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This is definitely the preference falsification election. Those who know me on HN know that I'm an outspoken proponent of unorthodox ideas. I'm regularly shout

This is definitely the preference falsification election. Those who know me on HN know that I'm an outspoken proponent of unorthodox ideas. I'm regularly shouted down, called racist/evil/etc, downmodded and flagged on HN. I also get a steady stream of private emails: "I wouldn't say this publicly cause of the bullies, but that .gov link with all the data does seem to support you. I think you might be right, I need to rethink my views." These folks very rarely post here - they are afraid of social and perhaps professional approbrium (ala Brendan Eich and Curtis Yarvin). Those folks are engaging preference falsification. Off HN there is a similar manufactured consensus, similar social penalties for expressing the wrong ideas, and similar levels of preference falsification. When pollsters call the preference falsification continues. Apparently in the privacy of a voting booth, people are willing to express their true beliefs. Note: I don't support Trump - search my posting history for "open borders" - but I do understand why folks like him. I don't agree with him on basically any policy, but my visceral emotional reaction to his victory is positive: I love the great big "fuck you" to the biased media sneering at him, calling him racist based on "dog whistles" and then writing hit pieces against Ken Bone (let alone the bullying of folks like Tim Hunt, Brendan Eich and Curtis Yarvin). See also Scott Aaronson who explains this in more detail: http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2777 http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2777

