[helmsb]

Fun fact: According to famed programmer Brian Kernigan: one day a colleague at Bell Labs was doing textual analysis on *The Federalist Papers* but it was proving challenging due to the full-text of the document being around 1mb—far more memory than most machines at the time.

Kernigan mentioned the dilemma To Ken Thompson—of Unix fame. The next day he came to work with a new program that could quickly find strings in a text document without having to load the entire document into memory. It became known as grep.

[vmilner]

Possibly because I’m not from the US, but the first thing I think of when hearing of the Federalist Papers is Mosteller’s work on deciding the disputed authorship using Bayesian techniques rather than the constitutional significance.

[umanwizard]

> Possibly because I’m not from the US

Indeed, the “federalist papers” are well-known to Americans as the documents being discussed in this article. Most Americans will have studied them in history class in school, or at least heard of them.

[dylan604]

>Most Americans will have studied

Doing some heavy lifting with most there. The Federalist Papers were really only ever mentioned, and nothing close to being studied. That's very similar to saying most christians have studied of the book of Enoch. Some might have heard of the non canonized books, but studied them?

[hoten]

The Federalist Papers were a big chunk of reading materials for my introductory US History course in college. I think it was briefly covered in highschool too (AP classes), but probably no more than an issue or two.

I recognize that still, only barely "most" Americans even go to college, so probably only like a third ever really read any of it.

[Broken_Hippo]

Most people don't take college-level American history courses, even among those that do go to college.

My AP history course was just basic American history with added reading and writing and a big project due near the end, taught using a college textbook. They weren't covered in much more detail, and definitely were not a big chunk of reading materials. Our extra reading included things like Malcolm X, The Grapes of Wrath, and... I can't remember the third. I think I that AP test was my best-scoring, but it has been 20 years so I might be wrong on that.

[oceanplexian]

Most American schools do not teach the federalist papers, or civics at all.

I went to high school in New England, where we at least covered the basics like the Boston Tea Party, Revolutionary War, Constitution Convention, etc. However I only read the Federalist Papers after buying a copy as an adult.

[ajkjk]

They were covered in AP US History, but not the non-AP version.

[poulsbohemian]

You comment is just 12 words long, but speaks volumes as to the problems of these United States. Even AP US History (or its college equivalent) is a fucking joke for how little information it conveys. So we've got a tiny portion of the country walking around with even the most basic understanding of how we got here, with the majority of the population having even less understanding of history, politics, civics being spoon fed an endless stream of propaganda from any source with the ability to publish it, all completely untrained in how to synthesize and interpret.

[ajkjk]

IMO AP US History was really, really good, in terms of how much material it covered. I could scarcely imagine more material being taught in a year-long course for a high schooler. Granted, the material should be more common knowledge, but given that it isn't, mostly I was impressed.

I'm sure you can go deeper on that stuff but , like... we memorized every president and vice president, and what they ran on and what issues they faced, etc; it was _pretty_ comprehensive. To be fair my school taught AP US quite well, I think they had an 100% pass rate. But a high-schooler with no knowledge of the world, economics, labor, culture, science... and especially European history which moves in lockstep with American... can only understand so much. It would take a much more comprehensive (and, arguably, ideological) course to convey the history of the nation in much greater depth than that class did.

[paulddraper]

Even if their contents are not studied, they are well known.

Even more so after the Hamilton musical.

[brightball]

I got into reading history as an adult primarily because of how little I was taught in school (or at least, how little I remembered). History didn’t seem nearly as relevant when I was younger as it does now.

Reading about it now and realizing just how much people know that isn’t accurate or is misleading is shocking.

[arkis22]

the unfortunate reality of America is that the constitution is taught for less than a semester, and then kids take a test on it, and then everyone forgets everything about it the semester after.

they have 0 understanding of any of the theory. and the resulting society we live in is people that don't understand how the rules work. If you don't understand how the rules work then you'll believe anybody who tells you that the game is rigged.

then you end up with idiots arguing with idiots while they all lie about reality.

[brnaftr361]

Yeah, yeah, but if you don't do your due diligence on Supreme Court rulings pertaining to the constitution you don't know how the rules work. And since there isn't a consensus on the living document shit well, it's subject to interpretation - which is a real hazard. Ain't nobody got time for that.

[mbg721]

My "how a bill becomes a law" education didn't cover executive privilege and the delegation of just about everything to alphabet-soup agencies.

[watwut]

> If you don't understand how the rules work then you'll believe anybody who tells you that the game is rigged.

When the game is rigged, the conclusion that it is rigged is correct. Regardless of what was the reasoning hundreds years ago. If you don't understand how the rules work then you'll believe that the game is fair when it is not.

Also, if understanding the rules requires more then a semester, then maybe the rules are overly convoluted. It is not like other countries would had everyone spending years on equivalent stuff.

