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Since there are people who believe America is collapsing and consider the abortion ruling a reason why, we're trying to decide which is true: A) Those who thin

Since there are people who believe America is collapsing and consider the abortion ruling a reason why, we're trying to decide which is true: A) Those who think overturning Roe has to do with the collapse are a great majority and those who think upholding it has to do with the collapse is a great minority, or vice versa. B) The ratio from both camps is not that one sided, and neither could be described "a great minority." You're saying that we can't know anything about whether 'B' is more likely than 'A' based on what the Gallup poll you linked that questions the population on whether they want Roe upheld or not. I disagree. I believe it gives us a bayesian prior for the distribution of the population's attitudes. I think it's reasonable to expect that someone who thinks America is collapsing partly due to Roe being issue will likely think it's due to upholding it if they also believe they think Roe should be upheld. Why would a person think America is collapsing if Roe is upheld also believe Roe should be overturned? That wouldn't make sense. Since the population we're focusing on is a subset of that distribution, and since no other evidence has been given for why this distribution should differ, then case 'B' seems more likely.

camgunz 4y ago
> I disagree. I believe it gives us a bayesian prior for the distribution of the population's attitudes. Sorry, I know I'm being obnoxious. The reason I'm really sticking on the survey point is that people are very hard to survey. They have a lot of contradictory opinions ("I support banning preexisting conditions, banning lifetime caps on care, and banning junk insurance plans, even if it means I have to get insurance, like it says in the ACA, but I super hate Obamacare"), and are deeply, deeply ignorant. Here's a poll from 2010 where 41% of respondents couldn't name Joe Biden as VP in an open ended question [0], coincidentally also the poll that destroyed my faith in an informed citizenry. Tons and tons of thought goes into the way questions are phrased, because it has huge effects on outcomes, and if you want any kind of longitudinality you can never, ever change it (which is why we still have right direction vs wrong track despite its asymmetry). So if that's where we're starting, to pile on with a junk pollster asking an irrelevant question is like, I don't know, turning a hose on a drowning dog. Public opinion is very, very hard to discern, you certainly can't make blasé claims, no matter how much you really want to believe they obey Bayes' theorems (they definitely don't, see every election poll ever taken). [0]: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2010/09/28/u-s-religious-knowledge-survey-who-knows-what-about-religion/#Nonreligious https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2010/09/28/u-s-religiou...
- ncmncm 4y ago
  I, anyway, appreciate the detailed treatment.

camgunz 4y ago

> I disagree. I believe it gives us a bayesian prior for the distribution of the population's attitudes. Sorry, I know I'm being obnoxious. The reason I'm really sticking on the survey point is that people are very hard to survey. They have a lot of contradictory opinions ("I support banning preexisting conditions, banning lifetime caps on care, and banning junk insurance plans, even if it means I have to get insurance, like it says in the ACA, but I super hate Obamacare"), and are deeply, deeply ignorant. Here's a poll from 2010 where 41% of respondents couldn't name Joe Biden as VP in an open ended question [0], coincidentally also the poll that destroyed my faith in an informed citizenry. Tons and tons of thought goes into the way questions are phrased, because it has huge effects on outcomes, and if you want any kind of longitudinality you can never, ever change it (which is why we still have right direction vs wrong track despite its asymmetry). So if that's where we're starting, to pile on with a junk pollster asking an irrelevant question is like, I don't know, turning a hose on a drowning dog. Public opinion is very, very hard to discern, you certainly can't make blasé claims, no matter how much you really want to believe they obey Bayes' theorems (they definitely don't, see every election poll ever taken). [0]: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2010/09/28/u-s-religious-knowledge-survey-who-knows-what-about-religion/#Nonreligious https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2010/09/28/u-s-religiou...

ncmncm 4y ago
I, anyway, appreciate the detailed treatment.