dictators. And social media makes manufacturing consent way too easy.
One way around political parties, career corrupt politicians, and charismatic mass murderers is sortition. Directly elect a common legislative body who then set a minimal standard of qualifications for a very large pool of potentual upper echelon public administrators. From these, every X years, say 2 to 4, some people are chosen by lottery to run things. Divide up power a great deal more and never let the rich be in-charge of everything. It's purposefully not anarchistically "democratic" to avoid entire categories of problems that waste energy, treasure, lives, and effort on unmoored, fantastical political factionism will never solve, nor will any temporarily apparently balanced countervailing political status quo. It is utopian and naive to give everyone direct or semi-direct control because people will vote for what is cruel or popular rather than fairest or long-term essential. I'd rather have some semi-disinterested random person like a recently retired airline pilot or an accountant without bought alliances dig into big decisions with data, stakeholder input, and structured decision support.
Another thing: People who propose theoretical systems for governance seem to have a weird fondness of lotteries. I can't really understand it.
Yes, it may be "just" in a mathematical or statistical sense, but it's also maximally intransparent (it's literally impossible to predict who will be chosen, that's the entire idea), so people may view the outcomes as unfair or arbitrary.
It's also easy to manipulate: The people who operate the lottery would be in the best position to become the new power brokers.
Has there ever been any real-life political system that uses lotteries?
