Joshua Zelinsky says regarding political moderates:
This is interesting. The stereotype is if anything the exact opposite about political moderates. The stereotype is that they are the smart people who can see the shades of gray and who aren't subject to things like belief overkill. This seems to show that if anything the opposite is the case.
A few thoughts:
1) People tend to hang around with people just like them. Joshua seems like a smart person, so I wouldn't be surprised if everyone he knew well was rather smart. Perhaps within the smart set this is exactly why someone is moderate.
2) I think the typical moderate is closer to the undecided voter. Their "wild card" status is a less a function of epistemological caution, and more of plain ignorance so that they do not align their political choices with their norms (assuming they have norms above & beyond beastly needs).
3) I think the last part about norms is important. I suspect that intelligent people, or those predisposed to think in a rational-abstract manner, are more likely to have a coherent set of norms which result in their identification with an organized ideology. A "moderate" stance is not as coherent as conservatism or liberalism because its own position is contingent on the other two, and tends to emerge on a case by case basis. I think that some people certainly become conservative or liberal by making a utilitarian calculation, but I think it is usually much more common to mix one's ideology with one's utility function, so that the state of the world as it is has little effect on ideology. It is in evaluating the state of the world as it is that I think that the cognitive toolkit of the intelligent has yields, but I doubt that the state of the world has much relevance to political orientation (which is more a matter of innate personal & socialization).
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If I had known I wasn't going to get quoted I'd would have cleaned that comment up a bit. I certainly don't look smart using the "if anything" construction twice.
More seriously, your second point is the most intriguing in that it might be testable. If that hypothesis is explaining a large part of the correlation then if we should see a diminished correlation if we look only at people who do well on tests for awareness of current events, world history and similar topics.
Regarding 3, it isn't obvious to me that such issues wouldn't be balanced out by less intelligent people being more tribal. Since a primary tribal identity in the US is our political allegiance that should push less intelligence people farther into the extremes. Also, "liberalism" and "conservatism" in most of their forms as actually manifested and defined aren't coherent ideologies. There's really no single coherent ideology that combines say anti-abortion and large military spending to use two examples on side of the political spectrum.
There is still the rather interesting question of what "moderate" actually means... Kapitano's comment on the linked post identifies one obvious problem, but there is another:
I'm a pretty radical leftist-anarcho-green-type-thingy - there's absolutely no question that I have a strong ideology. However, I also recognise that there is a great deal of scope for legitimate disagreement on such matters (especially once you get into actual policy), and recognise the need to hammer out mutually agreeable compromises. I believe that I'm right, but I'm prepared to subject that belief to a degree of scepticism, and I'm prepared to compromise. Am I a moderate or not?
I question this, because I find ideologues often do not think. They make assumptions based on their ideology and then go about trying to filter evidence that only supports their ideology. I consider myself a moderate. I do not belong to a political party and I am a swing voter. If I view something as pragmatic and see it as having a high likelihood to be effective in the real world then I will support it. I look at each issue.
This is why I am pro-choice, for the legalization of lower level drugs like marijuana (not heroin or cocaine), support stem cell research, am opposed to prayer in school, am fiscally conservative to an extent, support universal health care, tend to be hawkish on foreign policy. I support the death penalty. I also support affirmative action (only programs that give a hand up not ones that push people up the ladder), I am against illegal immigration and would like to see programs put in place that make illegals deport themselves, etc.
I suppose if you weighted my views I would be a moderate Democrat or Republican. I have friends and family that go to the default position of their party ideology or how they were raised and do not closely think about any of these issues and if questioned could not speak specifically about them in an intelligent way, which tells me they really have given no thought to them other than rooting for "home team ideology".
"Moderates" tend to be greedy, selfish, ignorant assholes who like the *sound* of shit like trying to provide a decent life for all American citizens, but where the rubber hits the road, they vote for and otherwise support what they perceive as their own greedy asshole interests and fuck everyone else.
Comrade,
Nice ideological emoting with absolutely no evidence (with a touch of profanity to further weaken any apparent credibility of your claim)...
"Don't speak unless you can improve the silence."
Comrade actually makes a good point.
It's the far ends of the political spectrum that bring about real change (whether bad or good) that socially evolves society.
Moderates are pragmatic people who make it an artform in disguising their selfishess by trying to please everyone. It's just that the far left and the far right are simply the catalysts for change and are more willing to sacrifice for what they believe. God bless the radicals.