I'm British, but it's hard not to be aware of American stuff due to Reddit / Lemmy, movies, books, games, etc.
Are the 3 branches of govt.:
House of representatives, Senate, and judiciary?
We have house of commons, house of lords, and judiciary.
First is elected, second is a mix of hereditary and nominated by govt I believe. Third is appointed by govt I guess.
Edit: looks like I got the branches wrong, see next reply.
Looks like we both have the same 3 branches, but I was wrong in thinking the house of commons and lords were 2 of those branches.
In a perhaps slightly simplistic overview:
Legislative - debates and decides the laws.
Executive - executes or implements these laws in policy decisions (assigning funds to public bodies etc, setting mission statements)
Judicial - interprets the implementation of laws when needed (e.g. edge cases)
Executive, Legislature and Judiciary. In the UK, the executive comprises the Crown and the Government, including the Prime Minister and Cabinet ministers. The legislature; Parliament, comprises the Crown, the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
Also seems like the UK independence of legislature and executive branch is up to debate -https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers_in_the_United_Kingdom
We don't have any hereditary government positions in the United States. That is antihesis to our overall ideology. Everything else you said is wrong too, but you figured that out already. You were close on some things though. Not bad for someone who doesn't live here.
Sorry, yes I was slightly unclear in my response. (I've moved the paragraph to make it clearer)
The House of Lords in the UK is a mix of hereditary and life time peers nominated by the govt.
The House of Lords has limited powers (I think can veto or suggest amendments to a bill only once before the house of commons can force it through) and it is a archaic institution that we have kept, I guess it adds an extra check or balance to the elected representatives.
This will be an incredibly dated reference, but back in the '80s there was a comic who would ask the crowd who the black girl in The Facts of Life (TV show) was and there'd be a chorus of people yelling "Tudy! Tudy! Tudy!" Then he'd ask who the secretary of defense was.
Not a damn clue. And I would argue that it's not a terribly important thing for your average American to know, either. Just because I'm curious, I'll look it up...
I didn't know either lol. I've also never heard of Lloyd Austin. For that matter, I'm not sure who was secretary of defense during Facts of Life's run - "Casper Weinberger" comes to mind for some reason.
Very good, he was '81 to '87! And I've actually heard of him, although only because his name was in Bloom County. The others that it could conceivably have been are Harold Brown and Frank Carlucci, but it was probably Weinberger when this question was asked.
Bloom County was so good. I can only hope that Berkeley Breathed hasn't become a rightwing crackpot cunt like so many of the other cartoonists from his era. I'm genuinely afraid to look it up.
When I enlisted in the US Army they made us memorize our chain of command all the way up to the Commander in Chief (POTAS). I still remember who was in charge back then, but I didn't know who the current Secretary of Defense was until you told me just now. It's weird, because that used to be something most of us citizens knew, but over the last 6 years everything has gone so fucky that we can't seem to keep track of everything any more. I blame it on the very intentional firehose of falsehood that is aimed directly at each of us every single day now.
I looked at the list of past Secretaries of Defense and aside from Caspar Weinberger, who I mentioned in another comment, I only recognize Robert McNamara (from the infamy of Vietnam), Donald Rumsfeld (from the infamy of Dubya), and Dick Cheney - surprisingly, I remember his name from before he was VP.
Honestly it's kinda impressive that more than half of Americans have read a book in the last 12 months. I mean I read a book, but that's just so I have an answer in case anyone asks if I've read any books lately.
I also hate "reading a book" as a proxy metric for intelligence. I know plenty of cultured smart people who watch documentaries but don't read. And I know some dense, not that bright people who read a lot of Twilight style books.
Reading Twilight demonstrates the ability to focus on a task for a long time, which is more that can be said for people watching documentaries (I watch a lot of them).
Sure. but there are plenty of reasons to not read other than "uneducated". And associating ability to focus with intelligence and education isn't fair either.
If an American couldn't tell me how many states there are, I would question their intelligence or education.
If an American told me that they don't read books, I would just assume they find books boring.
That's kind of why the founding fathers of the United States decided to go with a representative republic and not an outright democracy. That's also why only land owners could vote for a period of time. They had no faith in the commoners, and we're seeing more every day that their lack of faith was well founded. Back then your chances of being educated were much higher if you were a rich land owner, so they put their faith in that, rather than giving the uneducated masses collaborative control over the government.
Wow. What a myopic view. You need to know your history so it isn't repeated, and the reason for the Gettysburg Address, and it's continuing legacy in our country, is very appropriate to our current situation.
Knowing the significance of the Gettysburg Address and remembering who read it are two different things. I can't recite the first amendment, but I know in summary it's free speech. I could probably guess but not say definitively who signed it, and for the most part, it doesn't matter. If I need to know that, I'll look it up, but the contents of the document itself it what matters. I have an okay general view of history, which is enough to not repeat it. I don't need to remember the specifics and neither do most people.
Without that knowledge, you can't make intelligent decisions when faced with new situations and you won't always have time to look something up.
That lack of basic understanding is why many of AI engineers and scientists believe, the current models won't ever become really intelligent and won't stop hallucinating.
Of course it's debatable when knowledge stops to be basic but I'd count most of the things mentioned in the comic among them.
In 2024, 79% of adults in the United States are literate, while 21% are illiterate. This puts the US in 36th place for literacy. Other literacy statistics for the US include:
54% of adults have a literacy level below 6th grade
20% of adults have a literacy level below 5th grade
34% of adults who lack literacy proficiency were born outside the US
More than 70% of inmates in US prisons can't read above a 4th grade level
Children of illiterate parents have a 72% chance of being illiterate as adults
Edit: you all in the replies are dead set on proving these statistics true, aren't you? Bless your hearts.
At first I laughed. Then I just got kinda sad. Are we doomed to be collectively held back by a significant portion of the population with a poor education or is it possible to lift everyone?
Historically, there have been moments of very rapid literacy, so just to answer the question - is it possible?, yes. The question is more of when does literacy become relevant o everyday life, if the literature is made relevant then people will learn. This is even true on a smaller scale in the classroom, even with all the challenges of education
I really don't think genetics have much to do with the current populations' intelligence compared to many generations prior. There's simply not been enough time evolutionarily speaking to make a difference I would say. Basically all of recorded history is a blip when considering evolution on a longer time scale.
Education and a stable, fruitful upbringing is what makes smart people if you ask me.
But I'm mostly basing this on a gut feeling or a hunch, not really anything rigorous.
60% of the time, our pillaged, underfunded public education system works every time.
Also, on a serious note, it's against the capitalist's interests to have a well informed society capable of critical thinking and true understanding of how badly they're being fucked by big capital. An ignorant populace is a compliant, controllable, easy fo manipulate populace.
That's why the owners never send their kids to their livestock's schools that they spent years defunding into today's ruins. Well, that and they don't want their kids to inadvertently develop... barf...empathy or comradery with their future cattle herd.
In conjunction with this, I fully believe that Big Capital are the ones that are absolutely pushing the abortion bans, by proxy of "religion". Sure, there's niche groups that support it, but that money is coming from SIGNIFICANTLY RICH people pushing that shit through.
They want uneducated people. They absolutely want an uneducated labor class as people are cheap.
