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You could be of the minority that thinks X is wrong, but why should the law enforce your opinion on X?

by hasenj 16y ago

gjm11 16y ago
No one's suggesting that it should. He's just pointing out that if you ask people "is X socially acceptable?" then the results may be quite different from if you ask "do you accept X?", and they may well be less interesting or useful. Imagine a society consisting of 40% Prudes, who disapprove of everything, and 60% Libertines, who disapprove of nothing. And suppose that people in this society are well informed about one another's opinions. Then if you ask "Do you approve of goat-fettling?" you'll get 60% yes, 40% no; but if you ask "Is goat-fettling socially acceptable?" you'll get 100% yes, 0% no, because everyone knows that most people approve. Now suppose that the media in our hypothetical society aren't perfectly accurate and unbiased; they somehow give everyone the impression that there are more Prudes and fewer Libertines. This doesn't make any difference to the result of the "do you approve?" survey, but it may change the result of the "is it socially acceptable?" survey to 0% yes, 100% no because now everyone "knows" that most people disapprove. (How relevant all this is to the present survey, I don't know, because my Danish isn't up to working out just what questions they actually asked.)
- DavidSchor 16y ago
  According to the article the question was something I would translate to: "To what degree do you accept piracy of music from the internet on a scale from 1 to 10. Not at all accepting = 1. Sceptical = 2-6. Accepts it = 7-10"
- hasenj 16y ago
  I don't think the question was "do you think others would accept it", if so the result would be nearly 100% like you said. At least that's not how I interpreted it. I mean that kind of question is only asked in thought experiments :) I'm pretty sure the original question was meant to ask each individual for his own opinion on whether or not it's ok.
arethuza 16y ago
You can also view something as undesirable without expecting that the full force of the law is used to enforce that view on others. I don't "pirate" copyright material but I don't see why others should be treated as criminals for doing so.

You could be of the minority that thinks X is wrong, but why should the law enforce your opinion on X?

by hasenj 16y ago

You could be of the minority that thinks X is wrong, but why should the law enforce your opinion on X?

gjm11 16y ago

No one's suggesting that it should. He's just pointing out that if you ask people "is X socially acceptable?" then the results may be quite different from if you ask "do you accept X?", and they may well be less interesting or useful. Imagine a society consisting of 40% Prudes, who disapprove of everything, and 60% Libertines, who disapprove of nothing. And suppose that people in this society are well informed about one another's opinions. Then if you ask "Do you approve of goat-fettling?" you'll get 60% yes, 40% no; but if you ask "Is goat-fettling socially acceptable?" you'll get 100% yes, 0% no, because everyone knows that most people approve. Now suppose that the media in our hypothetical society aren't perfectly accurate and unbiased; they somehow give everyone the impression that there are more Prudes and fewer Libertines. This doesn't make any difference to the result of the "do you approve?" survey, but it may change the result of the "is it socially acceptable?" survey to 0% yes, 100% no because now everyone "knows" that most people disapprove. (How relevant all this is to the present survey, I don't know, because my Danish isn't up to working out just what questions they actually asked.)

DavidSchor 16y ago
According to the article the question was something I would translate to: "To what degree do you accept piracy of music from the internet on a scale from 1 to 10. Not at all accepting = 1. Sceptical = 2-6. Accepts it = 7-10"
hasenj 16y ago
I don't think the question was "do you think others would accept it", if so the result would be nearly 100% like you said. At least that's not how I interpreted it. I mean that kind of question is only asked in thought experiments :) I'm pretty sure the original question was meant to ask each individual for his own opinion on whether or not it's ok.

arethuza 16y ago

You can also view something as undesirable without expecting that the full force of the law is used to enforce that view on others. I don't "pirate" copyright material but I don't see why others should be treated as criminals for doing so.