5 ms·

I've been standing on a paddleboard in calm waters, surrounded by people to my left and right that are convincing me of a wave coming on their side and don't kn

I've been standing on a paddleboard in calm waters, surrounded by people to my left and right that are convincing me of a wave coming on their side and don't know the people on the other side of me believe the same thing. It's not surprising that technologists from the same schools and cities all failed to understand this again. The filter bubble affects us all, including you, including me, including the people you think are completely brainwashed. I just happen to VPN with new browser sessions a lot and get to see it. I also don't block people with different ideologies lol so there's that.

saeranv 6y ago
This is why I think having a ground game is absolutely critical for winning elections - it provides this feedback loop to campaign officials to be able to modify their strategy based on what actual voters are thinking about. I've knocked on doors, and worked phones for various campaigns, and you learn a lot. The most important thing you learn, is that voters, and especially undecided voters are extremely ignorant (they are undecided for a reason) and are extremely susceptible to believe misinformation, or rumors. If you're not out there talking and debating with them, no one's going to knock them out of their bubble. The Biden's campaign decision to not knock on doors, talk to voters, and get them registered just seems like a disastrous error to me. And yes, I know there's a pandemic going on, but there are safe ways to talk to people in person.
- vmception 6y ago
  In some demographics they did that. They just fail to address what people actually care about, it is a chronic party-wide problem. The parties never address or even acknowledge the criticisms about them. Choosing to instead imagine that everyone that doesn't believe what they do, already, actually believe the opposite. When people really just weigh different things and factor different things in, and aren't consciously thinking about whatever another person considers a trigger. Critical error. Blocking half of the people in the country and then being surprised that half the country didn't believe the same thing you did is not a productive use of energy.
  - xvedejas 6y ago
    Why would a candidate engage in criticism of their own party, when that is the surest way for the candidate to get primaried? Our two-stage election system does not reward self-criticism. Consider how that might change if voters were allowed to vote in all parties' primaries, at the same time.
    - vmception 6y ago
      Correct, and it is at least important for the people to realize that. When moderates and centrists can only be found way passed the downvote threshold for visibility, when the reality is that they are the only ones listening to the spectrum and can perceive what's going on, saying the least inflammatory things, but are perceived as a false negative by both parties because they don't sound like a party member.
      - saeranv 6y ago
        But Biden is a moderate? Pretty much every presidential democratic nominee has been a moderate.
  - heurist 6y ago
    It's more complicated than that. In tight races like this you need your party to fall in line, including the larger "extreme" factions. Push too hard away from them and you lose them as voters (e.g. Bernie's supporters in 2016). It's also hard to re-orient a party comprised of thousands of politicians and tens of thousands of operatives in an autonomous media ecosystem moving moving billions of dollars annually to influence public opinion, not to mention an adversarial opposition of roughly the same size and intelligence. There's a narrow space in which an individual campaign can draw battle lines, implement strategies, communicate intent, and maneuver around obstacles. Parties may have a bit more leeway due to coordination but at some point you're trying to herd cats (or otherwise riding a wave over which you have no control).
  - wahern 6y ago
    > The parties never address or even acknowledge the criticisms about them. The Democratic party did address and acknowledge criticisms in 2016, which is why the party leadership put their thumbs on the scales for Clinton over Sanders. Indeed, it's why they have super delegates to begin with--to prevent a Trump-like nominee. But doing that burned them. The Republican leadership also tried to push back against Trump, at least very early on, but everybody fell into line fairly quickly once it became clear Trump was the front-runner. At the end of the day a party can't simply wish away its fringe subgroups. At best it can occasionally give their leaders a cold shoulder, like Pelosi did with Ocasio-Cortez. For Democrats the cancel culture fringe and (much larger) equality-in-outcome movements cause tremendous difficulty in keeping moderates from straying, yet there's no easy way to assuage those moderates' fears. The Republicans can keep winning with their white majoritarian populism even in a diverse America because the criteria for being "white" is rather flexible, especially for non-African Americans. For the plurality of Americans who have very short term memories, and who perceive everything as a zero sum game, the easiest default choice is choose what would be good for the "white" majority, or at least what they image it as. So long as minorities, particularly latino and asian, make some minimal progress--and with a growing share of the population that's inevitable--the GOP can continue to coast on their fear, uncertainty, and doubt