[dragonwriter]

> the unfortunate reality of America is that the constitution is taught for less than a semester

State standards vary, but IIRC in California it's the central focus of a full semester of civics in each 8th and 12th grades and an important subject within a full year program of American History in 5th and 11th grades; if one participates in ubdergraduate work (as most Americans do), you are likely to have more of it in your gen ed requirements, as well, though the particulars vary even more than state standards for K-12.

[arkis22]

I do recall taking a constitution test in grade school and high school. I would definitely say that they weren't taught for a whole semester. The test was just something that needed to be checked off.

This is also kind of silly. You can be taught something as a kid, you can show them the legal rules, but if the adults around you don't act with respect for the system, why would you bother believing it?

[Fellshard]

If you checked the /content/ of those classes, however, I suspect you would find that it does not actually cover the scope you expect.

[umanwizard]

What country do you think teaches constitutional theory better?

[Dalewyn]

I think it is no coincidence that most socio-economic and political protests are attended almost solely by high school and university students. People (kids, really) who have no clue what they're complaining about because they're in the process of learning the very subject matter they're complaining about, but also very easy to rile up for ulterior motives with the right triggers.

[SllX]

If you want to amass a large group of people to exploit for political gains, targeting people without fully developed impulse control (quite literally one of the last things we develop in our brains in our mid-20s) can be very effective. Fortunately this is also counter-balanced by the natural inclination towards political apathy in young people, so no matter how much time and money people put into “get out the vote” campaigns targeting young people, it almost never moves the needle in elections.

[rjbwork]

Adults also have...shit to do that ain't protest. Like work and worry about paying rent.

[philistine]

The current political malaise in the US is due to your political system. Not ignorance of it.

[UberFly]

I would honestly put it at less that 10% in the US that could tell you what the Federalist Papers are. Sad but true.

[duxup]

> Most Americans will have studied them in history class in school, or at least heard of them.

-

> less that 10% in the US that could tell you what the Federalist Papers are

Both make sense to me. I wonder if I remember even 10% of what I was taught in school…

[genjii931]

I'd put it at less than a tenth of a percent, and even then I'm probably overestimating it.

[manzanarama]

There is probably that many people who have history degrees.

[afavour]

I think at least that many people have seen Hamilton.

[bsenftner]

But of those 10%, a good half of them think of the Federalist Papers like it's a 2nd Bible, with irrational attributions associated with it, like they lost their minds.

[pyuser583]

For most Americans, it’s one of those books we should read, but won’t unless someone makes us.

[SllX]

Strictly speaking it’s not overly necessary. We already adopted the Constitution.

The purpose of the papers was to sell the Constitution to the people of the States to get their States to ratify it. Getting someone to read them will give them a fuller appreciation for a lot of the “why” behind the Constitution, but I would be happier if we could get more people to understand what it is.

[patmorgan23]

But also a lot of the "why" is out of date and has changed in the last 200 years since the constitution was ratified. In that time it's been amended 27 times, the nation went through an extremely bloody civil war and we've seen massive changes in business and technology.

And frankly as a legal document the constitution is a pretty poor one. It's incredibly vague, it doesn't define any of the terms it uses and is incredibly hard to amend. It certainly has served us well in the past but many of our current political strife stems from its deficiencies.

[SllX]

I mean, it is amendable as you pointed out. The root cause of our political strife is probably something no constitution can do anything about because if it could, we could just pass any changes want to make as an amendment.

Well we haven’t amended it in a while, and the most recent one was approved by Congress at the same time as the Bill of Rights (was one of the articles of the Bill of Rights) and ratified by enough States in the 20th century mostly because a guy got a C on a term paper and was understandably pissed because his paper was correct. That’s because at the end of the day when all is said and done, we as a Union have not been convinced that we should amend it again yet, and replacing it would have similar hurdles.

EDIT: Also feel like I should point out the Constitution is clearer than people think it is. Largely disagreements in how to read this or that come down to wanting to read it one way, but not being able to without making in effect a philosophical argument rather than just reading the text. This is not uncommon in the law profession, which is why we have Courts, and Courts can overturn their own precedent and Congress/legislatures can tell them they're wrong by passing a new law.

My favorite example is the 16th amendment:

> The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

This was passed to "clarify" that Congress had this power already, according to Congress; and according to the Supreme Court at the time, they did not. I think the Fuller Court was just wrong on this one because here's what Article I Section 8 (titled "Powers of Congress" but all of Article I covers the legislative power) actually says as it pertains to raising government revenues:

> The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

Note how before the semicolon, they clearly distinguish between Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, but after the semi-colon they list exactly Duties, Imposts, and Excises which shall be uniform throughout the United States. We didn't need the 16th amendment for Congress to collect income tax, but a court thought they did, so they passed an amendment. Congress can do that kind of thing when they want to because they are the most powerful branch of government.

[squokko]

I think you're thinking not of "Most Americans" but "Most well-educated Americans" or perhaps "Most Americans I meet"

[mistrial9]

thirty percent of the high school class of this California coastal area are not able to read at grade level; about ten percent of the population are not fluent in English; a substantial number of the young adults die before the age of thirty; grandchildren by late thirties is not unusual.. who exactly is familiar with this subject?