Thread by @xenocryptsite

I believe statistically, older people score higher on political knowledge tests than young people, as a whole.

https://twitter.com/NathanTankus/status/1441459168951558144

"As a whole" means, of course, that any individual older person may be very wrong in condescending to any individual younger person.

As would be the case regardless of their respective knowledge levels, of course. Don't be condescending to anyone!

There's also IIRC some interesting papers that say women have lower political knowledge by conventional measures, but possibly higher knowledge of actual government programs they might use.

Or also, women may be more likely to admit they don't know and less willing to guess, which can distort things? I had a thread once.

Here's one paper but I believe it's pretty consistent as a finding. I could be wrong!
mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-…

A lot of people are saying "oh not if you define political knowledge the RIGHT way, the way where demographics that agree with me on average are also more knowledgeable on average". Which, IDK, maybe.

IMO an important part of like maturity is recognizing that there are people who are happier than you, more successful than you, who could run rings around you in any number of general knowledge or ability tests, who also might hold every combination of crackpot or wrong beliefs.

I mean yeah at no point did I say this should give older people any special privileges or anything. It does in practice, though, like it or not, at least since I assume it's related to how they vote more.

https://twitter.com/GhostKollontai/status/1441545364155219975?s=19

I did not say, note, that conservatives score higher than liberals/left-wing people. (I'm with the olds on not caring about that distinction frankly.) IIRC it all evens out maybe because education cuts one way and age cuts the other way.

Do you have this table by party @davidshor or is it just from the CCES.

https://twitter.com/davidshor/status/1441513871911505923?s=19

Yeah relatively even by party and especially by ideology.