ant6n 10y ago
Regarding the difference between polls and election results: maybe many people are racist, sexist xenophobes and if they tell the preference in public, they get rightfully derided for it. But with the secrecy of the ballot, they can give into their deep desire to kick out the Muslims and the Blacks, kick the females back into the kitchen and make America white again.
- gcp 10y ago
  they get rightfully derided for it Yeah but one could have observed that shouting/bullying down someone because of their beliefs is counterproductive in getting them to reconsider them. It's not like there wasn't any warning to this.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  There are other reasons to support Trump. Being an unorthodox person who they perceived as nonjudgemental, quite a few people have confided in me that they like him. Only one of these people was white, several were female, and none are particularly racist. Reasons I've been told include: - A "fuck you" to the establishment and orthodoxy. - A belief that Hillary is corrupt. - Entertainment value. One Trump voter I know also donated to Hillary in order to get the "Woman Card": https://shop.hillaryclinton.com/products/the-woman-card https://shop.hillaryclinton.com/products/the-woman-card - A support for nationalism and economic populism. - A belief that Trump can do for the country what he did for Wolman skating rink: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/features/2015-09-29/a-1980s-new-york-city-battle-explains-donald-trump-s-candidacy http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/features/2015-09-29/a-1980... (I think Peter Thiel falls into this category.) I know it's tempting to level the worst insult you can think of - raaaciiiissstt - against anyone who disagrees with you. Consider the possibility that this is what allowed Trump to win in the first place.
  - ant6n 10y ago
    I've done a fair bit of arguing with the folks here on HN, it's interesting because it doesn't match the echo chamber I have on twitter or facebook. There seem to be a lot of Trump supporter here, which I find very surprising. This idea keeps coming up again and again that using the word 'racist' in the context of the Trump campaign is essentially name-calling, an insult. The problem is, racism is a big, big, big issue. And Trump is a racist bigot, you simply cannot deny it. That's why people that are described as 'on the left' feel so strongly about him. It's not 'pulling the race card', it's an actual big problem. America has spent 200 years trying to overcome it, and it's still so far behind. The open racism displayed by Trump is the reason why so many people viscerally hate him. Add to it the sexism (and sexual assault), the bullying, and the xenophobia, and the support for him becomes essentially unfathomable for many who consider his attitudes and behaviors completely incompatible with basic democratic values. The article posted calls it smug, the commuter above called it 'not tolerating dissent'. I would call it a zero tolerance policy on racism, sexism, bullying and xenophobia.
    - xupybd 10y ago
- xupybd 10y ago
  This is the issue. People did not vote Trump to satisfy hateful racism and sexism, they voted Trump despite everyone painting them as racist sexist pigs. The other option was so far from what they wanted they had little choice. Please try to understand why people disagree with you, why the majority disagrees with you.
  - ant6n 10y ago
    The problem is, I don't buy it. I don't believe it. I listen to how Trump talks, how Trump supporters talk, all the racism, the sexism, the xenophobia, it's just not right. There's no excuse. It's the beginning of fascism. Btw, I'm German. (I've lived in North America for more than ten years)
    - xupybd 10y ago
      Trumps treatment of women in the past makes my skin crawl, as an individual I think his behavior on that count is despicable. But if I were given the option of Hillary or Trump I'd vote Trump. I might be wrong but I've not heard him say anything that is racist. No doubt there are some that are supporting him because they're racist, that doesn't mean all are. On that note I would love someone to prove me wrong and show me a clear example of Trump actually being racist. I'm a conservative Christian. As a conservative, the left look down on me and assume there is only ignorance fueling my world view. There are issue like abortion, that to me are like the holocaust. I know most don't agree with me on that, and I can understand that they don't see a fetus as a life, I get it. But imagine for a second that you were firmly convinced that a fetus was as much a life as a new born. Things like that will drive you to vote Trump despite hating some of his actions. The left also treats Christians with disdain. You have to get people on side if you want them to vote for you. Not tell them they're idiots. While I don't agree with them some see gun rights as fundamentals to their freedom. You can't just tell these people were going to restrict guns, you have to get them to believe that it's for the best. Not tell them they're idiots. Then call them racist sexist bigots when they don't vote your way. Immigration in the states is not in a good way, having so many people living illegally is not good for anyone. Trump might sound harsh but at least he is willing to tackle the problem (even in a way I'd not go for).
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
scarmig 10y ago
Full disclosure: I'm a Hillary voter, after much internal fretting about voting third party or writing in Obama. Looking at the reactions on my Facebook feed, the large majority of people seem to be taking from this experience the learning that Trump voters are all disgusting misogynistic racist pigs, and America deserves to be damned for its sins against the pro-Clinton media orthodoxy. It's tiring, because in terms of concrete policies, I line up fairly closely with what I imagine Clinton's "true" beliefs to be. But anyone who mentions anything against the progressive catechism is evil. If you even misprioritize items on the agenda, you become evil. And everyone with actual power seems to be in on this train out to condemn the bad think--academia, the media, corporate management, you name it. Even now I worry about this comment being tracked to my real identity and facing professional repercussions because of implying that the bad think can sometimes be reasonable. My hope is that this loss forces left activists to re-evaluate how they treat dissent.
- rorykoehler 10y ago
  Obama is a huge part of why this happened. He promised change and delivered empire.
  - scarmig 10y ago
