Post by Arlon10 on Sept 6, 2017 15:56:34 GMT
In a very interesting thread recently about lying, the issue of the validity of discussion board identities became included.
From its beginnings there have been various attempts to use the internet as a very rapid and accurate meter of public opinion as is not possible otherwise. Unfortuitously, most of the attempts are quite amateur. It simply is not possible to assemble a representative sample with open participation web sites.
In order for a sample to be truly representative of some larger group or population the participants must be selected using scientific methods that avoid various biases inherent in open participation. For example in open participation the people who feel offended will likely participate at a far higher rate than people who do not feel offended. A scientific poll will approach those unperturbed people itself. There are quite many other problems with open participation as it can get very complicated.
Notice that the accurate polls you see in professional news do not allow open participation.
Another problem with open participation hashing of issues is the identity of the participants. Anonymity has disadvantages in that people will say things to discredit others believing there can be no consequences to the accuser. Perhaps that explains why people here attempt to discredit me, while people elsewhere do not.
Curiously enough anonymity can have also advantages in the hashing out of issues and especially in the actual voting. There is a good reason people vote behind a curtain. That removes the pressures that might be present from parties with differing opinions and perhaps even hostile intent. The software here for polls does not record who voted what, however if people watch carefully how the vote changes as the replies come in they might guess. They could be wrong, there might be a coincidence of a reply and vote that are not from the same person.
In the anonymous hashing out of issues people do lie, what they say can nevertheless be useful information. You at least know what they are trying say and you wouldn't know that otherwise. You can get a more thorough examination. You know that there are people who would like to discredit me. You know what sort of arguments, if any, they believe discredit me. You wouldn't know that otherwise. Of course more data is not always better data and considerable critical analysis is required to get the accurate picture. That is true in most of life though. People need to take personal responsibility, and too many of them obviously do not want to do that.
One way to get a truly representative sample of a population is to poll every individual with rights to it. This accuracy obviously comes at the expense of much slower speed since people are not going to their government polling stations more than a few times per year. Why not poll every individual in the population using computers? Perhaps in some distant future that will be possible. It is not possible today because although most people do have some kind of internet access, it costs so much that some people do not. Then too, with all the various internet providers and types of internet they provide, it is not possible to police the participation in polls as certainly as at the government polling stations.
Trying to develop a web site that can serve as a sole guide to the "correct" opinions and decisions is therefore not going to happen any time soon. Of course you should consider what is available on the internet, but you need to critically analyze it and understand its dubious sources.
But wait! There's more! Even if you could poll every individual accurately, that doesn't mean they know what they're talking about. That's why even the highly accurate government polls are not accepted in every case. Some votes are found to be "unconstitutional." Then too, many sensible people recognize that putting everything to a majority vote means farmers telling fishermen how to fish and fishermen telling farmers how to farm and so on and on and that makes no sense at all. That's one of the best arguments for a limited government.
From its beginnings there have been various attempts to use the internet as a very rapid and accurate meter of public opinion as is not possible otherwise. Unfortuitously, most of the attempts are quite amateur. It simply is not possible to assemble a representative sample with open participation web sites.
In order for a sample to be truly representative of some larger group or population the participants must be selected using scientific methods that avoid various biases inherent in open participation. For example in open participation the people who feel offended will likely participate at a far higher rate than people who do not feel offended. A scientific poll will approach those unperturbed people itself. There are quite many other problems with open participation as it can get very complicated.
Notice that the accurate polls you see in professional news do not allow open participation.
Another problem with open participation hashing of issues is the identity of the participants. Anonymity has disadvantages in that people will say things to discredit others believing there can be no consequences to the accuser. Perhaps that explains why people here attempt to discredit me, while people elsewhere do not.
Curiously enough anonymity can have also advantages in the hashing out of issues and especially in the actual voting. There is a good reason people vote behind a curtain. That removes the pressures that might be present from parties with differing opinions and perhaps even hostile intent. The software here for polls does not record who voted what, however if people watch carefully how the vote changes as the replies come in they might guess. They could be wrong, there might be a coincidence of a reply and vote that are not from the same person.
In the anonymous hashing out of issues people do lie, what they say can nevertheless be useful information. You at least know what they are trying say and you wouldn't know that otherwise. You can get a more thorough examination. You know that there are people who would like to discredit me. You know what sort of arguments, if any, they believe discredit me. You wouldn't know that otherwise. Of course more data is not always better data and considerable critical analysis is required to get the accurate picture. That is true in most of life though. People need to take personal responsibility, and too many of them obviously do not want to do that.
One way to get a truly representative sample of a population is to poll every individual with rights to it. This accuracy obviously comes at the expense of much slower speed since people are not going to their government polling stations more than a few times per year. Why not poll every individual in the population using computers? Perhaps in some distant future that will be possible. It is not possible today because although most people do have some kind of internet access, it costs so much that some people do not. Then too, with all the various internet providers and types of internet they provide, it is not possible to police the participation in polls as certainly as at the government polling stations.
Trying to develop a web site that can serve as a sole guide to the "correct" opinions and decisions is therefore not going to happen any time soon. Of course you should consider what is available on the internet, but you need to critically analyze it and understand its dubious sources.
But wait! There's more! Even if you could poll every individual accurately, that doesn't mean they know what they're talking about. That's why even the highly accurate government polls are not accepted in every case. Some votes are found to be "unconstitutional." Then too, many sensible people recognize that putting everything to a majority vote means farmers telling fishermen how to fish and fishermen telling farmers how to farm and so on and on and that makes no sense at all. That's one of the best arguments for a limited government.
