4 ms·

Interesting finding. One of the problems with voting is that there is no incentive or a very small incentive to choose the candidate with the best policies, bec

Interesting finding. One of the problems with voting is that there is no incentive or a very small incentive to choose the candidate with the best policies, because the chance of your vote making a difference is so small. Therefore people vote for a candidate that makes them feel good, rather than a competent one. This is arguably the cause of many bad policies. Caplan discusses this issue in his book 'The Myth of the Rational Voter' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter

philh 10y ago
Counterpoint: http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/rational_final7.pdf http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/rati... This paper argues that voting for social reasons ("this result will benefit society") is sensible even in large elections. The value depends on the percent turnout, but not on population size.
- throwaway729 10y ago
  Voting theory models rational actors, not actual people. Interestingly, fontback's hypothesis is exactly how they modeled the choice, with a financial incentive plus some "psychological incentive"
  - philh 10y ago
    "there is no incentive or a very small incentive to choose the candidate with the best policies, because the chance of your vote making a difference is so small" is a theoretical argument about rational actors, not an observation about actual people. The paper I linked argues that it doesn't hold. It also argues that there's some real-world evidence that people vote for social reasons.
    - scarmig 10y ago
      Regardless of how a person votes, they're voting for a feel-good reason. Some people's identity gives them pleasure in voting for the candidate that rationally maximizes the Good, for some subjective measure of the good. These are the 'social preferences' Gellman talks about. Some people's identity gives them pleasure in the tribe, and they want to vote for the people like them and around them to fit in, especially so they won't be confused with the Enemy. Pretty much everyone has both tendencies, which are inherently in tension. This is cognitive dissonance. People don't like experiencing this, so they end up choosing to believe both in tribal politics and that their tribe is the rational one, which is the most convenient way to cut that Gordian knot. Now, we can debate which tribe is more rational. I think currently in the USA the blue tribe has more people motivated by the desire to be seen as rational. Then again, we'd also predict that's what everyone thinks. So probably that debate wouldn't be productive. This experiment is useful because it tells us that money is a very useful way to cut through the bullshit of tribal beliefs. It also might give us hints as to how to design our electoral system to tend toward more rational options.
      - bmelton 10y ago
        > Pretty much everyone has both tendencies, which are inherently in tension. This is cognitive dissonance. People don't like experiencing this, so they end up choosing to believe both in tribal politics and that their tribe is the rational one, which is the most convenient way to cut that Gordian knot. And in addition, the more and more fiercely we tribally associate, the less and less we want to do with the other tribes. This has gone to the extent that certain fields of employment, or even fields of science are largely owned on tribal lines. Conservatives largely outnumber liberals in fields like agriculture, while liberals dominate social sciences. This sounds fine, but peer review demands cultural diversity as well, or our own cognitive bias imparts blind-spots on the work. The only fix for those blind spots is cultural diversity, and the only way people can be happy with that cultural diversity is to re-tie their Gordian knots and learn to accept other people as other people, and not the devil monsters we tend to equate them as today.
        iainmerrick 10y ago
