One of the prerequisites for launching a military intervention in someplace like Ukraine is to figure out exactly where Ukraine actually is. So you can see what the problem is going to be here…
Some folks think it’s somewhere around Missouri:
Other folks think it’s in Australia:
And others think it’s in the middle of the ocean:
For all the hits, you’ll need to check out the Washington Post, who nicely show us how accurate over 2,000 Americans were at locating Ukraine, when quizzed by researchers from Dartmouth, Harvard, and Princeton.
It is gratifying that it seems that while some people obviously need to recalibrate their arses and elbows, a decent number were reasonably correct, broadly speaking, in their responses.
What is less gratifying is the correlation the researchers found between people’s accuracy and their willingness to invade Ukraine. It was statistically significant. And inverse.
That’s right: the less accurate people were in knowing where Ukraine actually was, the more willing they were to nuke the hell out of the place.
You know, sometimes democracy really does keeps me awake at night…
Brian Hughes is an academic psychologist and university professor in Galway, Ireland, specialising in stress, health, and the application of psychology to social issues. He writes widely on the psychology of empiricism and of empirically disputable claims, especially as they pertain to science, health, medicine, and politics.