strategy. "White" and majority will be synonymous in perpetuity. Republicans don't have to change, and with Trump they finally figured that out. People keep repeating this mantra that the parties don't reflect the majority of Americans when what they really mean is that the parties don't reflect their own concept of America and American sentiments, and their own particular set of preferences. Even when we can all agree on general goals--liberty & justice for all--what matters are the particulars, and Americans have pretty radical and divergent ideas about the particulars. For example, most people agree we need stronger job security, especially for blue collar, semi-skilled labor. But the word "union" has become a dirty word even among many Democrats, and conservatives have preferences for "less regulation" and the "free market" at least as strong as they do for job security, preferences which are fundamentally contradictory.
Crye 6y ago
This, I wonder, is the issue. As far as I understand, when polling occurs you subsample a population and then extrapolate it based on the existing demographics of the polling area. Infamously in 2016, the polls did not take into consideration or normalize for education level. This resulted in a oversampling for for Hillary supporters. So as we continue to see polarization due to personalized media, it may turn out that typical demographic markers are no longer as effective in normalizing these sample polls.
- alasdair_ 6y ago
  I think that the whole concept of demographics is part of the issue. The Florida vote seemed to treat “latinos” as a single bloc, yet “latinos fearful of communism due to having lived through it” wasn’t a distinct sub-bloc.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    The polls were just off about Latinos. Trump gained among Puerto Ricans too, though by less than for Cubans. And border county Texan Hispanics for another demographic.
divbzero 6y ago
Yes, America would be less polarized if everyone skipped {Google,Facebook,Twitter} and loaded cnn.com and foxnews.com side by side every day.
seibelj 6y ago
Couldn't agree more. If this election is shocking to you, you may want to forcibly try and exit your own bubble. Read media you don't frequent - I recommend Quillette and Reason for an alternative yet logical perspective. Stop eating what the mainstream media feeds you without any analysis. I had been telling my family and friends for months that Trump might pull this out, and they were shocked (once again). There is a huge world out there beyond Twitter and the NYT.
- ThrowawayR2 6y ago
  It's worth adding that even in California, Trump got about 1/3 of the vote according to the current numbers and the percentages for the other west coast states are higher than that. The narrative in our circles that the American left is dominant and has the universal support of the people is not supported by the voting numbers; if we avoid a repeat of 2016, it will be by sheer luck.
  - Izkata 6y ago
    Likewise Illinois is considered reliably Democrat because of Chicago, but the state as a whole is currently at 43% Trump and 55% Biden.
  - ryandrake 6y ago
    I thought this was pretty well known. All you have to do is travel ~2 hours in any direction away from the Silicon Valley and LA bubbles, and you're deeeeeep in Trump territory. I mean, half the counties in NorCal are so red, a significant population want to secede and form their own state. Same with Pennsylvania: It's basically Philly and Pittsburgh surrounded by Alabama. The vast, vast majority of the country by land area is deeply conservative, because it's mostly rural.
- SamBam 6y ago
  > I recommend Quillette and Reason But I already know of the existence of a sizable number of conservative intellectuals. I don't see how that helps me extrapolate to whether it's going to be 60 or 70 million "regular" Americans that are going to vote against my candidate. (Not to mention that the difference between a razor-thin margin, and a huge Electoral College blow-out that would have resulted in articles like this not being written, is only a few hundred thousand carefully-placed votes.)
ehsankia 6y ago
To be fair, a "wave" did come, from both sides, is roughly equal size. It is true that Democrats are much more riled up and likely to vote. It is also true that Republicans are riled up and more likely to vote. Both those things can coexist. The only issue is that it's more the sound wave where two inverted waves cancel each other.
- vmception 6y ago
  Which is as good as there not being one at all. Voter engagement is supposed to be high, higher than it is even this election.
- RickJWagner 6y ago
  Ah, if only they did cancel each other out. Instead, one side will narrowly 'win' and then take control. At that point, it's time to pay back the loyal fringe of their base.
  - nerdponx 6y ago
    I wish! Republicans will pay back their loyal fringe. Democrats will pay lip service to their disloyal skeptical fringe and pay back centrist elites instead.
  - ehsankia 6y ago
    Well there's no big wave so in that sense, they did cancel each other out, hence as you say ending up with "a narrow win". The whole point of a wave is that it's a decisive win, which it wasn't.
thaumaturgy 6y ago
There are ideological arguments to make, especially with respect to campaigning, but this isn't it. This is about the difference between carefully adjusted polling data and the final outcome. Polling, in aggregate, isn't ideological, it's just statistical sampling. Now the analysts have to figure out what went wrong with 2020's statistical sampling, just as they did in 2016.

