

Things Political Scientists Know (2010) [pdf] - bane
http://faculty.georgetown.edu/hcn4/Downloads/Noel_Forum.PDF

======
jobu
_" Is the Tea Party a “real” movement, or is it “astroturf”? The speed at
which this debate is bouncing around partisan circles is shocking, considering
how silly the question is. If a movement is astroturf if some outside force is
organizing it, then all movements are astroturf."_

This seems like a non-sequitur. Grassroots vs astroturf movements differ based
on what's in the best self-interest of the majority of it's members. Or in
some cases, astroturf means they actually have no members - only PR
specialists bombarding politicians and newspapers with letters from supposedly
"real people".

~~~
randallsquared
> Grassroots vs astroturf movements differ based on what's in the best self-
> interest of the majority of it's members.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. It _sounds_ like you plan to calculate the
"best self-interest" of members of a group, and then distinguish by whether
the group's aims appear to further the result of your assessment. Is that
right?

~~~
jobu
The article is probably right about it being difficult to define what is in
the best interests of a large group, but it seems pretty obvious that civil-
rights movements are by definition in the best self-interest of the majority
of their members. (Think the women's suffrage movement of the early 1900's,
the racial equality movement in the 1960s, or the current marriage rights
movement for LGBT couples.)

The Tea Party seems a little harder to tell. Some are obviously in it for
fiscal self-interest (upper and middle class people that want lower taxes).
However, there are some in the Tea Party because they fear government
intervention even though they obviously benefit from Social Security,
Medicare, etc. (At least some of that is caused by fear mongering and twisted
truths from Tea Party leaders.)

------
tboyd47
_" People would probably be better off if they knew more than they do about a
lot of things (or at least, I am assuming so, though there is research on this
sort of thing). Politics might, however, be the last thing on that list... and
yet, politics is the one area in which we get irritated when other people are
apathetic or ignorant."_

In America, anyway -- I don't know about other democratic countries -- this is
so true. And as an apathetic person, let me say that it's _so_ satisfying to
hear a voice in political science say it.

People seem to have this superstitious obsession with the democratic ritual.
The act of filling in a circle in a ballot box is so important to them that
they just cannot accept the fact that someone would choose not to participate.

This way of thinking makes less sense to me than someone who's fanatic about a
sports team. If you tell a fan of a football team that you don't watch
football, at least he'll respect this about you. Try telling some party
activist that you don't vote and see if they ever let it go.

Edit: my post is being downvoted to oblivion anyway, but removed some
hyperbolic language that wasn't helping my case.

~~~
erehweb
Are you apathetic to: \- whether your fellow countrymen go to war? \- who gets
to marry? \- abortion rights?

If you are, then that's your right, but please don't act surprised when people
who care about these things get irritated.

~~~
pitt1980
here's what bothers me about this

as a voter I such a microscopically small degree of contol of any of those
questions (functionally 0), that they don't seem productive to even care about

if I care about them, then I have to get upset when things don't go my way, I
have to either get into arguments with people I know or actively try to avoid
arguments

where is the net positive?

~~~
NotAtWork
I mean, if you care more about not arguing with your relatives than you do
that the CIA abducted and tortured people, then you have little incentive to
engage with the wider political process.

Of course, most people think that the US government abducting foreign
nationals and torturing them at black sites is a considerably bigger problem
than their mother-in-law being grumpy at them for a couple days, and want to
do something about it.

~~~
pitt1980
how do my in-laws being grumpy help foreign nationals tortured by the CIA?

how has that made the world a better place? other than now I feel vaguely
superior to my in-laws "who just don't get it"

~~~
NotAtWork
If one person in every family made their in-laws grumpy about the CIA torture
scandal, then the entire nation would (at least once, over the course of
months/a year) have an actual discussion about the situation. That discussion
then goes on to inform their views on various topics, including who they
should vote for in the next election.

Government officials, at the end of the day, are chosen because the circles
get filled in on ballots, and the circles get filled in from a choice made on
the aggregate of our experiences, including discussions with friends and
family.

The difference is that if we talk about it, even if it makes people
uncomfortable, then the nation discusses these issues and takes them in to
account when voting. If we don't, then the nation doesn't.

The rate at which pissed off people bother their family members about what
they're pissed off about directly influences the course of national politics,
even if the particular result of any particular discussion is some pissed off
in-laws and a small percentage chance a bubble gets filled out differently in
a few months.

~~~
aestra
> If one person in every family made their in-laws grumpy about the CIA
> torture scandal, then the entire nation would (at least once, over the
> course of months/a year) have an actual discussion about the situation. That
> discussion then goes on to inform their views on various topics, including
> who they should vote for in the next election.

Only in fantasy land.

The problem?

Nobody ever actually has a rational discussion or becomes informed about
anything. Just shouting matches and insults get thrown around, nothing ever
gets accomplished. Everyone now hates each other. You aren't going to change
someone's deeply held beliefs even if those beliefs are based on complete and
total lies.

The backfire effect.

[http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/06/10/the-backfire-
effect/](http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/06/10/the-backfire-effect/)

The Misconception: When your beliefs are challenged with facts, you alter your
opinions and incorporate the new information into your thinking.

The Truth: When your deepest convictions are challenged by contradictory
evidence, your beliefs get stronger.

[http://www.skepdic.com/backfireeffect.html](http://www.skepdic.com/backfireeffect.html)

------
soneca
And the clickbait-title virus contaminates academic papers.

------
diziet
According to game theory in a two party system the two candidates will tend to
converge in the middle (assuming single issue distribution).

------
frequentflyeru
I'll just wait for the buzzfeed version.

------
asgard1024
This seems to me as a "standard" intelectual-elitist paper which tries to
insinuate that democracy, where people really decide the issues, cannot work.
I haven't read it very deeply but the fact that he quotes Walter Lippmann says
that lot.

Also, I think he misrepresents Arrow's theorem. First of all, it applies only
to ordering of preferences; if you allow preferences to be number from
interval, such as range voting does, there is no problem. Second, the non-
dictatorship criterion is a bit disingenuous, because who is dictator depends
on their own preferences - just like majority vote is not "dictatorship of the
majority".

~~~
jarin
I gotta say, I'm impressed by how you've turned "intelectual" into a
pejorative.

~~~
asgard1024
I really didn't - I wrote "intelectual-elitist". It's their choice to have
disgusting opinions. Perhaps I am too cynical, I have been reading too much
Chomsky lately. :-)

Edit: Let me give you a Chomsky quote:

"Actually, I should say, the term "manufacturing consent" is not mine, I took
it from Walter Lippmann, the leading public intellectual and leading media
figure of the twentieth century, who thought it was a great idea. He said we
should manufacture consent, that's the way democracies should work. There
should be a small group of powerful people, and the rest of the population
should be spectators, and you should force them to consent by controlling,
regimenting their minds. That's the leading idea of democratic theorists, and
the public relations industry and so on, so I'm not making it up. In fact, I'm
just borrowing their conception, and telling other people what they think."

This is what the paper appears to be advocating, as well.