    Eh, I do have plenty of foreign policy disagreements in particular with him. But he's the best we've had in living memory. Liberalism has had a smug aspect as long as I've been alive, but at this point that aspect has metastasized to something worse. The norms that have developed are toxic to progressive movements. They certainly alienate people, but beyond that they make it so you don't even have the institutional capacity to understand or formulate policies relevant to those people. It's a perverse version of the situation people thought Republicans were in in 2012, where they seemed to have driven out most non-white people and thereby lacked the capacity for effective outreach to them. Except in this case, if you're a poor white male in Wisconsin who's done everything right but is still struggling like hell, you're an evil oppressor who just doesn't recognize your privilege. People who can understand where the poor white male perspective is coming from are literally shouted out of discussions for diverting attention from the people uniquely experiencing True Suffering and blessed with progressive sainthood. It's beyond Obama. Who, for what it's worth, has always struck me as the thoughtful type who wouldn't buy into those kinds of fake dichotomies. It's a broader issue with progressive movements where people earn cred by honing their sensitivities enough to maximize the level of offense they can experience.
cronjobber 10y ago
> This is definitely the preference falsification election. I agree. In fact, the point at which I started to think that Trump could win was Hillary's "Basket of Deplorables" blunder. It was a blunder because the way she phrased it, she put far too many in that basket. Paradoxically, because people believed what she said —that there are many Deplorables— she might have initiated the very preference cascade that cost her the election.
- ScottBurson 10y ago
  It was a terrible blunder, that might have cost her the election, and not because of the number of people she put in the basket. It was a blunder because she called people deplorable. Had she talked about deplorable attitudes, she would have been on firm ground. I hope it doesn't sound like a fine distinction, because it isn't. I voted for her; I am terrified of Trump -- rightly or wrongly, we'll now find out; but I knew this was a bad, bad mistake when she made it, right up there with Mitt Romney's infamous "47%" comment. And yes, in my opinion, Trump made a lot more serious mistakes. But I am not totally surprised that a majority of Americans don't seem to agree with me.
  - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
    I don't think the election was about mistakes. It was about loathing for both candidates. Turns out the loathing for Hillary was higher. I should qualify that. Trump, for all his negatives, had people who genuinely agreed with him. He also had a bunch of "not really for Trump, but I am sick to death of Hillary and her scandals and her Machiavellian machinations" voters. Hillary had a bunch of "good heavens, not Trump" voters, some "female in office, therefore has to be good voters", and not all that many "really love her positions" voters.
- humanrebar 10y ago
  Or, you know, she could have apologized for some of the things people were upset about with respect to the interminable lying and weasel wording.
- emless 10y ago
gadders 10y ago
A similar thing happened with Brexit, and the last UK General Election. Right-leaning voters just can't be bothered to identify themselves and get involved in debates about it. They just vote.
- Nursie 10y ago
  The thing about the UK situation that most worries me is the smug left trying to grasp at any way they can to overturn the referendum result or undermine subsequent action. There seems to be the idea that of we just keep ignoring and denigrating hard enough then the morons will be safely put back in their box and we can go on as before. It never occurs to them that that would just make everything even worse in the long run, that now is the time to understand and compromise. They still seek absolute victory. The article could just as well have been written about the UK.
  - foldr 10y ago
    The thing is that the only alternative to putting the morons back in their box appears to be letting the morons run the country. Sometimes public opinion really is just wrong, and there is no easy way forward when that happens.
    - Nursie 10y ago
      I think that attitude sums up the problem nicely. Anyone that disagrees with my take on this issue is a moron. I disagree fundamentally - if you stop regarding the 'other side' as 'other', as stupid, as meritless, and start to consider their opinions when making policy, well we might make progress.
      - foldr 10y ago
        >Anyone that disagrees with my take on this issue is a moron. It's wrong to think that everyone who disagrees with you on anything is a moron. It's also wrong to deny the existence of morons who occasionally do moronic things. I mean, we are talking about a group of people who held a referendum, knowing that the vote would be close, and then didn't even have a plan for what to do afterwards. The country is in chaos and the leaders of the Brexit brigade have all sodded off, having absolutely no idea what to do next. We did consider the opinions of Brexit supporters. Their concerns were taken seriously. The Conservative government went overboard in its attempts to reduce migration and negotiate a more favorable deal with Europe. They really couldn't have done any more without doing something outright ridiculous. But that wasn't enough. So the public insisted that they do something ridiculous.
rbehrends 10y ago
> When pollsters call the preference falsification continues. I don't buy this. Sam Wang had projected Clinton winning the popular vote by 4.0% (+/- .6%). She's currently projected to win the popular vote by about 1% (the Electoral College margin is an artifact of the electoral system and unrelated to voting preferences). That means that maybe 1 in 60 Americans voted differently from what the polls predicted. So, while the margin of error relative to the margin of victory [1] was pretty big, the margin of error relative to the electorate was fairly small. It doesn't seem that a whole lot of people were hiding their actual preferences prior to the election. [1] "Victory" only in the narrow mathematical sense of winning the national popular vote, obviously.
- gcp 10y ago
  the margin of error relative to the electorate was fairly small But was it fairly small in statistical significance? A polling error of 3% is likely big enough to confirm a consistent and very significant bias. It's like throwing a coin and getting 52000 heads and 48000 tails. "Only" a 4% error, but sure as hell evidence your coin is biased.