saeranv 6y ago

This is why I think having a ground game is absolutely critical for winning elections - it provides this feedback loop to campaign officials to be able to modify their strategy based on what actual voters are thinking about. I've knocked on doors, and worked phones for various campaigns, and you learn a lot. The most important thing you learn, is that voters, and especially undecided voters are extremely ignorant (they are undecided for a reason) and are extremely susceptible to believe misinformation, or rumors. If you're not out there talking and debating with them, no one's going to knock them out of their bubble. The Biden's campaign decision to not knock on doors, talk to voters, and get them registered just seems like a disastrous error to me. And yes, I know there's a pandemic going on, but there are safe ways to talk to people in person.

vmception 6y ago
In some demographics they did that. They just fail to address what people actually care about, it is a chronic party-wide problem. The parties never address or even acknowledge the criticisms about them. Choosing to instead imagine that everyone that doesn't believe what they do, already, actually believe the opposite. When people really just weigh different things and factor different things in, and aren't consciously thinking about whatever another person considers a trigger. Critical error. Blocking half of the people in the country and then being surprised that half the country didn't believe the same thing you did is not a productive use of energy.
- xvedejas 6y ago
  Why would a candidate engage in criticism of their own party, when that is the surest way for the candidate to get primaried? Our two-stage election system does not reward self-criticism. Consider how that might change if voters were allowed to vote in all parties' primaries, at the same time.
  - vmception 6y ago
    Correct, and it is at least important for the people to realize that. When moderates and centrists can only be found way passed the downvote threshold for visibility, when the reality is that they are the only ones listening to the spectrum and can perceive what's going on, saying the least inflammatory things, but are perceived as a false negative by both parties because they don't sound like a party member.
    - saeranv 6y ago
      But Biden is a moderate? Pretty much every presidential democratic nominee has been a moderate.
- heurist 6y ago
  It's more complicated than that. In tight races like this you need your party to fall in line, including the larger "extreme" factions. Push too hard away from them and you lose them as voters (e.g. Bernie's supporters in 2016). It's also hard to re-orient a party comprised of thousands of politicians and tens of thousands of operatives in an autonomous media ecosystem moving moving billions of dollars annually to influence public opinion, not to mention an adversarial opposition of roughly the same size and intelligence. There's a narrow space in which an individual campaign can draw battle lines, implement strategies, communicate intent, and maneuver around obstacles. Parties may have a bit more leeway due to coordination but at some point you're trying to herd cats (or otherwise riding a wave over which you have no control).
- wahern 6y ago
  > The parties never address or even acknowledge the criticisms about them. The Democratic party did address and acknowledge criticisms in 2016, which is why the party leadership put their thumbs on the scales for Clinton over Sanders. Indeed, it's why they have super delegates to begin with--to prevent a Trump-like nominee. But doing that burned them. The Republican leadership also tried to push back against Trump, at least very early on, but everybody fell into line fairly quickly once it became clear Trump was the front-runner. At the end of the day a party can't simply wish away its fringe subgroups. At best it can occasionally give their leaders a cold shoulder, like Pelosi did with Ocasio-Cortez. For Democrats the cancel culture fringe and (much larger) equality-in-outcome movements cause tremendous difficulty in keeping moderates from straying, yet there's no easy way to assuage those moderates' fears. The Republicans can keep winning with their white majoritarian populism even in a diverse America because the criteria for being "white" is rather flexible, especially for non-African Americans. For the plurality of Americans who have very short term memories, and who perceive everything as a zero sum game, the easiest default choice is choose what would be good for the "white" majority, or at least what they image it as. So long as minorities, particularly latino and asian, make some minimal progress--and with a growing share of the population that's inevitable--the GOP can continue to coast on their fear, uncertainty, and doubt strategy. "White" and majority will be synonymous in perpetuity. Republicans don't have to change, and with Trump they finally figured that out. People keep repeating this mantra that the parties don't reflect the majority of Americans when what they really mean is that the parties don't reflect their own concept of America and American sentiments, and their own particular set of preferences. Even when we can all agree on general goals--liberty & justice for all--what matters are the particulars, and Americans have pretty radical and divergent ideas about the particulars. For example, most people agree we need stronger job security, especially for blue collar, semi-skilled labor. But the word "union" has become a dirty word even among many Democrats, and conservatives have preferences for "less regulation" and the "free market" at least as strong as they do for job security, preferences which are fundamentally contradictory.

