• deaf_fish@lemm.ee
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    6 months ago

    It was a counter to this statement.

    When polls ask people who they intend to vote for, they would tell them that they intend to vote for the Democrats, because they consider the Greens nonviable.

    But I now that I am re-reading it I see that I had misinterpreted it. I thought you were implying that polls only ask questions about voting and not option. This was my bad. Sorry.

    • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      It’s an important point, because you presented it as a form of evidence that could be used to show when “it’s time” for everyone to switch to a third party, and then completely rejected it for that purpose right after. Which leaves us back at square one, which is that there is no means of coordinating a sudden switch or recognizing when such a switch would be viable. And without that, your whole position collapses.

      • deaf_fish@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        Or a poll that shows favorability over voting.

        Your argument boils down to “We would need a thing that easily could exist and maybe currently doesn’t exist and that’s why this is an unsolvable problem.”

        • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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          6 months ago

          So, in your mind, if someone did this favorability poll you want, and it showed, say, 60% favorability for the Green Party, you would vote for them, and you imagine that the majority of Democratic voters would all spontaneous switch their votes over together?

          Go ahead and ask that to people you know, irl or people online: “If there was a poll showing a third party with 60% (or higher!) favorability, would that cause you to switch your vote? Would you expect it to cause others to switch their votes?” I can already tell you the answer you’ll get.

          I hate to say this, but the fact that you think this is such a trivial problem tells me that you must be young, and there are no words I can say that are a substitute for experience. I recognize your mindset because I’ve had it myself, you want to drive a rational answer and the world can simply bend around to what you come up with. You want an answer that’s simply correct, because you don’t want to face a difficult decision, you don’t want to deal with the fact that both courses of action have some validity to them and either one comes with potential negative repercussions.

          Let me give you a piece of advice - there are two types of ideas, ones that are molded around reality, and ones that are molded around psychological needs. The ones molded around psychological needs are always more appealing (assuming you have the needs it’s designed for), but they’re also not real. The ones molded around reality are often less smooth and neat, and less appealing - because they’re not designed for you, they’re designed to represent reality. The task of anyone seeking truth is to learn how to recognize what both types of ideas look like, what they’re “shaped” like, what they feel like. Your idea that you can get all the benefits of supporting a third party while also getting the benefits of voting Democrat - it’s shaped around what you want to be true. Essentially, it’s motivated reasoning convincing you that there must be some way for it to work, in order to avoid facing a difficult decision.

          Seek truth from facts. Put aside how you think the world ought to operate and look at how it does. You can’t make a map before you’ve seen the territory. When you do that, you’ll see that this sudden spontaneous shift as the result of some random poll is never going to happen.

          That’s all I have to say to you about this topic. I’m sorry if that comes off as condescending, but it’s genuinely from the heart. I can’t force you to see something you’re dead-set on not seeing. I don’t see anything productive coming from continuing this.

          • deaf_fish@lemm.ee
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            6 months ago

            So, in your mind, if someone did this favorability poll you want, and it showed, say, 60% favorability for the Green Party, you would vote for them, and you imagine that the majority of Democratic voters would all spontaneous switch their votes over together?

            Not Democratic voters (assuming you mean the party). Just voters.

            If you’re a Democrat and you feel like the Green Party has a candidate polling at a majority that represents your interests more than the Democratic candidate, why would you vote for the Democratic candidate instead? It goes against your interests. I know some Democrats are brain damaged, but I think that is only a small percentage (1 - 3 %).

            This is like saying the majority of the population is leftist and has a chance at a bloodless revolution, but they decide to not take it because of shits and giggles.

            • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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              6 months ago

              If you’re a Democrat and you feel like the Green Party has a candidate polling at a majority

              Polling as in “intends to vote for” or polling as in “has a favorable opinion of?”

              If favorability: Multiple candidates can have positive favorability, so in that case most Democrats would stick with Democrat candidates because they don’t expect the third party to win.

              If voting intention: The only way for a third party to be polling at a majority in terms of voting intention would be if people really did intend to vote for them (which would require some people to intend to vote for them before it was clear they had a real chance), or if people lied to pollsters about their intentions.

