6 ms·

> "If the racists think the candidate is a racist, the candidate is probably a racist" I honestly think ideas like this are one of the most problematic beliefs

> "If the racists think the candidate is a racist, the candidate is probably a racist" I honestly think ideas like this are one of the most problematic beliefs in the current political discourse. This type of thinking only means we look less and less at the merits of someone's arguments and more and more at the tribe they associate with, or even worse the tribe that chooses to associate with them. We have absolutely no control over these associations. If some nutjob chooses to support my cause does that somehow means my arguments are less valid?

beat 8y ago
Nutjobs agreeing with someone doesn't mean they're wrong, but it's strong evidence they might be wrong. I mean, why are the nutjobs agreeing? That's worth thinking about. This is especially important because clever politicians can say things that seem reasonable on the surface, but aren't really. What I'm talking about here is really an application of the Pareto Principle, the 80/20 rule. Support of nutjobs is 80% likely to be evidence of nutty ideas.
- abnry 8y ago
  If the reasoning skills of nutjobs are already suspect, you can't take as trustworthy their endorsements.
- sheepmullet 8y ago
  > Nutjobs agreeing with someone doesn't mean they're wrong, but it's strong evidence they might be wrong It doesn’t really work well for politics - it’s clear nutjobs support both major parties here in the US.
  - a1369209993 8y ago
    That's not a very convincing counterargument given that both parties seem to enthusiastically support things like corporate welfare, bogus patents, copyright and other censorship, warrentless surveilance and other domestic spying, private citizens being less well armed than goverment thugs, various horrendous dysfunctions of the health care system, and conditional welfare that cuts people off if they make any progress toward climbing out of poverty, and oppose things like nuclear power, basic income, common carriage requirements for ISPs and gigasites like facebook and google, and crackdowns on techinically-not-lying in contracts and advertisement.
- scottlocklin 8y ago
  Far right nutjobs (scarequote kind and real ones) have consistently been against US involvement in middle eastern wars. One of the ways the oligarchy works is associating things they don't like, aka "fewer dumb wars" with generally unpopular ideas.
devonkim 8y ago
You’re supposed to soundly distance yourself from them in very unequivocally language and NOT TAKE THEIR MONEY. For my consistency, I dislike politicians of any sort that take corporate donor money. I dislike money being such an important factor in politics these days instead of oh.... how candidates actually vote. I can’t tell what a candidate actually believes when things came down to it versus what their constituents would do. I know that Joe Biden has said before that while he personally doesn’t believe in abortion he believes his constituents want the freedom / choice in their communities. This is tricky. It gets much more clear-cut for me when the only possible motivations are purely based around corporate interests (“jobs” are almost a code word for corporate interests, heck even the GOP pivoted to using “job creator” instead of using corporations around the Romney-Obama election period).
- beat 8y ago
  Joe Biden's position is a good example of what I'm talking about. He can say "personally opposed", but the pro-choice people believe he's pro-choice anyway, and the pro-life people also believe he's pro-choice anyway. The language isn't fooling anyone.
  - jadell 8y ago
    He is pro-choice, and he's not trying to fool anyone. He believe people should have the right to make the decision for themselves whether or not to have an abortion. For himself, he's made the decision he wouldn't want his partner to have one. There's nothing inconsistent or nefarious in that. I find that kind of honesty refreshing in a politician, when they can set aside their own personal beliefs and actually represent the people who elected them.
- bobcostas55 8y ago
  >I dislike money being such an important factor in politics these days instead of oh.... how candidates actually vote. There's a large empirical literature on the issue and the conclusion is that money is more or less irrelevant in politics. Political campaigns are entirely ineffective. The Minimal Persuasive Effects of Campaign Contact in General Elections: Evidence from 49 Field Experiments [0] "First, a systematic meta-analysis of 40 field experiments estimates an average effect of zero in general elections. Second, we present nine original field experiments that increase the statistical evidence in the literature about the persuasive effects of personal contact 10-fold. These experiments’ average effect is also zero." Does Money Buy Votes? The Case of Self-Financed Gubernatorial Candidates, 1998–2008 [1] "The apparent effect of spending on votes is severely inflated by omitted variable bias: the best candidates also happen to be the best fundraisers. [...] self-financed spending has no statistical effect on election results" [0] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3042867 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3042867 [1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-012-9193-1 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-012-9193-1

