All the liberals here should just put conservatives on ignore.

baro-san · Sep 9, 2012

"The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies" by Bryan Caplan

Every survey of the electorate in Western democracies shows it to be woefully uninformed: few can name their elected representatives or identify their party affiliation, nor answer the most basic questions about the political system under which they live. Economists and political scientists attribute this to ârational ignoranceâ: since there is a vanishingly small probability that the vote of a single person will be decisive, it is rational for that individual to ignore the complexities of the issues and candidates and embrace the cluelessness which these polls make manifest.
But, the experts contend, there's no problemâeven if a large majority of the electorate is ignorant knuckle-walkers, it doesn't matter because they'll essentially vote at random. Their uninformed choices will cancel out, and the small informed minority will be decisive. Hence the âmiracle of aggregationâ: stir in millions of ignoramuses and thousands of political junkies and diligent citizens and out pops true wisdom.

Or maybe notâthis book looks beyond the miracle of aggregation, which assumes that the errors of the uninformed are random, to examine whether there are systematic errors (or biases) among the general population which cause democracies to choose policies which are ultimately detrimental to the well-being of the electorate. The author identifies four specific biases in the field of economics, and documents, by a detailed analysis of the Survey of Americans and Economists on the Economy , that while economists, reputed to always disagree amongst themselves, are in fact, on issues which Thomas Sowell terms Basic Economics (September 2008), almost unanimous in their opinions, yet widely at variance from the views of the general public and the representatives they elect.

Many economists assume that the electorate votes what economists call its ârational choiceâ, yet empirical data presented here shows that democratic electorates behave very differently. The key insight is that choice in an election is not a preference in a market, where the choice directly affects the purchaser, but rather an allocation in a commons, where the consequences of an individual vote have negligible results upon the voter who casts it. And we all know how commons inevitably end.

The individual voter in a large democratic polity bears a vanishingly small cost in voting their ideology or beliefs, even if they are ultimately damaging to their own well-being, because the probability their own single vote will decide the election is infinitesimal. As a result, the voter is liberated to vote based upon totally irrational beliefs, based upon biases shared by a large portion of the electorate, insulated by the thought, âAt least my vote won't decide the election, and I can feel good for having cast it this wayâ.

You might think that voters would be restrained from indulging their feel-good inclinations by considering their self interest, but studies of voter behaviour and the preferences of subgroups of voters demonstrate that in most circumstances voters support policies and candidates they believe are best for the polity as a whole, not their narrow self interest. Now, this would be a good thing if their beliefs were correct, but at least in the field of economics, they aren't, as defined by the near-unanimous consensus of professional economists. This means that there is a large, consistent, systematic bias in policies preferred by the uninformed electorate, whose numbers dwarf the small fraction who comprehend the issues in contention. And since, once again, there is no cost to an individual voter in expressing his or her erroneous beliefs, the voter can be ârationally irrationalâ: the possibility of one vote being decisive vanishes next to the cost of becoming informed on the issues, so it is rational to unknowingly vote irrationally. The reason democracies so often pursue irrational policies such as protectionism is not unresponsive politicians or influence of special interests, but instead politicians giving the electorate what it votes for, which is regrettably ultimately detrimental to its own self-interest.

Although the discussion here is largely confined to economic issues, there is no reason to believe that this inherent failure of democratic governance is confined to that arena. Indeed, one need only peruse the daily news to see abundant evidence of democracies committing folly with the broad approbation of their citizenry. (Run off a cliff? Yes, we can!) The author contends that rational irrationality among the electorate is an argument for restricting the scope of government and devolving responsibilities it presently undertakes to market mechanisms. In doing so, the citizen becomes a consumer in a competitive market and now has an individual incentive to make an informed choice because the consequences of that choice will be felt directly by the person making it. Naturally, as you'd expect with an irrational electorate, things seem to have been going in precisely the opposite direction for much of the last century.

This is an excellently argued and exhaustively documented book (The ratio of pages of source citations and end notes to main text may be as great as anything I've read) which will make you look at democracy in a different way and begin to comprehend that in many cases where politicians do stupid things, they are simply carrying out the will of an irrational electorate. For a different perspective on the shortcomings of democracy, also with a primary focus on economics, see Hans-Hermann Hoppe's superb Democracy: The God that Failed (June 2002), which approaches the topic from a hard libertarian perspective.
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PHOENIX TRADING · Sep 9, 2012

Quote from mrbill:

Are you not even bothering to read things now? You know that I have advocated not putting people on ignore. And, it does seem that more of the conservative ilk here tend to use that function.

Not running from any conversation Mrs PT. Ut oh, did I just slip into the grade school playground too?
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Quite obviously you are the one being very dishonest here.

below is what that post was replying to

Quote from mrbill:

You see, this is the reason that Obama will win. The ABO group has nothing, nothing but silly and stupid images, cartoons, and bumpersticker slogans. And, this is obviously means that they have no desire to discuss facts, or listen to them.

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mrbill · Sep 9, 2012

Quote from PHOENIX TRADING:

Quite obviously you are the one being very dishonest here.

below is what that post was replying to
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See my post with WJK, someone who asked serious questions, and got serious answers. When I see cartoons and bumper stickers from the right, then I'm guessing they don't want to actually discuss anything.

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=3621276#post3621276

How do I debate with a silly cartoon? Ok, I left you an easy one there, but be serious for a minute.

