8 ms·

You put too much stock in polls. The average (or even intelligent) person does not have time for polls. Trusting these numbers is to believe in FUD.

michaelmrose 4y ago
There is no reason to accept your casual dismissal of polling or specific polls without proof or even argument of any sort based on the fact that you said so. You put too much stock in your gut. So much so that you are able to casually dismiss actual facts because they don't agree with your gut.
- salawat 4y ago
  They are right. No one has time for polls, and of those who do, I question that their willingness to answer reflects on them being representative. Tell me, have you been polled? If so, have you given feedback beyond a yes or no to a misleadingly framed question?
  - michaelmrose 4y ago
    You like the prior poster still haven't provided any evidence for the wholesale rejection of polling as meaningful so I feel no need to disprove arguments you have declined to provide. Asking if I have gotten a poll is a non sequitur. It's not a meaningful question so I see no reason to answer. The plural of anecdote isn't data.
    - salawat 4y ago
      You're the one sealioning. My question was simple. Have you been polled? Have you not? I am tired of people hiding behind pollsters imagined legitimacy, particularly when we have the technology today to literally ask everyone what they think. And yet... Never do I seem to run into anyone who responded to one of these polls. Have you? Easy answer. Yes or no.
      - michaelmrose 4y ago
        It costs money and time to ask literally everyone what they think. If you invested 5 minutes per person and paid $20 an hour including equipment cost it would cost you 563 million dollars per poll. Also you would still get less than 100% response rate even on your initial poll. After you got in the habit of burning billions of dollars to harass literally every citizen in the US constantly you would find your sample size dropping precipitously as people found ways to block your calls. To get a statistically valid sample of 338M people you need as little as a few thousand respondents depending on desired accuracy. It makes sense therefore that the chance of a single poll actually calling you personally is very low. In fact 100 polls reaching 100,000 distinct individuals still has only 1 in 3000 chance of someone personally calling you. Small wonder if your phone isn't ringing off the hook. Despite dodging those and every sort of automated asshole calling my phone and being on the do not call registry I have still received a call. The answer is yes. This still proves nothing. I haven't refuted your position by saying yes as I'm sure you will now agree.
        salawat 4y ago
        The point I'm slowly meandering towards, is it is a very different thing to cold call everyone and get an off the cuff answer than to really get people into a position to recognize the enormity of the answer they are giving. Legislation is literally the parcelling up and selling off of the liberties of everyone around you. This is not a task that should be undertaken haphazardly. To really do it, you should be grappling with questions of "Does this policy make sense across the board, rather than localized to where I am?" Polls never drill into that level of detail. Ever. At best they provide a passing narrative confirmation that makes a nice sound byte. Case and point: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32141104 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32141104 If you're sitting here, telling me it's too much work to talk to everyone to actually get a representative sample, then don't come back and try to justify the legitimacy of one policy over another based on the fact that a bunch of people with nothing better to do than respond to cold called political polls (who may or may not even be voters) is truly representative of the will of the people. I'm sorry. When it comes to writing off liberties, I'm in the school of thought that the extra work is necessary, because this isn't something that should be streamlined, especially given there is precious little track record of any streamlining be applied to rectify bad law.. I write my Congressional representatives on issues that weigh heavily on my conscience. Multiple times if I don't feel the point is getting across enough. I've got a couple more letters to get written in light of current events, in fact. Your polls, don't reflect that. Or for that matter, any of the streams of communication that actually end up in a Representative or Senator's mailbox, which to be quite frank, are far more indicative of what the People want, than any Call Center with a script is ever going to get. I don't even care if the Rep/Senator is of the opposing political party than the issue I'm concerned with. Reigning in extreme right/leftness can only happen under the pressure of reminding said individual they are still representing a hefty constituency that differs on platform, and if they like that seat, they'd best pay attention. Polls are not grounds for policy.

michaelmrose 4y ago

There is no reason to accept your casual dismissal of polling or specific polls without proof or even argument of any sort based on the fact that you said so. You put too much stock in your gut. So much so that you are able to casually dismiss actual facts because they don't agree with your gut.

salawat 4y ago
They are right. No one has time for polls, and of those who do, I question that their willingness to answer reflects on them being representative. Tell me, have you been polled? If so, have you given feedback beyond a yes or no to a misleadingly framed question?
- michaelmrose 4y ago
  You like the prior poster still haven't provided any evidence for the wholesale rejection of polling as meaningful so I feel no need to disprove arguments you have declined to provide. Asking if I have gotten a poll is a non sequitur. It's not a meaningful question so I see no reason to answer. The plural of anecdote isn't data.
  - salawat 4y ago
    You're the one sealioning. My question was simple. Have you been polled? Have you not? I am tired of people hiding behind pollsters imagined legitimacy, particularly when we have the technology today to literally ask everyone what they think. And yet... Never do I seem to run into anyone who responded to one of these polls. Have you? Easy answer. Yes or no.
    - michaelmrose 4y ago
      It costs money and time to ask literally everyone what they think. If you invested 5 minutes per person and paid $20 an hour including equipment cost it would cost you 563 million dollars per poll. Also you would still get less than 100% response rate even on your initial poll. After you got in the habit of burning billions of dollars to harass literally every citizen in the US constantly you would find your sample size dropping precipitously as people found ways to block your calls. To get a statistically valid sample of 338M people you need as little as a few thousand respondents depending on desired accuracy. It makes sense therefore that the chance of a single poll actually calling you personally is very low. In fact 100 polls reaching 100,000 distinct individuals still has only 1 in 3000 chance of someone personally calling you. Small wonder if your phone isn't ringing off the hook. Despite dodging those and every sort of automated asshole calling my phone and being on the do not call registry I have still received a call. The answer is yes. This still proves nothing. I haven't refuted your position by saying yes as I'm sure you will now agree.
      - salawat 4y ago
        The point I'm slowly meandering towards, is it is a very different thing to cold call everyone and get an off the cuff answer than to really get people into a position to recognize the enormity of the answer they are giving. Legislation is literally the parcelling up and selling off of the liberties of everyone around you. This is not a task that should be undertaken haphazardly. To really do it, you should be grappling with questions of "Does this policy make sense across the board, rather than localized to where I am?" Polls never drill into that level of detail. Ever. At best they provide a passing narrative confirmation that makes a nice sound byte. Case and point: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32141104 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32141104 If you're sitting here, telling me it's too much work to talk to everyone to actually get a representative sample, then don't come back and try to justify the legitimacy of one policy over another based on the fact that a bunch of people with nothing better to do than respond to cold called political polls (who may or may not even be voters) is truly representative of the will of the people. I'm sorry. When it comes to writing off liberties, I'm in the school of thought that the extra work is necessary, because this isn't something that should be streamlined, especially given there is precious little track record of any streamlining be applied to rectify bad law.. I write my Congressional representatives on issues that weigh heavily on my conscience. Multiple times if I don't feel the point is getting across enough. I've got a couple more letters to get written in light of current events, in fact. Your polls, don't reflect that. Or for that matter, any of the streams of communication that actually end up in a Representative or Senator's mailbox, which to be quite frank, are far more indicative of what the People want, than any Call Center with a script is ever going to get. I don't even care if the Rep/Senator is of the opposing political party than the issue I'm concerned with. Reigning in extreme right/leftness can only happen under the pressure of reminding said individual they are still representing a hefty constituency that differs on platform, and if they like that seat, they'd best pay attention. Polls are not grounds for policy.