2020 Elections

[mahagonny]

I notice also  that rioting has been getting popular. What's popular isn't necessarily what I like.

I don't know what poll you're looking at. This one says 70% of Americans believe BLM has not improved race relations.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/poll-70-percent-of-americans-think-black-lives-matter-has-not-improved-race-relations/

[Sun_Worshiper]

I notice also  that rioting has been getting popular. What's popular isn't necessarily what I like.

I don't know what poll you're looking at. This one says 70% of Americans believe BLM has not improved race relations.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/poll-70-percent-of-americans-think-black-lives-matter-has-not-improved-race-relations/

Rioting is getting popular? I'd love to know which poll you are referring to there.

Here's are several articles, each reporting on a different poll showing that Americans generally support BLM:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/black-lives-matter-police-reform-opinion-poll-28-06-2020/
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/18/politics/protests-polling-support-movement-policies-kaiser-quinnipiac/index.html
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/10/upshot/black-lives-matter-attitudes.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2020/07/21/americans-support-blmbut-slight-majority-opposes-police-defunding-and-removing-confederate-statues-poll-finds/#4c1de31d46a9

[mahagonny]

How many of those polled are either

1. Police who were injured trying to control crowds
2. People whose residence is where the rioting is going on
3. People whose place of  business has been vandalized or looted

It may turn out that time is not your friend with campaigns like this one. Maybe at some point people say 'all right you've made your point. We get it. Now go home and get a life already.'

Time will tell. It's fun to speculate.

[permanent imposter]

It's striking how few people are on the fence this time around. Or maybe those who are just keep quiet. I wouldn't blame them, if so.

There are perhaps twenty actual racists in the country.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/20/us/hate-groups-rise.html -- more than twenty I'd reckon.

[mahagonny]

If I have a beer with my neighbor and it turns out we both dislike the same third neighbor, are we a hate group?

Offhand, I'd say we hate each other at record levels this year.

(Confession: did not read the article. I am not a subscriber.)

[kaysixteen]

"vaiid survey design", "prospect theory/ loss aversion"-- where are such concepts usually taught, and how does one with no background in these things evaluate polls, etc, which may or may not be taking such concepts into account, and how, further, can one learn these things, without, ahem, enrolling in a college course where they might be taught?  Truth be told, i have never heard of 'prospect theory', and probably could only guess as to what it means, or why/ how its inclusion into a poll might help said poll's accuracy, but I am more than willing to be corrected, esp since I do know that polls can be and often are deliberately skewed in order to produce results desired by the pollsters and/ or their funders (anyone recall the wonderful scene in 'Yes, Prime Minister', where Sir Humphrey explains to Bernard how this can be done?)?

[spork]

Prospect theory is basically the foundation of behavioral economics.

Susan Collins' re-election campaign screws up again:

https://www.salon.com/2020/08/01/susan-collins-ads-seem-to-feature-ordinary-people--but-dont-reveal-their-ties-to-maine-gop/.

[Puget]

"vaiid survey design", "prospect theory/ loss aversion"-- where are such concepts usually taught, and how does one with no background in these things evaluate polls, etc, which may or may not be taking such concepts into account, and how, further, can one learn these things, without, ahem, enrolling in a college course where they might be taught?  Truth be told, i have never heard of 'prospect theory', and probably could only guess as to what it means, or why/ how its inclusion into a poll might help said poll's accuracy, but I am more than willing to be corrected, esp since I do know that polls can be and often are deliberately skewed in order to produce results desired by the pollsters and/ or their funders (anyone recall the wonderful scene in 'Yes, Prime Minister', where Sir Humphrey explains to Bernard how this can be done?)?

If you want a general popular science introduction to concepts from behavioral economics (psychologists get a bit miffed by this term because it's really just cognitive psychology with some economics language), I'd suggest the book Nudge by Sunstein and Thaler or Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (psychologist who won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his pioneering behavioral economics work, including loss aversion).

If you want smart modeling and data journalism about politics, you can't do better than FiveThirtyEight (http://fivethirtyeight.com). They also have a weekly politics podcast with a recurring "good use of polling/bad use of polling" feature that is quite educational.

[spork]

"vaiid survey design", "prospect theory/ loss aversion"-- where are such concepts usually taught, and how does one with no background in these things evaluate polls, etc, which may or may not be taking such concepts into account, and how, further, can one learn these things, without, ahem, enrolling in a college course where they might be taught?  Truth be told, i have never heard of 'prospect theory', and probably could only guess as to what it means, or why/ how its inclusion into a poll might help said poll's accuracy, but I am more than willing to be corrected, esp since I do know that polls can be and often are deliberately skewed in order to produce results desired by the pollsters and/ or their funders (anyone recall the wonderful scene in 'Yes, Prime Minister', where Sir Humphrey explains to Bernard how this can be done?)?

