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I remember a sociological study that was done in the 90's where experimenters attempted to determine at what point the size of voting population began to create diminishing returns in terms of voter turnout. Basically, they assembled a series of randomly sampled people and told them about how many other people were in their voting group, and what they would receive for participating in the experiment 'correctly' (basically, picking the winning option), then told when and where to show up.
As I recall, they concluded that more people voted when the voting population was relatively small, or the potential reward for participation was relatively high. Even something as simple as candy bar was able to ensure 98-100% participation when the voting sample was no higher than 50, while a sample of 500 only showed significant participation when monetary rewards ($50 if I recall correctly) were offered.
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
dogma wrote:I remember a sociological study that was done in the 90's where experimenters attempted to determine at what point the size of voting population began to create diminishing returns in terms of voter turnout. Basically, they assembled a series of randomly sampled people and told them about how many other people were in their voting group, and what they would receive for participating in the experiment 'correctly' (basically, picking the winning option), then told when and where to show up.
As I recall, they concluded that more people voted when the voting population was relatively small, or the potential reward for participation was relatively high. Even something as simple as candy bar was able to ensure 98-100% participation when the voting sample was no higher than 50, while a sample of 500 only showed significant participation when monetary rewards ($50 if I recall correctly) were offered.
Yeah, I'm not sure if I've read that exact study, but I've read stuff like it. Population size is a big factor, but again that left me scratching my head, I mean whether you're looking at 1,000 people or 100,000 the odds of an individual vote impacting it are almost zero.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
Not only will you notice that piece at 1000, but it could really piss you off when you find out it is missing.
At 100,000 the odds are definitely closer to zero, but on a scale much larger than that the real issue arises. I'm not even sure I can imagine what 30 million people is, let alone 300 million.
100 grand is a candy bar, while a third of a billion is a... well, that is a pretty massive number. Not that I actually vote on those terms during these elections, but that is the scale many people try to think on.
Alot of reports are saying that US voters voted against Obama because of the state of the economy? Is that really fair if that is the case? Didn't he inherit an economy that was already on a steep downward slide? If you do the math, the economy was already in peril, it takes time to get up and running when you are voted in, you then have to present a package to the (Hous? Senate?) and get it passed (which never happens straight away) and then wait for it to start filtering through. So if you take into account the handover period, getting measures passed and the midterm elections, how much practical time does a US president have to actually get things done and have visible results?
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I can now be found on Facebook under the name of Wulfstan Design
Wolfstan wrote:Alot of reports are saying that US voters voted against Obama because of the state of the economy?
Yes.
Is that really fair if that is the case? Didn't he inherit an economy that was already on a steep downward slide?
Yeah, it was already on the slide, and so no it isn't all that fair. But that's life, we as humans don't like accepting that good times and bad can be produced by complex structures and processes, so instead we attribute them to whoever the leader is. McCain's numbers tanked during the campaign when the crisis started, and he hadn't even been President so I don't know why he got blamed at all.
If you do the math, the economy was already in peril, it takes time to get up and running when you are voted in, you then have to present a package to the (Hous? Senate?) and get it passed (which never happens straight away) and then wait for it to start filtering through. So if you take into account the handover period, getting measures passed and the midterm elections, how much practical time does a US president have to actually get things done and have visible results?
The bill got passed in quick enough time. Unfortunately, due to the politics, self interest and general stupidity of many people in congress the bill was too small and included too many elements that weren't going to have much effect on aggregate demand. The people who refused the original stimulus proposals and insisted on a smaller package with more tax cuts were the ones who really deserved to get kicked out of government, but it doesn't work that way.
Obama didn't help his case by overselling the stimulus that was passed, though.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
<-- Finally, level 666! 
