Polling The Public: An Utter Waste Of Time

Note (Nov 2026): I used to swear a lot more in casual speech. Shortly before my first child was born, I read Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters, which inspired me to clean up my language. I rarely swear now. I left this essay untouched because editing it now would feel disingenuous; this is how my younger self talked.

Generally speaking, ~97% of people are, for lack of a better word, dumb.

97% of people are “don’t get it guys” (and gals) who regurgitate whatever their preferred news station is telling them that night.

97% of people don’t think for themselves.

97% of people don’t think critically.

97% of people don’t think logically.

97% of people allow emotion to control their lives. “Iran? Fuck no our people shouldn’t be in Iran. Bring ’em home.”

While I happen to also hate war and death, I don’t know the first thing about the military and the troops and the potential dangers posed by this country or that. Neither does 97% (more in this case) of the lay public.

So why poll us? Why continually blast that “65% of people disagree with President Obama’s policy of blah blah blah” when I know that 97% of the people polled are insanely uneducated compared to the President and his advisers. On virtually every conceivable topic worth discussing. 

In other words, excuse me if I take the word of a bunch of highly educated bureaucrats over a bunch of clerks and cashiers. (For what it’s worth, I’m not picking on clerks and cashiers, it’s just that over 7 million people work in those two jobs, the top 2 in the country.)

The simple fact of the matter is that while I don’t necessarily like the idea of being controlled by ~545 people, those people are, on average, way way way smarter than the general public. [Sidenote: they are also some of the most sociopathic, deceitful, greedy people on the planet too.] Yet the media conducts polls of the largely uneducated public, and then blasts those results to the public, worsening the problem and creating a cycle of ignorance.

Don’t get caught up in this cycle. Think for your self. Question things you read or hear. Do some basic research. Follow it up with extensive research. Don’t form your opinions based on one thing you read or heard. If something piques your curiosity, get excited about researching it. Read about it. Then read some more. Talk to people who know more about the subject than you, preferably experts if you can find one. Join a forum. Ask questions. Don’t just believe. Know why you believe.