        Both you and the previous commenter seem to be talking about the polarization of politics as if it's an inevitable feature of human social interaction. But I think that's a little overly simplistic. The current extreme polarization in the US is new and fairly unusual, in historical terms. It could be an inevitable phase that other counties will reach too, or it could just be a random artifact of the US's history and political system. Very few countries have a voting system that locks in the main two parties as strongly as the US, for example. The idea that all politics is purely about tribal identity, and that "rationality" is a myth, would seem to suggest that we've never made any real social advances. But I'd count things like the outlawing of slavery as advances. It reminds me of the extreme view of social structures in science (which Thomas Kuhn subscribed to, if I remember right), that all scientific "advances" and "revolutions" are just changes in fashion as one generation of scientists succeeds another. But each advance does in fact get us closer to the truth, even if we never quite reach it.
  - sandworm101 10y ago
    But when two sides are acting from different facts, different understandings of the world, both can reach different conclusions while still being rational. If you truly believe that one candidate is a lizard-person, the rational thing is to vote against them. When everyone you know and trust also believes in lizard-people, and you are unable to test for yourself, the rational person also believes. The answer to the problem is accuracy in facts, a wider dissemination of reality. The rest will follow.
- BurningFrog 10y ago
  I think that agrees with Caplan. People vote for what they think is good for society, rather than personal gain. The problem (according to Caplan) is that voters don't learn how society works and how different policies would affect it. So they support policies that sound good to the uninformed. And here we are :)
  - knz 10y ago
    > So they support policies that sound good to the uninformed. And here we are :) It's too simplistic to put the entire blame on voters - I don't think the US has a monopoly on "low information"/uninformed/apathetic voters when compared to other OECD nations. Surely different social expectations on the issues squeezing the middle class (health/child/education costs), a different (more partisan?) media landscape, geographic size, a polarized judicial system (who weigh in on the "culture wars", campaign financing, war against drugs etc), and deeply entrenched financial interests have some significant influence upon our elected officials.
    - BurningFrog 10y ago
      Nobody is blaming voters. Their ignorance is entirely rational. The cost of becoming an expert in society, economics, etc is vastly bigger than the benefit you can expect to get out of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_ignorance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_ignorance
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
humanrebar 10y ago
> ...because the chance of your vote making a difference is so small. ...in national elections. Federal systems are designed with this in mind. In recent decades, more and more issues have become national issues, which erodes the influence of the individual voter. And, on top of that, if the power of the vote is ineffective, you can always move in a federal system. So the erosion of choice is compounded.
- jessriedel 10y ago
  It really applies at all levels save perhaps very small town municipal elections. Whether the probability of influencing the election is 1 in 10M or 1 in 1M (or 1 in 100k) is all pretty much zero when multiplied by the change in benefits you could expect to receive.
  - cookiecaper 10y ago
    Votes aren't worth more in more local elections, but activism certainly is. A few highly influential advocates out of a pool of 100k voters could be the difference between win and loss. Big organizations are the only entities that can compete on a national scale, but your actions absolutely can matter more locally. That's a strong reason to favor more local government, IMO.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
mongmong 10y ago
Your comment made me remember this article which I think nailed your point http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/11/10/the-dance-of-the-dunces-trump-clinton-election-republican-democrat/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/11/10/the-dance-of-the-dunces-...

