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Bryan Caplan argues that in his field (economics), uninformed votes don't cancel each other out. The average opinions of the uninformed (non-economist laymen) d

Bryan Caplan argues that in his field (economics), uninformed votes don't cancel each other out. The average opinions of the uninformed (non-economist laymen) differ consistently from the average opinions of the informed (professional economists): http://www.cato-unbound.org/2006/11/06/bryan-caplan/the-myth-of-the-rational-voter/ http://www.cato-unbound.org/2006/11/06/bryan-caplan/the-myth... I wouldn't be surprised if the same were true of other skills useful to high-quality voting, such as military strategy, education, criminology and history.

mbreese 16y ago
I'm curious as to how an economics field alters perception (I know votes are scarce, economists study individual choice, etc... But votes technically hold no value). I'd be more interested in a polisci / pollster / statistician perspective. I'm also a little leery of anything coming out of the Cato Institute. If this was a published study, that would be different. Given that the author is a professor, I'm willing to give him a little slack, but I'd rather see the opinion peer-reviewed. I don't follow economics well enough to know of any contrarian points of view. The author's main point seems to be that just because some people can vote, doesn't mean that they should vote. What he doesn't address is why the noise from the uninformed doesn't cancel out. Or more accurately, why wouldn't more noise be better noise? He states that the errors compound, but he never really give a good reason why (at least in my skimming). I still maintain that the current distribution of uninformed voters isn't uniform. There was a study a while ago (but I can't remember the citation) that said that an increate in even uninformed opinions strengthened predictive power. So in this case more idiots were better idiots. I wish I remember what field this was in though...
- michaelkeenan 16y ago
  > I'm also a little leery of anything coming out of the Cato Institute. The link is to Cato Unbound, where they host an essay and discussion by outsiders to the Cato Institute. The participants aren't just libertarians; Matthew Yglesias had an essay not too long ago. > I'd rather see the opinion peer-reviewed. It isn't formal peer review, but there are reaction essays here: http://www.cato-unbound.org/archives/november-2006/ http://www.cato-unbound.org/archives/november-2006/ > The author's main point seems to be that just because some people can vote, doesn't mean that they should vote. What he doesn't address is why the noise from the uninformed doesn't cancel out...(at least in my skimming). Caplan addresses it in the last three paragraphs under How Misconceptions Are Possible, but he's pressed for space in that essay. He wrote about book about this. You can also find his argument here (PDF link): http://mercatus.org/sites/default/files/publication/Straight-Talk-About-Economic-Literacy.pdf http://mercatus.org/sites/default/files/publication/Straight...
- davidw 16y ago
  FWIW, Bryan Caplan is a very libertarian economist.

mbreese 16y ago

I'm curious as to how an economics field alters perception (I know votes are scarce, economists study individual choice, etc... But votes technically hold no value). I'd be more interested in a polisci / pollster / statistician perspective. I'm also a little leery of anything coming out of the Cato Institute. If this was a published study, that would be different. Given that the author is a professor, I'm willing to give him a little slack, but I'd rather see the opinion peer-reviewed. I don't follow economics well enough to know of any contrarian points of view. The author's main point seems to be that just because some people can vote, doesn't mean that they should vote. What he doesn't address is why the noise from the uninformed doesn't cancel out. Or more accurately, why wouldn't more noise be better noise? He states that the errors compound, but he never really give a good reason why (at least in my skimming). I still maintain that the current distribution of uninformed voters isn't uniform. There was a study a while ago (but I can't remember the citation) that said that an increate in even uninformed opinions strengthened predictive power. So in this case more idiots were better idiots. I wish I remember what field this was in though...

michaelkeenan 16y ago
> I'm also a little leery of anything coming out of the Cato Institute. The link is to Cato Unbound, where they host an essay and discussion by outsiders to the Cato Institute. The participants aren't just libertarians; Matthew Yglesias had an essay not too long ago. > I'd rather see the opinion peer-reviewed. It isn't formal peer review, but there are reaction essays here: http://www.cato-unbound.org/archives/november-2006/ http://www.cato-unbound.org/archives/november-2006/ > The author's main point seems to be that just because some people can vote, doesn't mean that they should vote. What he doesn't address is why the noise from the uninformed doesn't cancel out...(at least in my skimming). Caplan addresses it in the last three paragraphs under How Misconceptions Are Possible, but he's pressed for space in that essay. He wrote about book about this. You can also find his argument here (PDF link): http://mercatus.org/sites/default/files/publication/Straight-Talk-About-Economic-Literacy.pdf http://mercatus.org/sites/default/files/publication/Straight...
davidw 16y ago
FWIW, Bryan Caplan is a very libertarian economist.