PHOENIX TRADING · Sep 9, 2012

Quote from bigarrow:

How thin skinned and insecure does a person have to be to go to the political section of a forum and ignore all the opinions that he doesn't agree with? Makes you wonder what goes on in a mind like that.
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About as thin skinned as freethinker , IQ47, futurecurrents , rcg.

mrbill · Sep 9, 2012

Quote from PHOENIX TRADING:

About as thin skinned as freethinker , IQ47, futurecurrents , rcg.
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Again, with the Pee Wee Herman - I know you are, but what am I.

Keep saying that you're better than that name calling nonsense.

Lucrum · Sep 9, 2012

Quote from bigarrow:

How thin skinned and insecure does a person have to be to go to the political section of a forum and ignore all the opinions that he doesn't agree with? Makes you wonder what goes on in a mind like that.
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Ricter
futurecunts
free thinker
Pekelo
RCG wannabe Trader
IQ47
kunt2k

all use ignore and they ALL think pretty much like YOU do.

And yes, many here wonder WTF goes through their feeble little minds.

These guys are YOUR political allies, YOU agree with them on nearly everything.

baro-san · Sep 9, 2012

"The Revolt of the Masses" by JosÃ© Ortega y Gasset

This book, published more than seventy-five years ago, when the twentieth century was only three decades old, is a simply breathtaking diagnosis of the crises that manifested themselves in that century and the prognosis for human civilisation. The book was published in Spanish in 1930; this English translation, authorised and approved by the author, by a translator who requested to remain anonymous, first appeared in 1932 and has been in print ever since.
I have encountered few works so short (just 190 pages), which are so densely packed with enlightening observations and thought-provoking ideas. When I read a book, if I encounter a paragraph that I find striking, either in the writing or the idea it embodies, I usually add it to my âquotesâ archive for future reference. If I did so with this book, I would find myself typing in a large portion of the entire text. This is not an easy read, not due to the quality of the writing and translation (which are excellent), nor the complexity of the concepts and arguments therein, but simply due to the pure number of insights packed in here, each of which makes you stop and ponder its derivation and implications.

The essential theme of the argument anticipated the crunchy/soggy analysis of society by more than 65 years. In brief, over-achieving self-motivated elites create liberal democracy and industrial economies. Liberal democracy and industry lead to the emergence of the âmass manâ, self-defined as not of the elite and hostile to existing elite groups and institutions. The mass man, by strength of numbers and through the democratic institutions which enabled his emergence, seizes the levers of power and begins to use the State to gratify his immediate desires. But, unlike the elites who created the State, the mass man does not think or plan in the long term, and is disinclined to make the investments and sacrifices which were required to create the civilisation in the first place, and remain necessary if it is to survive. In this consists the crisis of civilisation, and grasping this single concept explains much of the history of the seven decades which followed the appearance of the book and events today. Suddenly some otherwise puzzling things start to come into focus, such as why it is, in a world enormously more wealthy than that of the nineteenth century, with abundant and well-educated human resources and technological capabilities which dwarf those of that epoch, there seems to be so little ambition to undertake large-scale projects, and why those which are embarked upon are so often bungled.

In a single footnote on p. 119, Ortega y Gasset explains what the brilliant Hans-Hermann Hoppe spent an entire book doing: why hereditary monarchies, whatever their problems, are usually better stewards of the national patrimony than democratically elected leaders. In pp. 172â186 he explains the curious drive toward European integration which has motivated conquerors from Napoleon through Hitler, and collectivist bureaucratic schemes such as the late, unlamented Soviet Union and the odious present-day European Union. On pp. 188â190 he explains why a cult of youth emerges in mass societies, and why they produce as citizens people who behave like self-indulgent perpetual adolescents. In another little single-sentence footnote on p. 175 he envisions the disintegration of the British Empire, then at its zenith, and the cultural fragmentation of the post-colonial states. I'm sure that few of the author's intellectual contemporaries could have imagined their descendants living among the achievements of Western civilisation yet largely ignorant of its history or cultural heritage; the author nails it in chapters 9â11, explaining why it was inevitable and tracing the consequences for the civilisation, then in chapter 12 he forecasts the fragmentation of science into hyper-specialised fields and the implications of that. On pp. 184â186 he explains the strange attraction of Soviet communism for European intellectuals who otherwise thought themselves individualistsârecall, this is but six years after the death of Lenin. And still there is moreâ¦and moreâ¦and more. This is a book you can probably re-read every year for five years in a row and get something more out of it every time.
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Lucrum · Sep 9, 2012

Quote from mrbill:

... When I see cartoons and bumper stickers from the right, then I'm guessing they don't want to actually discuss anything.
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Then once again you'd be flat out dead ass wrong. If YOU guys would stop running from facts you can't refute and questions you don't like the answers to you'd probably see a little less of the behavior that you're supposedly so disgusted with. Despite the fact YOU and your ilk do pretty much the same.

How do I debate with a silly cartoon?...
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You debate, if you dare, the message of the political cartoon.

mrbill · Sep 9, 2012

Quote from Lucrum:

Ricter
futurecunts
free thinker
Pekelo
RCG wannabe Trader
IQ47
kunt2k

all use ignore and they ALL think pretty much like YOU do.
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If they do, I invite them to turn the stupid thing off. Sure, it can be irritating to see so much childish behavior, but it is not good to hide away. Come on guys, please respond to this if you do not belong on the above list, or if you will turn it off.

To be fair, could I see a list of those on the right who have, or are perceived to have, others on ignore? Same invite for them as well.

Lucrum · Sep 9, 2012

Quote from mrbill:

If they do...
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There is no IF about it. Everyone has admittedly it publicly.