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> Now the only people who are against interracial marriage are straight-ticket crazy people, and this sorting of society is superficially "polarization" I'm no

by KMag 6y ago

> Now the only people who are against interracial marriage are straight-ticket crazy people, and this sorting of society is superficially "polarization" I'm not sure which metric of polarization is typically used in studies, but the situation you describe (vast majority agreeing, with a tiny minority in an extreme position) intuitively sounds like approaching consensus. Intuitively, with some survey measure of 0 to 10, maximum polarization would be 50% of respondents responding 0 and 50% of respondents responding 10. Minimum polarization would be 100% of respondents giving the same answer (regardless of what that answer is). I would hope that any polarization metric being used in a serous study would give its maximum value in the former case and its minimum value in the second case. Variance of survey responses is one statistical measure meeting these criteria, but there might be better measures. Minimum Kullback-Leibler divergence, or earth-mover's distance, from any consensus distribution might also make sense, or a fractional statistical moment less than 2 about the mean. In any case, tons of people believing one thing and a tiny fraction of people believing something radically different doesn't fit my intuitive notion of polarization. My intuitive notion is closer to variance of survey responses, or earth-mover's distance from any consensus.

jodrellblank 6y ago
> "Intuitively, with some survey measure of 0 to 10, maximum polarization would be 50% of respondents responding 0 and 50% of respondents responding 10. Minimum polarization would be 100% of respondents giving the same answer (regardless of what that answer is)." A world where 50% of people live at the North Pole, 50% at the South Pole and nobody at the equator, is polarized. So is a world where 90% of people live at the North Pole, 10% at the South Pole and nobody at the equator. Seems like "polarization" is about how many people live somewhere in between, rather than whether the groups at the poles are balanced or not. Or even, that there exist places between the poles where people could be, even if they aren't. A world where 100% are at the North Pole, the South Pole exists but nobody is there, and between them is only water, is still polarized. The only place you can be, or go, is the two extreme positions. If the survey says "do you LOVE Politician X or HATE them?" and I can't be indifferent to them or mildly in favour or slightly against, it's a polarizing survey, isn't it?
- jeffbee 6y ago
  Indeed, and the discourse around American political polarization is centered around the Pew poll which poses binary choices like the one between "homosexuality should be accepted by society" or "homosexuality should be discouraged by society", not questions that have scales of agreement from 0-10.
- KMag 6y ago
  > A world where 50% of people live at the North Pole, 50% at the South Pole and nobody at the equator, is polarized. So is a world where 90% of people live at the North Pole, 10% at the South Pole and nobody at the equator. First, in order to make sense, it should be "would like to live" not "live", with some context that a new city needs to be built, or something. Polarization is about opinions and attitudes. Secondly, a world where 90% of people would like everyone to live at the North Pole and 10% would like everyone to live at the South Pole is less polarized. Society is able to make a compromise that is acceptable to more people. If 8 billion people think soap tastes terrible, 1 person thinks soap tastes delicious, and nobody thinks soap tastes meh, we've reached consensus as a society. There will always be some issues where there is a strong consensus at one extreme or another, but that doesn't hamper society's ability to agree on decisions.

by KMag 6y ago

jodrellblank 6y ago

> "Intuitively, with some survey measure of 0 to 10, maximum polarization would be 50% of respondents responding 0 and 50% of respondents responding 10. Minimum polarization would be 100% of respondents giving the same answer (regardless of what that answer is)." A world where 50% of people live at the North Pole, 50% at the South Pole and nobody at the equator, is polarized. So is a world where 90% of people live at the North Pole, 10% at the South Pole and nobody at the equator. Seems like "polarization" is about how many people live somewhere in between, rather than whether the groups at the poles are balanced or not. Or even, that there exist places between the poles where people could be, even if they aren't. A world where 100% are at the North Pole, the South Pole exists but nobody is there, and between them is only water, is still polarized. The only place you can be, or go, is the two extreme positions. If the survey says "do you LOVE Politician X or HATE them?" and I can't be indifferent to them or mildly in favour or slightly against, it's a polarizing survey, isn't it?

jeffbee 6y ago
Indeed, and the discourse around American political polarization is centered around the Pew poll which poses binary choices like the one between "homosexuality should be accepted by society" or "homosexuality should be discouraged by society", not questions that have scales of agreement from 0-10.
KMag 6y ago
> A world where 50% of people live at the North Pole, 50% at the South Pole and nobody at the equator, is polarized. So is a world where 90% of people live at the North Pole, 10% at the South Pole and nobody at the equator. First, in order to make sense, it should be "would like to live" not "live", with some context that a new city needs to be built, or something. Polarization is about opinions and attitudes. Secondly, a world where 90% of people would like everyone to live at the North Pole and 10% would like everyone to live at the South Pole is less polarized. Society is able to make a compromise that is acceptable to more people. If 8 billion people think soap tastes terrible, 1 person thinks soap tastes delicious, and nobody thinks soap tastes meh, we've reached consensus as a society. There will always be some issues where there is a strong consensus at one extreme or another, but that doesn't hamper society's ability to agree on decisions.