  - rbehrends 10y ago
    Obviously, it's a bit of a black eye for the pollsters. But it does not reveal that a huge number of voters hid their preferences, which is what the original comment was about; if anything, it indicates the opposite.
  - nostrademons 10y ago
    Typical political polls have a margin of error of between 3-5%. You'd expect to see to see a 3% miss roughly 5% of the time. What's perplexing to me is that the 3% error occurred in a polling average of dozens, perhaps hundreds of polls. If it were just one poll, a 3% miss is quite within the realm of possibility. But in this case it was a range of polls that centered on Clinton +4% and itself had a roughly Gaussian distribution between Trump +2% and Clinton +10%. This makes me wonder if the polling samples were themselves not independent, or some other form of systematic bias amongst mainstream pollsters.
usmeteora 10y ago
I actually agree with you in some cases here. I'm not a huge fan of Hillary. However, as a young women working in technology and male dominated environments, it's really hard for me to believe the pathological sexism isnt a fundamentally limiting component in making everything better. I don't believe women should get free rides and everything should be equal overnight. I'm not a man hater. I know many educated male programmers I work with who agree both work and college culture and the products made in technology would be better if there were an equal gender ratio in the workforce. As a woman who has been spoken to in previous workplaces the way Trump has spoken poorly of women, it's too much for me to overlook. It may seem like a one off issue for intelligent men who are (and you should) looking at all the contributing components, not just focusing on the pieces targeted media ads bring to light, but to me its a fundamental component for economic and technology depressions that women are not making money and contributing to technological advances and product creation geared for the masses. It's fundamentally hypocritical to be a proponent for economic growth and treat 3.5 billion people in the population as potential girlfriends instead of opportunity for economic growth beyond buying diamonds on TV (the business his ex supermodel wife has).
- saiya-jin 10y ago
  there's not much to disagree on, you are completely right and I am sorry if you encountered any of this low idiotic approach before. I presume we come from very different places (me from eastern Europe, currently in Switzerland). I've never ever seen any negative bias or behavior discussed towards women neither in engineering school, nor in any of the numerous job in my 12 year career. In uni, out of 120 students graduating in IT, there was exactly 1 woman. She was in the center of attention, the teachers were more tolerant to her during exams (not giving free passes though!) and overall she was cherished and very welcomed. While working, women were/are a bit more common now, and again there is more positive bias towards them rather than equality. Not complaining, far from it, it's refreshing to see slightly different attitude at some times, and more often than not, there is no difference. To me it seems the whole time tech jobs are just not that interesting to women, too abstract, work too nerdy and who knows what. This seems to be changing, hopefully the trend will continue. Nothing to lose, just gain for all of us.
pron 10y ago
> Apparently in the privacy of a voting booth, people are willing to express their true beliefs. It appears that Trump won because of working-class people in the Rust Belt, who repeatedly got the short end of the stick by the neoliberal policy of both parties. Democrats should have had their backs, but they'd abandoned them, instead, serving the "professional meritocracy". He did not win because of spoiled, well-off contrarians on the coasts. I'd like to believe that this election was decided by people who have really suffered the devastating consequences of being economically marginalized (also, relatively old), not by tech dudes who were offended they'd been called sexist on Twitter. Presenting this election as a contest between anti-PC gamergaters and safe-space college girls is not only wrong, but suffers from the same blindness of the elites that Clinton suffers from. If it were the true story, then it would be far too depressing to think that the elites are so obsessed with themselves that they are unable to take anything seriously. Fortunately, this is not what happened because Trump's voters are too old to belong to either group. But if it were the true story, then Trump is exactly what both groups deserve. > I love the great big "fuck you" to the biased media You know something? Me too. This is the same media that shot down Sanders. But I feel sorry for those contrarians who voted for him just for this "fuck you". He's going to be their president, too. But I'm not sorry for them for that; fortunately for them, they're probably well-cushioned enough to not suffer any direct consequences that are too severe. I'm sorry for them because their empathy is so lacking that they don't mind the real harm done to real people by their lol-spite decision (even though that's probably not what directly handed Trump the victory). The ray of hope I see in this outcome is that maybe the American "liberals" Clinton represented would realize how much their empathy towards the victims of neoliberal capitalism was lacking, too. > sneering at him, calling him racist That's because he is racist and/or certainly doesn't mind the association, although I don't see what this has to do with anything. Xenophobia was his overt battle-cry, no dog-whistles needed, and he enjoyed endorsements by people who would have been offended not to be called racist. It is clear that Trump believed that being labelled a racist would only help his chances. He certainly enjoyed and invited the sneers. If there is one thing Trump has shown himself to be good at, it is manipulating the media to a sort of symbiotic relationship. But if anything, he is a product of the media, not its victim. > called racist Wait, what? I thought you liked to present yourself as a male- and white-supremacist of the long, proud scientific racism tradition. You have repeatedly expressed a belief that men and whites are innately superior to women and people of other races in many qualities that you value (oh, sorry, you believe Asians and Ashkenazi Jewish men are naturally superior to whites). I always figured that you enjoyed bathing in the air of "unorthodoxy" and contrarianism by pretending to hold those views. You can't both identify as racist to appear unorthodox and at the same time present yourself as a victim of your own show. Pick one.

