Comments on: Some Nuance on "Bad Voters"

By: ryan yin

ryan yin — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 03:37:53 +0000

I had thought that the empirics were that education and performance on basic political tests don't have much of a predictive power (at least in a linear fashion) with political party, though they do have a lot of predictive power, just orthogonal to the right-left dimension. That is, adding extra education or political information changes preferences, but not systematically in favor of one party. Which seems to be entirely in keeping with what Brennan is saying (though not in keeping with some of the less sympathetic readings of what Brennan or Wilkinson are saying), unless I'm misinterpreting.

By: K. Larson

K. Larson — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 03:00:27 +0000

Webgrrl, why would you assume that signaling is binary (you signal or you don't) or that signaling is uniformly distributed (we all do it the same)?

The available evidence is that some portion of our political views must consist of signaling, but surely some of us have a higher mix of in-group/out-group signaling in our political beliefs. Furthermore, signaling behavior is likely to incrementally distort astute policy preferences, not eliminate them entirely.

If we can get those individuals to stay home. We should have less signaling-related inputs in our political process in the aggregate.

Imagine a world where giving medical advice was considered both a natural right and public virtue. Wouldn't you say that encouraging people without medical training (or emotional preferences for, say, faith-healing) to influence the healthcare decisions of others is likely, on balance, to result in more bad decisions about health? Would a policy of "if you don't know what that lump is, don't feel obligated to speculate" improve or impair the quality of medical discourse?

By: ryan yin

ryan yin — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:37:53 +0000

By: K. Larson

K. Larson — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:00:27 +0000

By: webgrrl

webgrrl — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:06:56 +0000

Ok, perhaps voters don't care at all about policies, Jason. Let me think about that.

If all voters are thus "bad," and Hansonian signaling is inherent in democracy, then there will never be any "good" voters, will there? Or at least there will never be enough. And therefore aren't you, Jason, basically castigating sparrows for being unable to do calculus?

If useful or meaningful democracy is thus impossible, why bother to defend universal suffrage at all? Why not just call it empty, expensive theater and abandon it?

So you would in fact be better off holding a salon in your living room,scrapbooking, joining the bowling league, or drinking wine in your garden while Rome burns in the distance, yes?

By: amorphous

amorphous — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 06:24:58 +0000

Yes, the problem has been the positive feedback loop. The more the Republicans convince the biased, bigoted, ill-informed, religious zealots (who make the 'id' of the Republican party) to vote, the greater the collective power of such voters in subsequent election to elect a incompetent candidate based on religious views (example: G.W. Bush). Encourage the bigots to vote. Expand government incompetence and corruption. Increase the significance of the elections. Repeat.

By: adina

adina — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 02:55:37 +0000

The problem is the positive feedback loop. The more the Democrats convince ill-informed people to vote, the greater the collective power of such voters in every subsequent election. Encourage the ill-informed to vote. Expand government power. Increase the significance of the elections. Repeat.

By: Richard

Richard — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 02:05:48 +0000

Hanson merely claims that much political behaviour is *motivated* by reasons other than the effect on policy. It still has an effect on policy.

By: Jason Brennan

Jason Brennan — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 02:04:26 +0000

On Hanson: If voters vote for candidates likely to enact harmful policies because of their desire to signal to others, then they vote badly. Perhaps voters don't care at all about policies. But that doesn't mean they aren't bad voters. Quite the contrary–that's one of the things that makes them bad.

By: webgrrl

webgrrl — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 01:51:41 +0000

But what if Hanson is right? What if voting and politics have absolutely nothing to do with policy? Why then does it matter who votes? Are there still “bad” voters?