Crye 6y ago

This, I wonder, is the issue. As far as I understand, when polling occurs you subsample a population and then extrapolate it based on the existing demographics of the polling area. Infamously in 2016, the polls did not take into consideration or normalize for education level. This resulted in a oversampling for for Hillary supporters. So as we continue to see polarization due to personalized media, it may turn out that typical demographic markers are no longer as effective in normalizing these sample polls.

alasdair_ 6y ago
I think that the whole concept of demographics is part of the issue. The Florida vote seemed to treat “latinos” as a single bloc, yet “latinos fearful of communism due to having lived through it” wasn’t a distinct sub-bloc.
- rayiner 6y ago
  The polls were just off about Latinos. Trump gained among Puerto Ricans too, though by less than for Cubans. And border county Texan Hispanics for another demographic.

divbzero 6y ago

Yes, America would be less polarized if everyone skipped {Google,Facebook,Twitter} and loaded cnn.com and foxnews.com side by side every day.

seibelj 6y ago

Couldn't agree more. If this election is shocking to you, you may want to forcibly try and exit your own bubble. Read media you don't frequent - I recommend Quillette and Reason for an alternative yet logical perspective. Stop eating what the mainstream media feeds you without any analysis. I had been telling my family and friends for months that Trump might pull this out, and they were shocked (once again). There is a huge world out there beyond Twitter and the NYT.

ThrowawayR2 6y ago
It's worth adding that even in California, Trump got about 1/3 of the vote according to the current numbers and the percentages for the other west coast states are higher than that. The narrative in our circles that the American left is dominant and has the universal support of the people is not supported by the voting numbers; if we avoid a repeat of 2016, it will be by sheer luck.
- Izkata 6y ago
  Likewise Illinois is considered reliably Democrat because of Chicago, but the state as a whole is currently at 43% Trump and 55% Biden.
- ryandrake 6y ago
  I thought this was pretty well known. All you have to do is travel ~2 hours in any direction away from the Silicon Valley and LA bubbles, and you're deeeeeep in Trump territory. I mean, half the counties in NorCal are so red, a significant population want to secede and form their own state. Same with Pennsylvania: It's basically Philly and Pittsburgh surrounded by Alabama. The vast, vast majority of the country by land area is deeply conservative, because it's mostly rural.
SamBam 6y ago
> I recommend Quillette and Reason But I already know of the existence of a sizable number of conservative intellectuals. I don't see how that helps me extrapolate to whether it's going to be 60 or 70 million "regular" Americans that are going to vote against my candidate. (Not to mention that the difference between a razor-thin margin, and a huge Electoral College blow-out that would have resulted in articles like this not being written, is only a few hundred thousand carefully-placed votes.)

ehsankia 6y ago

To be fair, a "wave" did come, from both sides, is roughly equal size. It is true that Democrats are much more riled up and likely to vote. It is also true that Republicans are riled up and more likely to vote. Both those things can coexist. The only issue is that it's more the sound wave where two inverted waves cancel each other.

vmception 6y ago
Which is as good as there not being one at all. Voter engagement is supposed to be high, higher than it is even this election.
RickJWagner 6y ago
Ah, if only they did cancel each other out. Instead, one side will narrowly 'win' and then take control. At that point, it's time to pay back the loyal fringe of their base.
- nerdponx 6y ago
  I wish! Republicans will pay back their loyal fringe. Democrats will pay lip service to their disloyal skeptical fringe and pay back centrist elites instead.
- ehsankia 6y ago
  Well there's no big wave so in that sense, they did cancel each other out, hence as you say ending up with "a narrow win". The whole point of a wave is that it's a decisive win, which it wasn't.

thaumaturgy 6y ago

There are ideological arguments to make, especially with respect to campaigning, but this isn't it. This is about the difference between carefully adjusted polling data and the final outcome. Polling, in aggregate, isn't ideological, it's just statistical sampling. Now the analysts have to figure out what went wrong with 2020's statistical sampling, just as they did in 2016.