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I was watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIrCOfDbL_E and I was inspired to do what it suggested for american politics. Checking out the party platforms and using isidewith.com on the issues. And when doing the latter, I realized I know jackshit about anything.

The only thing I actually could bring myself to firmly go "yes I have this position" is the electoral college and climate change. Like seriously, you try it, you'll realize how little you know about politics. Left me shrugging my shoulders on whether suspected foreign terrorists should have us criminal law applied to them, even though I know that's very important. And the party platforms are filled with so many specific details, it's insane.

It leaves me worried that everyone is as uninformed about the world as I am apparently

Well, I sort of agree with you regarding people in general. When I get into discussions on just about any subject I find the people with whom I am speaking seldom feel ambivalent. They feel strongly and they have personal experience and some sort of collection of clever things they've heard to back them up. Like a statistic that shows so many of this or that has caused so much of this or that thing. Usually the statistic is something they heard from somebody they were listening to and often it's a "growing" claim. Meaning a few years ago the statistic said 5% of x have experienced y at such and such a place. Advocates for changing things so that the 5% don't suffer might begin with "over 5%" go to "nearly 6%" and so on. I've seen one statistic quoted go from 2 out of 7 to 5 out of seven over the last 30 years. Nobody knows where the original statistic and nobody quoting it is ever challenged to provide the sources….because "everybody knows "It's at least 4 out of 7" because everybody has heard it so often that it's become a mantra.

Another statistic you hear says that 10% of a population is X. The study from which this 10% came was done in the late 1950's and was drawn from a clearly skewed sample. When the statistic became popular to quote in support of legislation, it was quickly pointed out the flaw in the design and that the number cannot be extrapolated to the general population, but that has not stopped it from being repeated over and over. Everybody knows it's 10% because we've all heard it from all kinds of sources so it must be true. Accurate studies, btw, have repeatedly shown the number to be between 2% and 4%, but 10% makes a whole lot more impact so it continues to be used.

These "urban statistics" are like "urban legends." You usually don't know from where they came and the "true believers" accept them because they don't feel it's their responsibility to track them down. After all, who would throw out a perfectly good statistic almost everyone seems to think accurate when it helps with the sacred cause. A little fudging for the sake of the cause is okay, isn't it?

Not only do I find people don't do their homework, they rely far too much on their personal experience. I'd like to inform anybody reading this that: Your personal experience is an insufficient statistical base for extrapolating to the general population. In other words, if you win the lottery don't tell me to buy a lottery ticket because I'm sure to win because you did! Or, just because you had a bad burger at this or that chain restaurant doesn't mean everybody will have a bad burger or that every one of their stores serves bad burgers. You may use your personal experience as an example, but once you do that it is important you then show that your experience is typical by using some measure done properly.

The reason people don't know much is because they think they know enough. What your survey only shows is that most people don't, which I know, is what you concluded too.

AJ

Gotta say, that was an awesome reply. can't say i disagree with what you said, though a lot of it i never thought of before.

I will add to that you focused a bit too much on just statistics compared to the big picture if I figure right. Another big factor is ideas we've so deeply accepted that they've become common sense, even if there is little to back it up. People act this way because this, or people in that position will naturally do this or that. It's easily accepted into intuition as we can immediately grasp that possibility, but then we extrapolate effortlessly from it without considering our axioms.

Though, perhaps we're both extrapolating too much on the nature of people from what we've seen? It's hard to say. One can only know so much.

This is why if you ever make a claim, you should have sources at the ready.

In any kind of conversation where you're talking to someone you don't know, you should have proof of your claim so you don't look like a jackass. Most of the time people don't, but that means you should hold yourself to a higher standard.

Every single political compass test or other bullshit politics measuring test, would usually list me as centrist or conservative despite the fact I fall unambiguously into the far-left, and the reason was because these things never ask any meaningful questions that would extract an accurate assessment of the policy I advocate for. All political tests are limited by the Overtone window of American politics and the tests, and by extension the people who make them, and also the people who take them, are hopelessly ignorant of actual in depth political science or political history, and instead limit themselves only to ideas and policy from the two controlled parties of this country. They are awful and no one should regard them as intelligent or accurate about anything.

Needed to get that off my chest.

I can't say I have same problem as you do since all of the issues isidewith.com asks you about are issues I've been familiar with and had opinions on for a while. The solution to your issue is to read as much as possible as often as possible. I won't, however, say everything it asks about are issues I giver all that much attention too, though I don't think there's any shame in that. Not all issues are equal after all.

Isidewith isn't a political compass test, it's a party issue test. if your issues are outside of both party platforms, than neither party will do it unless the discussion shifts, realistically. Or some dramatic event like 9/11 happens and they have to scramble into the policy voids.

So if you lean with conservatives in most issues actually up for debate, you might as well vote that way. I'd suggest working with external movements and what not to bring up the issues you actually care about to the forefront so parties acknowledge it otherwise, like the moral majority did with republicans during reagan times.

I agree very much with the sentiment that polls are usually great at categorizing but not so much as analyzing. If you know anything about sampling errors you will realize that often the categories slant the results exactly because the questions asked force the respondents into predetermined categories and do not allow for those who might not fit any category. Here's an example for the US: Are you A) Republican or B) Democrat? (I've never actually seen one that made this egregious an error, but it could be made). Any poll that did something that clearly wrong is a bad poll, but sadly, would still be reported if is supported this or that point of view. In other words, polls not only have sampling errors, but the sampling errors are ignored whenever the politics warrant ignoring them. Politics is a lot like capitalism in that the morality is by driven by the bottom line in capitalism and the number of votes in politics.

The extreme, and seldom done, poll, is the interview poll. In such a poll people are interviewed to get their opinion. It takes a lot of effort and cost to do one of these and sometimes things are discovered that could not be known otherwise. However, like the predetermined categories of the standard poll, you have the interpretation by the interviewer at the interview -- who may provide leading questions or miss important signals -- and/or the predetermined classifications or analytical categories of the analyst. In other words, if a human is involved you may not actually be getting a report actually reflecting what the interviewed person actually thinks.

In the world of business the story goes that in 1978 a particular computer company interviewed it's customers and determined that if they came out with a personal computer it would sell only 10,000 a year at most. So they decided to make one but to release the design features freely to the market and allow anyone to copy the general design freely. They released their product and received 100,000 orders in the first 90 days. Why did they miss the boat by so much? Because they interviewed their customers -- whom they understood as being representative of the general population -- and their customers were large, multinational corporations who already had big fat computer systems…so this "personal computer" was just a toy. Had they actually interviewed more than the heads of the IT department they would have found the market much greater than they anticipated and probably put out a more proprietary design (and made a lot more money doing so). The point is, a poll is only as good as it's design and execution. Unfortunately, when poll results are reported we are seldom told of any possible design flaws, especially if the poll supports the editorial position of the reporting agency.

So what are we to believe what we "read in the newspaper?" No,…and yes. No, not what we read in THIS paper or THAT paper, but probably what we read in papers holding differing political and social positions. In other words, if you get all your news from one source you may not be getting the balanced and whole picture. Read widely, listen widely, and speak only when you find enough credible sources that you can be confident what you are saying isn't too slanted or just plain fake.

AJ