philh 10y ago

Counterpoint: http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/rational_final7.pdf http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/rati... This paper argues that voting for social reasons ("this result will benefit society") is sensible even in large elections. The value depends on the percent turnout, but not on population size.

throwaway729 10y ago
Voting theory models rational actors, not actual people. Interestingly, fontback's hypothesis is exactly how they modeled the choice, with a financial incentive plus some "psychological incentive"
- philh 10y ago
  "there is no incentive or a very small incentive to choose the candidate with the best policies, because the chance of your vote making a difference is so small" is a theoretical argument about rational actors, not an observation about actual people. The paper I linked argues that it doesn't hold. It also argues that there's some real-world evidence that people vote for social reasons.
  - scarmig 10y ago
    Regardless of how a person votes, they're voting for a feel-good reason. Some people's identity gives them pleasure in voting for the candidate that rationally maximizes the Good, for some subjective measure of the good. These are the 'social preferences' Gellman talks about. Some people's identity gives them pleasure in the tribe, and they want to vote for the people like them and around them to fit in, especially so they won't be confused with the Enemy. Pretty much everyone has both tendencies, which are inherently in tension. This is cognitive dissonance. People don't like experiencing this, so they end up choosing to believe both in tribal politics and that their tribe is the rational one, which is the most convenient way to cut that Gordian knot. Now, we can debate which tribe is more rational. I think currently in the USA the blue tribe has more people motivated by the desire to be seen as rational. Then again, we'd also predict that's what everyone thinks. So probably that debate wouldn't be productive. This experiment is useful because it tells us that money is a very useful way to cut through the bullshit of tribal beliefs. It also might give us hints as to how to design our electoral system to tend toward more rational options.
    - bmelton 10y ago
      > Pretty much everyone has both tendencies, which are inherently in tension. This is cognitive dissonance. People don't like experiencing this, so they end up choosing to believe both in tribal politics and that their tribe is the rational one, which is the most convenient way to cut that Gordian knot. And in addition, the more and more fiercely we tribally associate, the less and less we want to do with the other tribes. This has gone to the extent that certain fields of employment, or even fields of science are largely owned on tribal lines. Conservatives largely outnumber liberals in fields like agriculture, while liberals dominate social sciences. This sounds fine, but peer review demands cultural diversity as well, or our own cognitive bias imparts blind-spots on the work. The only fix for those blind spots is cultural diversity, and the only way people can be happy with that cultural diversity is to re-tie their Gordian knots and learn to accept other people as other people, and not the devil monsters we tend to equate them as today.
      - iainmerrick 10y ago
        Both you and the previous commenter seem to be talking about the polarization of politics as if it's an inevitable feature of human social interaction. But I think that's a little overly simplistic. The current extreme polarization in the US is new and fairly unusual, in historical terms. It could be an inevitable phase that other counties will reach too, or it could just be a random artifact of the US's history and political system. Very few countries have a voting system that locks in the main two parties as strongly as the US, for example. The idea that all politics is purely about tribal identity, and that "rationality" is a myth, would seem to suggest that we've never made any real social advances. But I'd count things like the outlawing of slavery as advances. It reminds me of the extreme view of social structures in science (which Thomas Kuhn subscribed to, if I remember right), that all scientific "advances" and "revolutions" are just changes in fashion as one generation of scientists succeeds another. But each advance does in fact get us closer to the truth, even if we never quite reach it.
- sandworm101 10y ago
  But when two sides are acting from different facts, different understandings of the world, both can reach different conclusions while still being rational. If you truly believe that one candidate is a lizard-person, the rational thing is to vote against them. When everyone you know and trust also believes in lizard-people, and you are unable to test for yourself, the rational person also believes. The answer to the problem is accuracy in facts, a wider dissemination of reality. The rest will follow.
BurningFrog 10y ago
I think that agrees with Caplan. People vote for what they think is good for society, rather than personal gain. The problem (according to Caplan) is that voters don't learn how society works and how different policies would affect it. So they support policies that sound good to the uninformed. And here we are :)
- knz 10y ago
  > So they support policies that sound good to the uninformed. And here we are :) It's too simplistic to put the entire blame on voters - I don't think the US has a monopoly on "low information"/uninformed/apathetic voters when compared to other OECD nations. Surely different social expectations on the issues squeezing the middle class (health/child/education costs), a different (more partisan?) media landscape, geographic size, a polarized judicial system (who weigh in on the "culture wars", campaign financing, war against drugs etc), and deeply entrenched financial interests have some significant influence upon our elected officials.
  - BurningFrog 10y ago
    Nobody is blaming voters. Their ignorance is entirely rational. The cost of becoming an expert in society, economics, etc is vastly bigger than the benefit you can expect to get out of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_ignorance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_ignorance

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

humanrebar 10y ago

> ...because the chance of your vote making a difference is so small. ...in national elections. Federal systems are designed with this in mind. In recent decades, more and more issues have become national issues, which erodes the influence of the individual voter. And, on top of that, if the power of the vote is ineffective, you can always move in a federal system. So the erosion of choice is compounded.

jessriedel 10y ago
It really applies at all levels save perhaps very small town municipal elections. Whether the probability of influencing the election is 1 in 10M or 1 in 1M (or 1 in 100k) is all pretty much zero when multiplied by the change in benefits you could expect to receive.
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  Votes aren't worth more in more local elections, but activism certainly is. A few highly influential advocates out of a pool of 100k voters could be the difference between win and loss. Big organizations are the only entities that can compete on a national scale, but your actions absolutely can matter more locally. That's a strong reason to favor more local government, IMO.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

mongmong 10y ago

Your comment made me remember this article which I think nailed your point http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/11/10/the-dance-of-the-dunces-trump-clinton-election-republican-democrat/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/11/10/the-dance-of-the-dunces-...