              You’re not going to find some clever solution that allows you to bypass the problem of coordinating a mass switch, that problem is fundamental. This is tiresome.

              • deaf_fish@lemm.ee
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                6 months ago

                Polling as in “intends to vote for” or polling as in “has a favorable opinion of?”

                We could try “has most favorable opinion of?” or “most ideologically aligned with?”

                I feel like you are hinting at the possibility of not only a leftist majority but a majority interest in a specific candidate and we would be too dumb to figure that out. Is that your position?

                You’re not going to find some clever solution that allows you to bypass the problem of coordinating a mass switch, that problem is fundamental.

                Hey, ancient wisdom person, you need to be able to explain why the problem is fundamental and not solvable. I don’t see it. And all that ancient wisdom does you no good politically if you can’t impart it.

                This is tiresome.

                I agree, please stop making bad arguments so we can stop this thread or maybe I can learn something.

                • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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                  6 months ago

                  I feel like you are hinting at the possibility of not only a leftist majority but a majority interest in a specific candidate and we would be too dumb to figure that out. Is that your position?

                  No. If you’d listened to a single thing I said, you’d understand that it has nothing to do with being “too dumb to figure it out.” It’s a problem of coordinating a mass switch. It’s a collective action problem. Intelligence has nothing to do with it, people acting rationally on an individual level are not necessarily going to arrive at the best collective outcome. Read, like, anything about game theory, I am begging you.

                  Hey, ancient wisdom person, you need to be able to explain why the problem is fundamental and not solvable. I don’t see it. And all that ancient wisdom does you no good politically if you can’t impart it.

                  I agree, please stop making bad arguments so we can stop this thread or maybe I can learn something.

                  I have shot down half-assed argument after half-assed argument of yours, and you just keep spewing them out without putting any actual consideration into them.

                  First it was that polls showing the popularity of third party candidates in general could provide the mechanism for coordinating a switch. I disproved that.

                  Then it was that favorability polls would provide the mechanism for coordinating a switch. I disproved that.

                  Now it’s that polls you just dreamed up that nobody is asking that are supposed to provide the mechanism for coordinating a switch. I suppose this one could go on forever, with each question I prove wouldn’t work being replaced by an equally inane question that you spent 5 seconds coming up with. Just over and over again forever.

                  You might as well be trying to prove Bigfoot exists by asking one by one about every location you can think of, and each time I check one you simply produce a new location to check.

                  So I’ll tell you what - I will address one, final attempt to produce a mechanism for coordinating a switch. Right now you’ve offered a suggestion, “We could try “has most favorable opinion of?” or “most ideologically aligned with?”” Before I do: are you confident enough in that attempt that you’re ok with it being your very last one? Have you actually thought it through and tried on your own to think of reasons why it might not work? If I’m able to address this one, will you finally admit that you are unable to provide any mechanism for solving the collective action problem, and that you cannot defend your position?

                  • deaf_fish@lemm.ee
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                    6 months ago

                    It’s a problem of coordinating a mass switch.

                    Ok, so I don’t want to use up my one question, so I will just assume your position is that if we had one fascist leader and everyone else was a leftist who agreed on which candidate they would want to lead them, then the leftists wouldn’t be able to do whatever to figure that out and the one and only fascists leader would stay in charge forever. Got it.

                    You really should vote for the lesser evil, because your opinion of the people you agree with is very low. By your own logic, you’re are already screwed.

                    Now it’s that polls you just dreamed up that nobody is asking that are supposed to provide the mechanism for coordinating a switch.

                    Hey, if you have a general argument for why polling wont work, why didn’t you use that instead of just asserting that it wouldn’t without explaining (rhetorical question does not count)? That is why I am trying to figure out why you think that. The only way I know how to do that is by trying to figure out what wording is causing you issues.

                    Before I do: are you confident enough in that attempt that you’re ok with it being your very last one?

                    Yes, stop edging me. Any question I ask you, you will probably provide another evasive answer to. Anyone reading this thread will see that plainly. Please add more weight to my arguments.

                    I want to hear your response to this: Why would polls worded like “has most favorable opinion of?” or “most ideologically aligned with?" not work to detect a consensus of a single leftist candidate and why wouldn’t people then vote for that candidate?