Good point, maybe the idea works better in theory than practice. Haha

You mean tests that were designed to ensure that only "the right people" were able to pass them. As well as a grandfather clause that exempted all of those right people (in modern times there would likely be a voter roll purge that would somehow lose most liberal voters while miraculously keeping all of the conservative ones).

“Educated” does not equal intelligent, and it certainly does not imply broad intelligence. You can train a relatively stupid human being to do all kinds of stuff and if you’ve ever worked with people with degrees you know what little value they carry.

I went to college and have white collar career and my family is largely university educated. I worked with structural engineers at my last job and half them were just barely able to do their jobs with the worst ones being the senior people. Elsewhere in the world there have been anti-vax doctors and nurses, psychotic therapists, and theologians who have read the bible who still do all the horrible things they definitely know are bullshit. I bet nearly half the people here on Lemmy know a software developer or three who shouldn’t ever touch a computer. People with degrees are more likely to be more intelligent but, especially while living in a world where they’re basically expected, that’s really just not a guarantee.

Yup. Same in the States.

People are fundamentally selfish; sometimes, that selfishness extends to their family, and rarely, to their immediate community. But rarely will people vote for something that has a direct negative impact on their own interests but which benefits the majority. Smart, educated, dumb, ignorant; the tendency is toward selfishness.

Education and intelligence influences empathy, and can impart greater long-term thinking, but it doesn't guarantee it. As stupid as we may believe Bezos and Musk to be, they're clearly educated, and act selfishly, like the majority of the 1%.

Are they very educated then?

Even if you assumed the test successfully filtered out an educated voterbase

"Educated" is already doing some heavy lifting. What education are you demanding voters possess?

Because I've had an earful about "Marxist Professors corrupting our youth!" for my entire life. I doubt conservatives would consider any kind of liberal exam a legitimate test of voting aptitude.

Meanwhile, there's enough jingoism and nationalism in our education system already, such that I could see an exam question "Which religious extremist sect was responsible for 9/11? Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists" or "Is an individual with XY chromosomes a man or a woman?" that's a bit... loaded? Especially when administered right before a national election.

Candidates being all garbage is exactly what you'd expect when they're just pawns for the people actually running the government (i.e. owners of big corporations).

Since they're shit, they're not popular and can't achieve much on their own. When they're not useful anymore they can be blamed and replaced by the next puppet.

Of course they're also shit, exactly because they're in the pocket of the very wealthy. In the US it seems even impossible to gain any significant position without their blessing.