I disagree. That is like saying that an educated citizen must:

* have an informed opinion on current Emission standards

* be able to change oil on their own car

* could describe how a 4-stroke engine works

Replace the computer with a car and you will see that what you consider basic knowledge is not basic to most people. They rely on experts for advice, opinion, and guidance.

People often forget, but educating the masses is a challenge that was discussed in length by the Founding Fathers of America as being a cornerstone of a successful democracy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers

Education of the masses was believed to be instrumental to avoiding tyranny of the majority which was a very real concern (especially since so many Founding Fathers came to America escaping religious prosecution as the minority faith). It's my personal belief that the difficulty in achieving "sufficient" widespread education ultimately shaped the decision to model America's self-governance after a Republic with non-elected checks and balances (included non-elected ones e.g. Judicial) rather than a more direct/representative democracy.

The pseudo-perversion of the Electoral College leading to highly correlated Executive Branch elections with the popular vote I think undermines this system and heightens the education requirement of the average citizen.

Also, on a side note, the lack of perfect information has significant effects on Economic systems leading to market externalities.

Briefly intrigued as a sidenote: How many of the Founding Fathers themselves came to America as religious refugees?

Of the 145 people who, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Fathers_of_the_United... were signatories of the Continental Association, Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, or US constitution, 14 were born outside of the British-American Colonies. Of these, 6 seem to have clearly immigrated for reasons (business, military or education) other than religious persecution. I only see evidence of one (Daniel Roberdeau, whose father was a Huguenot living in the West Indies) having had religious persecution as a recent proximal cause of immigration to the Americas. The rest are unclear, although it seems that a few of the Presbyterian Scots might have had religious reasons for immigrating.

So, short answer, if anybody else cares, virtually none (1-5%) of America's founding fathers immigrated due to persecution as a minority faith.

Perhaps, but the strong religious motivations for the early colonies is well documented. [1]

> Many of the British North American colonies that eventually formed the United States of America were settled in the seventeenth century by men and women, who, in the face of European persecution, refused to compromise passionately held religious convictions and fled Europe.

Even from the article you link quotes a wide range of religious beliefs:

> Of the 55 delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, 28 were Church of England (or Episcopalian, after the American Revolutionary War was won), 21 were Protestants, and two were Roman Catholics (D. Carroll, and Fitzsimons).[19] Among the Protestant delegates to the Constitutional Convention, eight were Presbyterians, seven were Congregationalists, two were Lutherans, two were Dutch Reformed, and two were Methodists.

And of special note most of the prominent Founding Fathers most Americans would recognize were either anti-clerical Christians or not specifically Christian or Deists:

> A few prominent Founding Fathers were anti-clerical Christians such as Thomas Jefferson,[20][21][22] who constructed the Jefferson Bible, and Benjamin Franklin.

> Historian Gregg L. Frazer argues that the leading Founders (Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Wilson, Morris, Madison, Hamilton, and Washington) were neither Christians nor Deists, but rather supporters of a hybrid "theistic rationalism".

So it may have been poor wording on my part, but I don't think it unfair to consider religious freedom an important consideration for the Founding Fathers.

[1] https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html

> So it may have been poor wording on my part, but I don't think it unfair to consider religious freedom an important consideration for the Founding Fathers.

For sure, and I didn't mean to be correcting you, I was just pondering what seemed like a sort of historical elision of "move to the new world to practice religion freely" and "founding fathers creating the USA" when the former predated the latter by more than a century.

I like to try to grapple with timescales as a way to understand history, so finding conclusions like "the vast majority of the founders and framers were born in the colonies" (and, in many cases, from prominent families that had been in the colonies for generations) are interesting to me.

An interesting distinction here: jkaptur says that an educated citizen "can", which I interpret as meaning that such a citizen possesses the ability to do or figure out how to do the thing, independently of whether they currently know it. This is different than your "must", which takes it a step further and defines things everyone should know.

I think an educated citizen should know how to, if they so desired, have an informed opinion on anything, whether it's current emission standards or the NSA's definition of collecting information. That citizen should be able to research and learn how to change the oil on their car, or to learn how a 4-stroke engine works.

Call me a nerd, but I'd call all of your points a pretty basic requirements for a citizen of a technological civilization.

Failing that, we end up with lot of crazy beliefs about the world that people wouldn't have if they hadn't forgotten 99% of stuff they spent learning in high school.

Why does someone need to know how to change the oil in their car, or how a 4-stroke engine works? The information is readily available if you should ever need it, but what's wrong with paying someone who does know that stuff?

Not having a basic understanding of how internal combustion engines work means not understanding one of the linchpins of our civilization as it is today.

I'm not saying you shouldn't be using third-party services - professional specialization is another linchpin of our civilization. All I'm saying is that people should understand these things, in order to have a chance of comprehending the world they live in.

Imagine someone unable to read - they lose access to an important source of information. Lacking basic computer literacy is similar - they lose access to news, modern encyclopedias, research, political announcements, etc. Those resources are critical to being an educated citizen and being able to participate in the democratic process meaningfully.

An educated driver may not be able to explain in technical detail how an engine works, but they can explain the basic rules of the road and understand that a car needs oil, gas and basic maintenance. They likely have a basic understanding of what a modern combustion engine is (it takes in oil and gas to produce rotational energy) and understand that emission standards exist and that they have to follow them to some extent (they can't dump oil in their backyard).

basic computer literacy != learning to code

Computer science != learning to code

You don't think the educated citizen should have an informed opinion on current emission standards? Your second two examples rely on specific facts or techniques, which I don't think mine do. For example, I didn't say that the person be able to write the script to check all those URLs, just be able to identify it as a task that an expert could easily do.

Citizens don't need to be educated, they need to listen to people that are. The problem lately (possibly always) is that the information exchange is being intercepted by special interests.

The educated are themselves special interests, even if not paid by external sources

And too close a following to the "educated" leads to the rise of your special interests; if it wasn't possible to turn the minds of many by using only a few, there wouldn't be anything worth intercepting

The trouble, i think, is that we assume the educated are educated, when they are not, and the educated are sincere, when they are not, and the educated are made of higher moral fiber, when they most certainly are not.