ant6n 10y ago

Regarding the difference between polls and election results: maybe many people are racist, sexist xenophobes and if they tell the preference in public, they get rightfully derided for it. But with the secrecy of the ballot, they can give into their deep desire to kick out the Muslims and the Blacks, kick the females back into the kitchen and make America white again.

gcp 10y ago
they get rightfully derided for it Yeah but one could have observed that shouting/bullying down someone because of their beliefs is counterproductive in getting them to reconsider them. It's not like there wasn't any warning to this.
yummyfajitas 10y ago
There are other reasons to support Trump. Being an unorthodox person who they perceived as nonjudgemental, quite a few people have confided in me that they like him. Only one of these people was white, several were female, and none are particularly racist. Reasons I've been told include: - A "fuck you" to the establishment and orthodoxy. - A belief that Hillary is corrupt. - Entertainment value. One Trump voter I know also donated to Hillary in order to get the "Woman Card": https://shop.hillaryclinton.com/products/the-woman-card https://shop.hillaryclinton.com/products/the-woman-card - A support for nationalism and economic populism. - A belief that Trump can do for the country what he did for Wolman skating rink: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/features/2015-09-29/a-1980s-new-york-city-battle-explains-donald-trump-s-candidacy http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/features/2015-09-29/a-1980... (I think Peter Thiel falls into this category.) I know it's tempting to level the worst insult you can think of - raaaciiiissstt - against anyone who disagrees with you. Consider the possibility that this is what allowed Trump to win in the first place.
- ant6n 10y ago
  I've done a fair bit of arguing with the folks here on HN, it's interesting because it doesn't match the echo chamber I have on twitter or facebook. There seem to be a lot of Trump supporter here, which I find very surprising. This idea keeps coming up again and again that using the word 'racist' in the context of the Trump campaign is essentially name-calling, an insult. The problem is, racism is a big, big, big issue. And Trump is a racist bigot, you simply cannot deny it. That's why people that are described as 'on the left' feel so strongly about him. It's not 'pulling the race card', it's an actual big problem. America has spent 200 years trying to overcome it, and it's still so far behind. The open racism displayed by Trump is the reason why so many people viscerally hate him. Add to it the sexism (and sexual assault), the bullying, and the xenophobia, and the support for him becomes essentially unfathomable for many who consider his attitudes and behaviors completely incompatible with basic democratic values. The article posted calls it smug, the commuter above called it 'not tolerating dissent'. I would call it a zero tolerance policy on racism, sexism, bullying and xenophobia.
  - xupybd 10y ago
xupybd 10y ago
This is the issue. People did not vote Trump to satisfy hateful racism and sexism, they voted Trump despite everyone painting them as racist sexist pigs. The other option was so far from what they wanted they had little choice. Please try to understand why people disagree with you, why the majority disagrees with you.
- ant6n 10y ago
  The problem is, I don't buy it. I don't believe it. I listen to how Trump talks, how Trump supporters talk, all the racism, the sexism, the xenophobia, it's just not right. There's no excuse. It's the beginning of fascism. Btw, I'm German. (I've lived in North America for more than ten years)
  - xupybd 10y ago
    Trumps treatment of women in the past makes my skin crawl, as an individual I think his behavior on that count is despicable. But if I were given the option of Hillary or Trump I'd vote Trump. I might be wrong but I've not heard him say anything that is racist. No doubt there are some that are supporting him because they're racist, that doesn't mean all are. On that note I would love someone to prove me wrong and show me a clear example of Trump actually being racist. I'm a conservative Christian. As a conservative, the left look down on me and assume there is only ignorance fueling my world view. There are issue like abortion, that to me are like the holocaust. I know most don't agree with me on that, and I can understand that they don't see a fetus as a life, I get it. But imagine for a second that you were firmly convinced that a fetus was as much a life as a new born. Things like that will drive you to vote Trump despite hating some of his actions. The left also treats Christians with disdain. You have to get people on side if you want them to vote for you. Not tell them they're idiots. While I don't agree with them some see gun rights as fundamentals to their freedom. You can't just tell these people were going to restrict guns, you have to get them to believe that it's for the best. Not tell them they're idiots. Then call them racist sexist bigots when they don't vote your way. Immigration in the states is not in a good way, having so many people living illegally is not good for anyone. Trump might sound harsh but at least he is willing to tackle the problem (even in a way I'd not go for).
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

