4 ms·

Except that we live in a democracy, where people vote for the legislators who they think will do the better job. When the populace believe in stupid things, you

Except that we live in a democracy, where people vote for the legislators who they think will do the better job. When the populace believe in stupid things, you'll get legislators who pander to that, while ignoring the important stuff.

derefr 16y ago
Sort of. We don't vote for legislators based on their beliefs or knowledge-bases, we vote for legislators based on a combination of status moves, group affiliations, and physical characteristics that have more in common with mate selection than anything else. What legislators pander to while looking to get elected, has little to do with what laws they end up actually passing. There's no real correlation between what the populace believes, and what its elected representatives believe. (Well, there would be if we were all purely rational beings who hadn't invented lying and adhered to Aumann's agreement theorem...) In algorithmic terms—this isn't a hill-climbing heuristic, where you'll eventually optimize toward politicians that believe something in particular; it's a random search.
- anthonyb 16y ago
  Not true. Here in Australia, our Prime Minister just got the boot, in part because he backed down over an emissions trading scheme and lost popular support. So it's not entirely random, although there's also internal power-broking and lobbying from third parties like the mining sector to blame.
- MichaelSalib 16y ago
  There's no real correlation between what the populace believes, and what its elected representatives believe. Maybe, maybe not. But there is a very real correlation between what the populace believes and what laws legislators can vote for without ruining their chances for reelection. Legislators who vote for things that the majority of their constituents find to be completely absurd tend not to be reelected.

4 ms·

Except that we live in a democracy, where people vote for the legislators who they think will do the better job. When the populace believe in stupid things, you

by anthonyb 16y ago

derefr 16y ago
Sort of. We don't vote for legislators based on their beliefs or knowledge-bases, we vote for legislators based on a combination of status moves, group affiliations, and physical characteristics that have more in common with mate selection than anything else. What legislators pander to while looking to get elected, has little to do with what laws they end up actually passing. There's no real correlation between what the populace believes, and what its elected representatives believe. (Well, there would be if we were all purely rational beings who hadn't invented lying and adhered to Aumann's agreement theorem...) In algorithmic terms—this isn't a hill-climbing heuristic, where you'll eventually optimize toward politicians that believe something in particular; it's a random search.
- anthonyb 16y ago
  Not true. Here in Australia, our Prime Minister just got the boot, in part because he backed down over an emissions trading scheme and lost popular support. So it's not entirely random, although there's also internal power-broking and lobbying from third parties like the mining sector to blame.
- MichaelSalib 16y ago
  There's no real correlation between what the populace believes, and what its elected representatives believe. Maybe, maybe not. But there is a very real correlation between what the populace believes and what laws legislators can vote for without ruining their chances for reelection. Legislators who vote for things that the majority of their constituents find to be completely absurd tend not to be reelected.