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"controlling for ... ethnicity" There's significant signal buried in here that is likely not controlled for, depending on how granular their controls are. Whi

"controlling for ... ethnicity" There's significant signal buried in here that is likely not controlled for, depending on how granular their controls are. White-German and White-Italian are much more (10-13 percent) likely to be conservative leaning than White-Irish or White-British. Hispanic-Cuban are more likely to be conservative leaning than Hispanic-Mexican.

xxpor 6y ago
In the US or generally?
- hntrader 6y ago
  In the US
- cies 6y ago
  The words conservative and liberal have wildly other meanings outside of the US. Even in the US they are not well agreed upon (especially the definitions, people seem to know which one to pick though when they have to).
  - nullserver 6y ago
    Some dumbed down US conservative principles. A conservative may only care about some of these. Financial: balanced budget types. Government: Common defense, otherwise minimal. Responsibility: Your job to feed and cloth yourself. Morals: don’t kill babies. Religious: Act like God watches you and you will be judged.
    - unanswered 6y ago
      Oh, we're doing straw men now? Let me try! Some smarted-up US leftist principles. A leftist may care about more than these. Financial: You can never run out of other peoples' money. Government: is there to control peoples' lives as much as possible. Responsibility: is Nazi propaganda. Morals: what you do doesn't matter, as long as you say the right things. Religious: Religion is evil and people should think for themselves. Also you have to believe whatever scientists and/or leftist politicians tell you or else you're a Nazi. Say what you will about European leftism; at least it isn't like this.
      - dang 6y ago
        Please do not do ideological flamewar on HN. It's not what this site is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        unanswered 6y ago
        I admit that I am impressed that the comment id of your reply to parent comment is smaller than the comment id of this comment. I didn't think you had it in you.
        dang 6y ago
        It took me a while to figure out what you meant by this, but I think(?) I get it now—in which case, I'm glad you noticed the attempt to be even-handed. When I post twin scoldings like that, though, what's significant is the pox on both flamewar houses. You shouldn't attach any significance to which of the two got posted first because that's entirely random. I don't especially try to find opposing belligerents to moderate when a fight breaks out; that would just be a different form of bias. But it's handy when it comes up naturally, because it neutralizes the "you're only doing this because you disagree with me" objection which usually comes up, and which I'm always bracing myself for, otherwise. I think this reaction must be biologically rooted somehow, because it's so common, and recognizably the same "no fair!" reaction that one can observe in small children and sometimes in animals. That's not a criticism, and certainly not a personal criticism—my point is that we all have this.
    - sanp 6y ago
      > Responsibility: your job to feed and cloth yourself Unless you are a farmer
      - LordDragonfang 6y ago
        Every single one of those "principles" listed is rhetorical, not factually based on policy. I don't know how the GOP still manages to run on a platform of "balanced budgets" when they have consistently running higher deficits than the Democrats for nearly that past 100 years.
    - dang 6y ago
      Please do not do ideological flamewar on HN. It's not what this site is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
timkam 6y ago
Now, what would be interesting is to build a model that accounts for this "knowledge" and see if it can beat the out-of-the-box classifier :-) I'd assume it can, and the question is: how far can a bit of manual modeling bring us?
- colonelcanoe 6y ago
  Maybe they asked the wrong questions, but I think that's the point of the questionnaire model.
  - timkam 6y ago
    Sure, but I thought was that building an ML model that considers the questionnaire results (or existing similar findings) would be a very interesting next step.
usaar333 6y ago
Their section about demographics controls in the paper was really unclear (kinda surprised you can get this published being so vague). What does a final number with the controls active even mean? I doubt accuracy was identical within each grouping they used. Even the groupings are really unclear in the paper (at most 4 ethnic groups，no idea how they did age, etc.)

xxpor 6y ago

In the US or generally?

hntrader 6y ago
In the US
cies 6y ago
The words conservative and liberal have wildly other meanings outside of the US. Even in the US they are not well agreed upon (especially the definitions, people seem to know which one to pick though when they have to).
- nullserver 6y ago
  Some dumbed down US conservative principles. A conservative may only care about some of these. Financial: balanced budget types. Government: Common defense, otherwise minimal. Responsibility: Your job to feed and cloth yourself. Morals: don’t kill babies. Religious: Act like God watches you and you will be judged.
  - unanswered 6y ago
    Oh, we're doing straw men now? Let me try! Some smarted-up US leftist principles. A leftist may care about more than these. Financial: You can never run out of other peoples' money. Government: is there to control peoples' lives as much as possible. Responsibility: is Nazi propaganda. Morals: what you do doesn't matter, as long as you say the right things. Religious: Religion is evil and people should think for themselves. Also you have to believe whatever scientists and/or leftist politicians tell you or else you're a Nazi. Say what you will about European leftism; at least it isn't like this.
    - dang 6y ago
      Please do not do ideological flamewar on HN. It's not what this site is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - unanswered 6y ago
        I admit that I am impressed that the comment id of your reply to parent comment is smaller than the comment id of this comment. I didn't think you had it in you.
        dang 6y ago
        It took me a while to figure out what you meant by this, but I think(?) I get it now—in which case, I'm glad you noticed the attempt to be even-handed. When I post twin scoldings like that, though, what's significant is the pox on both flamewar houses. You shouldn't attach any significance to which of the two got posted first because that's entirely random. I don't especially try to find opposing belligerents to moderate when a fight breaks out; that would just be a different form of bias. But it's handy when it comes up naturally, because it neutralizes the "you're only doing this because you disagree with me" objection which usually comes up, and which I'm always bracing myself for, otherwise. I think this reaction must be biologically rooted somehow, because it's so common, and recognizably the same "no fair!" reaction that one can observe in small children and sometimes in animals. That's not a criticism, and certainly not a personal criticism—my point is that we all have this.
  - sanp 6y ago
    > Responsibility: your job to feed and cloth yourself Unless you are a farmer
    - LordDragonfang 6y ago
      Every single one of those "principles" listed is rhetorical, not factually based on policy. I don't know how the GOP still manages to run on a platform of "balanced budgets" when they have consistently running higher deficits than the Democrats for nearly that past 100 years.
  - dang 6y ago
    Please do not do ideological flamewar on HN. It's not what this site is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

timkam 6y ago

Now, what would be interesting is to build a model that accounts for this "knowledge" and see if it can beat the out-of-the-box classifier :-) I'd assume it can, and the question is: how far can a bit of manual modeling bring us?

colonelcanoe 6y ago
Maybe they asked the wrong questions, but I think that's the point of the questionnaire model.
- timkam 6y ago
  Sure, but I thought was that building an ML model that considers the questionnaire results (or existing similar findings) would be a very interesting next step.

usaar333 6y ago

Their section about demographics controls in the paper was really unclear (kinda surprised you can get this published being so vague). What does a final number with the controls active even mean? I doubt accuracy was identical within each grouping they used. Even the groupings are really unclear in the paper (at most 4 ethnic groups，no idea how they did age, etc.)