scarmig 10y ago

Full disclosure: I'm a Hillary voter, after much internal fretting about voting third party or writing in Obama. Looking at the reactions on my Facebook feed, the large majority of people seem to be taking from this experience the learning that Trump voters are all disgusting misogynistic racist pigs, and America deserves to be damned for its sins against the pro-Clinton media orthodoxy. It's tiring, because in terms of concrete policies, I line up fairly closely with what I imagine Clinton's "true" beliefs to be. But anyone who mentions anything against the progressive catechism is evil. If you even misprioritize items on the agenda, you become evil. And everyone with actual power seems to be in on this train out to condemn the bad think--academia, the media, corporate management, you name it. Even now I worry about this comment being tracked to my real identity and facing professional repercussions because of implying that the bad think can sometimes be reasonable. My hope is that this loss forces left activists to re-evaluate how they treat dissent.

rorykoehler 10y ago
Obama is a huge part of why this happened. He promised change and delivered empire.
- scarmig 10y ago
  Eh, I do have plenty of foreign policy disagreements in particular with him. But he's the best we've had in living memory. Liberalism has had a smug aspect as long as I've been alive, but at this point that aspect has metastasized to something worse. The norms that have developed are toxic to progressive movements. They certainly alienate people, but beyond that they make it so you don't even have the institutional capacity to understand or formulate policies relevant to those people. It's a perverse version of the situation people thought Republicans were in in 2012, where they seemed to have driven out most non-white people and thereby lacked the capacity for effective outreach to them. Except in this case, if you're a poor white male in Wisconsin who's done everything right but is still struggling like hell, you're an evil oppressor who just doesn't recognize your privilege. People who can understand where the poor white male perspective is coming from are literally shouted out of discussions for diverting attention from the people uniquely experiencing True Suffering and blessed with progressive sainthood. It's beyond Obama. Who, for what it's worth, has always struck me as the thoughtful type who wouldn't buy into those kinds of fake dichotomies. It's a broader issue with progressive movements where people earn cred by honing their sensitivities enough to maximize the level of offense they can experience.

cronjobber 10y ago

> This is definitely the preference falsification election. I agree. In fact, the point at which I started to think that Trump could win was Hillary's "Basket of Deplorables" blunder. It was a blunder because the way she phrased it, she put far too many in that basket. Paradoxically, because people believed what she said —that there are many Deplorables— she might have initiated the very preference cascade that cost her the election.

ScottBurson 10y ago
It was a terrible blunder, that might have cost her the election, and not because of the number of people she put in the basket. It was a blunder because she called people deplorable. Had she talked about deplorable attitudes, she would have been on firm ground. I hope it doesn't sound like a fine distinction, because it isn't. I voted for her; I am terrified of Trump -- rightly or wrongly, we'll now find out; but I knew this was a bad, bad mistake when she made it, right up there with Mitt Romney's infamous "47%" comment. And yes, in my opinion, Trump made a lot more serious mistakes. But I am not totally surprised that a majority of Americans don't seem to agree with me.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  I don't think the election was about mistakes. It was about loathing for both candidates. Turns out the loathing for Hillary was higher. I should qualify that. Trump, for all his negatives, had people who genuinely agreed with him. He also had a bunch of "not really for Trump, but I am sick to death of Hillary and her scandals and her Machiavellian machinations" voters. Hillary had a bunch of "good heavens, not Trump" voters, some "female in office, therefore has to be good voters", and not all that many "really love her positions" voters.
humanrebar 10y ago
Or, you know, she could have apologized for some of the things people were upset about with respect to the interminable lying and weasel wording.
emless 10y ago

gadders 10y ago

A similar thing happened with Brexit, and the last UK General Election. Right-leaning voters just can't be bothered to identify themselves and get involved in debates about it. They just vote.