If you want a general popular science introduction to concepts from behavioral economics (psychologists get a bit miffed by this term because it's really just cognitive psychology with some economics language), I'd suggest the book Nudge by Sunstein and Thaler or Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (psychologist who won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his pioneering behavioral economics work, including loss aversion).

If you want smart modeling and data journalism about politics, you can't do better than FiveThirtyEight (http://fivethirtyeight.com). They also have a weekly politics podcast with a recurring "good use of polling/bad use of polling" feature that is quite educational.

In addition to the books above, I can recommend Thaler's Misbehaving (part autobiography, part history of the field) and Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational.

When it comes to survey design, questions can be constructed to deliberately play upon respondents' cognitive biases and thereby skew the results. E.g., "When polled, nine out of ten people say they believe there is evidence that Hillary Clinton is running a child sex trafficking ring from a pizza parlor in Washington, DC. Would you vote for a candidate other than Hillary Clinton?"

Related: for the election in 2016, surveys were indicating that Hillary Clinton had something like an 80% chance of winning (I can't remember what the exact figure was, using 80% as an example). Unfamiliarity with probability led many to conclude "Clinton will win by a ratio of 4:1" not "if this election was repeated many times under the same conditions, Trump would win on average 1 out of every 5 times."

I am still predicting that Collins will lose in Maine. I think it's in the loss column for the Republicans in the U.S. Senate.

[writingprof]

It's striking how few people are on the fence this time around. Or maybe those who are just keep quiet. I wouldn't blame them, if so.

There are perhaps twenty actual racists in the country.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/20/us/hate-groups-rise.html -- more than twenty I'd reckon.

Are you seriously citing the Southern Poverty Law Center as a legitimate source?  Even the Left acknowledges that the SPLC are ridiculous frauds.  Here's a fine take-down in Current Affairs.  Feel free to skip to the section entitled "Focusing on the Wrong Thing."

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/03/the-southern-poverty-law-center-is-everything-thats-wrong-with-liberalism

[jimbogumbo]

This is a great course from the University of Washington. I just investigated the links in the syllabus. https://www.callingbullshit.org/syllabus.html

[permanent imposter]

It's striking how few people are on the fence this time around. Or maybe those who are just keep quiet. I wouldn't blame them, if so.

There are perhaps twenty actual racists in the country.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/20/us/hate-groups-rise.html -- more than twenty I'd reckon.

Are you seriously citing the Southern Poverty Law Center as a legitimate source?  Even the Left acknowledges that the SPLC are ridiculous frauds.  Here's a fine take-down in Current Affairs.  Feel free to skip to the section entitled "Focusing on the Wrong Thing."

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/03/the-southern-poverty-law-center-is-everything-thats-wrong-with-liberalism

This was educational, thank you. Though broadly I still trust NYT, so I trusted them in this case to do their due diligence.

However, I still think you are grossly underestimating the amount of hatred and racism that still exist in this country (and elsewhere). Just spend any amount of time on the internet.

[polly_mer]

New Mexico currently has a 'fun' race in the second congressional district, which includes NMSU for those following that discussion, https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/new-mexico/articles/2020-08-26/us-house-hopefuls-in-new-mexico-race-unload-dueling-gun-ads

This is the Democrat ad: https://youtu.be/tC0NOl9k5yE
This is the Republican ad: https://youtu.be/Y9GxAboRua0

[nebo113]

It's striking how few people are on the fence this time around. Or maybe those who are just keep quiet. I wouldn't blame them, if so.

There are perhaps twenty actual racists in the country.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/20/us/hate-groups-rise.html -- more than twenty I'd reckon.

Are you seriously citing the Southern Poverty Law Center as a legitimate source?  Even the Left acknowledges that the SPLC are ridiculous frauds.  Here's a fine take-down in Current Affairs.  Feel free to skip to the section entitled "Focusing on the Wrong Thing."

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/03/the-southern-poverty-law-center-is-everything-thats-wrong-with-liberalism

This was educational, thank you. Though broadly I still trust NYT, so I trusted them in this case to do their due diligence.

However, I still think you are grossly underestimating the amount of hatred and racism that still exist in this country (and elsewhere). Just spend any amount of time on the internet.

YES!

[marshwiggle]

This was educational, thank you. Though broadly I still trust NYT, so I trusted them in this case to do their due diligence.

However, I still think you are grossly underestimating the amount of hatred and racism that still exist in this country (and elsewhere). Just spend any amount of time on the internet.

YES!

This is a bit misleading. It's well-documented that electronic communication, especially with some level of anonymity, makes people express themselves much more aggressively than they would in person.  As an example, it's amazing how much attention the media give to Twitter, which is far from representative of what the majority of people think.

It's almost like evaluating people by their actions in a bar; their actions under the influence of alcohol are not a good proxy for how they will act under normal circumstances.