beat 8y ago

Nutjobs agreeing with someone doesn't mean they're wrong, but it's strong evidence they might be wrong. I mean, why are the nutjobs agreeing? That's worth thinking about. This is especially important because clever politicians can say things that seem reasonable on the surface, but aren't really. What I'm talking about here is really an application of the Pareto Principle, the 80/20 rule. Support of nutjobs is 80% likely to be evidence of nutty ideas.

abnry 8y ago
If the reasoning skills of nutjobs are already suspect, you can't take as trustworthy their endorsements.
sheepmullet 8y ago
> Nutjobs agreeing with someone doesn't mean they're wrong, but it's strong evidence they might be wrong It doesn’t really work well for politics - it’s clear nutjobs support both major parties here in the US.
- a1369209993 8y ago
  That's not a very convincing counterargument given that both parties seem to enthusiastically support things like corporate welfare, bogus patents, copyright and other censorship, warrentless surveilance and other domestic spying, private citizens being less well armed than goverment thugs, various horrendous dysfunctions of the health care system, and conditional welfare that cuts people off if they make any progress toward climbing out of poverty, and oppose things like nuclear power, basic income, common carriage requirements for ISPs and gigasites like facebook and google, and crackdowns on techinically-not-lying in contracts and advertisement.
scottlocklin 8y ago
Far right nutjobs (scarequote kind and real ones) have consistently been against US involvement in middle eastern wars. One of the ways the oligarchy works is associating things they don't like, aka "fewer dumb wars" with generally unpopular ideas.

devonkim 8y ago

You’re supposed to soundly distance yourself from them in very unequivocally language and NOT TAKE THEIR MONEY. For my consistency, I dislike politicians of any sort that take corporate donor money. I dislike money being such an important factor in politics these days instead of oh.... how candidates actually vote. I can’t tell what a candidate actually believes when things came down to it versus what their constituents would do. I know that Joe Biden has said before that while he personally doesn’t believe in abortion he believes his constituents want the freedom / choice in their communities. This is tricky. It gets much more clear-cut for me when the only possible motivations are purely based around corporate interests (“jobs” are almost a code word for corporate interests, heck even the GOP pivoted to using “job creator” instead of using corporations around the Romney-Obama election period).

beat 8y ago
Joe Biden's position is a good example of what I'm talking about. He can say "personally opposed", but the pro-choice people believe he's pro-choice anyway, and the pro-life people also believe he's pro-choice anyway. The language isn't fooling anyone.
- jadell 8y ago
  He is pro-choice, and he's not trying to fool anyone. He believe people should have the right to make the decision for themselves whether or not to have an abortion. For himself, he's made the decision he wouldn't want his partner to have one. There's nothing inconsistent or nefarious in that. I find that kind of honesty refreshing in a politician, when they can set aside their own personal beliefs and actually represent the people who elected them.
bobcostas55 8y ago
>I dislike money being such an important factor in politics these days instead of oh.... how candidates actually vote. There's a large empirical literature on the issue and the conclusion is that money is more or less irrelevant in politics. Political campaigns are entirely ineffective. The Minimal Persuasive Effects of Campaign Contact in General Elections: Evidence from 49 Field Experiments [0] "First, a systematic meta-analysis of 40 field experiments estimates an average effect of zero in general elections. Second, we present nine original field experiments that increase the statistical evidence in the literature about the persuasive effects of personal contact 10-fold. These experiments’ average effect is also zero." Does Money Buy Votes? The Case of Self-Financed Gubernatorial Candidates, 1998–2008 [1] "The apparent effect of spending on votes is severely inflated by omitted variable bias: the best candidates also happen to be the best fundraisers. [...] self-financed spending has no statistical effect on election results" [0] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3042867 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3042867 [1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-012-9193-1 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-012-9193-1