Nursie 10y ago
The thing about the UK situation that most worries me is the smug left trying to grasp at any way they can to overturn the referendum result or undermine subsequent action. There seems to be the idea that of we just keep ignoring and denigrating hard enough then the morons will be safely put back in their box and we can go on as before. It never occurs to them that that would just make everything even worse in the long run, that now is the time to understand and compromise. They still seek absolute victory. The article could just as well have been written about the UK.
- foldr 10y ago
  The thing is that the only alternative to putting the morons back in their box appears to be letting the morons run the country. Sometimes public opinion really is just wrong, and there is no easy way forward when that happens.
  - Nursie 10y ago
    I think that attitude sums up the problem nicely. Anyone that disagrees with my take on this issue is a moron. I disagree fundamentally - if you stop regarding the 'other side' as 'other', as stupid, as meritless, and start to consider their opinions when making policy, well we might make progress.
    - foldr 10y ago
      >Anyone that disagrees with my take on this issue is a moron. It's wrong to think that everyone who disagrees with you on anything is a moron. It's also wrong to deny the existence of morons who occasionally do moronic things. I mean, we are talking about a group of people who held a referendum, knowing that the vote would be close, and then didn't even have a plan for what to do afterwards. The country is in chaos and the leaders of the Brexit brigade have all sodded off, having absolutely no idea what to do next. We did consider the opinions of Brexit supporters. Their concerns were taken seriously. The Conservative government went overboard in its attempts to reduce migration and negotiate a more favorable deal with Europe. They really couldn't have done any more without doing something outright ridiculous. But that wasn't enough. So the public insisted that they do something ridiculous.

rbehrends 10y ago

> When pollsters call the preference falsification continues. I don't buy this. Sam Wang had projected Clinton winning the popular vote by 4.0% (+/- .6%). She's currently projected to win the popular vote by about 1% (the Electoral College margin is an artifact of the electoral system and unrelated to voting preferences). That means that maybe 1 in 60 Americans voted differently from what the polls predicted. So, while the margin of error relative to the margin of victory [1] was pretty big, the margin of error relative to the electorate was fairly small. It doesn't seem that a whole lot of people were hiding their actual preferences prior to the election. [1] "Victory" only in the narrow mathematical sense of winning the national popular vote, obviously.

gcp 10y ago
the margin of error relative to the electorate was fairly small But was it fairly small in statistical significance? A polling error of 3% is likely big enough to confirm a consistent and very significant bias. It's like throwing a coin and getting 52000 heads and 48000 tails. "Only" a 4% error, but sure as hell evidence your coin is biased.
- rbehrends 10y ago
  Obviously, it's a bit of a black eye for the pollsters. But it does not reveal that a huge number of voters hid their preferences, which is what the original comment was about; if anything, it indicates the opposite.
- nostrademons 10y ago
  Typical political polls have a margin of error of between 3-5%. You'd expect to see to see a 3% miss roughly 5% of the time. What's perplexing to me is that the 3% error occurred in a polling average of dozens, perhaps hundreds of polls. If it were just one poll, a 3% miss is quite within the realm of possibility. But in this case it was a range of polls that centered on Clinton +4% and itself had a roughly Gaussian distribution between Trump +2% and Clinton +10%. This makes me wonder if the polling samples were themselves not independent, or some other form of systematic bias amongst mainstream pollsters.

usmeteora 10y ago

I actually agree with you in some cases here. I'm not a huge fan of Hillary. However, as a young women working in technology and male dominated environments, it's really hard for me to believe the pathological sexism isnt a fundamentally limiting component in making everything better. I don't believe women should get free rides and everything should be equal overnight. I'm not a man hater. I know many educated male programmers I work with who agree both work and college culture and the products made in technology would be better if there were an equal gender ratio in the workforce. As a woman who has been spoken to in previous workplaces the way Trump has spoken poorly of women, it's too much for me to overlook. It may seem like a one off issue for intelligent men who are (and you should) looking at all the contributing components, not just focusing on the pieces targeted media ads bring to light, but to me its a fundamental component for economic and technology depressions that women are not making money and contributing to technological advances and product creation geared for the masses. It's fundamentally hypocritical to be a proponent for economic growth and treat 3.5 billion people in the population as potential girlfriends instead of opportunity for economic growth beyond buying diamonds on TV (the business his ex supermodel wife has).

saiya-jin 10y ago
there's not much to disagree on, you are completely right and I am sorry if you encountered any of this low idiotic approach before. I presume we come from very different places (me from eastern Europe, currently in Switzerland). I've never ever seen any negative bias or behavior discussed towards women neither in engineering school, nor in any of the numerous job in my 12 year career. In uni, out of 120 students graduating in IT, there was exactly 1 woman. She was in the center of attention, the teachers were more tolerant to her during exams (not giving free passes though!) and overall she was cherished and very welcomed. While working, women were/are a bit more common now, and again there is more positive bias towards them rather than equality. Not complaining, far from it, it's refreshing to see slightly different attitude at some times, and more often than not, there is no difference. To me it seems the whole time tech jobs are just not that interesting to women, too abstract, work too nerdy and who knows what. This seems to be changing, hopefully the trend will continue. Nothing to lose, just gain for all of us.

pron 10y ago

> Apparently in the privacy of a voting booth, people are willing to express their true beliefs. It appears that Trump won because of working-class people in the Rust Belt, who repeatedly got the short end of the stick by the neoliberal policy of both parties. Democrats should have had their backs, but they'd abandoned them, instead, serving the "professional meritocracy". He did not win because of spoiled, well-off contrarians on the coasts. I'd like to believe that this election was decided by people who have really suffered the devastating consequences of being economically marginalized (also, relatively old), not by tech dudes who were offended they'd been called sexist on Twitter. Presenting this election as a contest between anti-PC gamergaters and safe-space college girls is not only wrong, but suffers from the same blindness of the elites that Clinton suffers from. If it were the true story, then it would be far too depressing to think that the elites are so obsessed with themselves that they are unable to take anything seriously. Fortunately, this is not what happened because Trump's voters are too old to belong to either group. But if it were the true story, then Trump is exactly what both groups deserve. > I love the great big "fuck you" to the biased media You know something? Me too. This is the same media that shot down Sanders. But I feel sorry for those contrarians who voted for him just for this "fuck you". He's going to be their president, too. But I'm not sorry for them for that; fortunately for them, they're probably well-cushioned enough to not suffer any direct consequences that are too severe. I'm sorry for them because their empathy is so lacking that they don't mind the real harm done to real people by their lol-spite decision (even though that's probably not what directly handed Trump the victory). The ray of hope I see in this outcome is that maybe the American "liberals" Clinton represented would realize how much their empathy towards the victims of neoliberal capitalism was lacking, too. > sneering at him, calling him racist That's because he is racist and/or certainly doesn't mind the association, although I don't see what this has to do with anything. Xenophobia was his overt battle-cry, no dog-whistles needed, and he enjoyed endorsements by people who would have been offended not to be called racist. It is clear that Trump believed that being labelled a racist would only help his chances. He certainly enjoyed and invited the sneers. If there is one thing Trump has shown himself to be good at, it is manipulating the media to a sort of symbiotic relationship. But if anything, he is a product of the media, not its victim. > called racist Wait, what? I thought you liked to present yourself as a male- and white-supremacist of the long, proud scientific racism tradition. You have repeatedly expressed a belief that men and whites are innately superior to women and people of other races in many qualities that you value (oh, sorry, you believe Asians and Ashkenazi Jewish men are naturally superior to whites). I always figured that you enjoyed bathing in the air of "unorthodoxy" and contrarianism by pretending to hold those views. You can't both identify as racist to appear unorthodox and at the same time present yourself as a victim of your own show. Pick one.