What's the connection to the 2008 presidential election? Well, much of the media analysis, and even the strategies of the campaigns themselves, is based on the ongoing poll results indicating voter preferences state-by-state and nationwide. But I suspect that we are observing the Clever Hans Effect on a massive scale, and that the polls are in fact unreliable. Worse than "unreliable," actually: they are inaccurate because to some degree they reflect not the honest feelings of the respondents but rather what the pollers want to hear.Interesting line of thought and analysis here--well worth the read...
[Via Sam W]
this pulls together a lot of theorems without the experiments necessary to verify any conclusions. but it is definitely interesting, and makes for a reasonably good hypothesis.
ReplyDeleteand speaking of social experiments in conformity:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2008/10/16/nice-little-bank-you-got-there-shame-if-anything-happened-to-it/
"The chief executives of the nine largest banks in the United States trooped into a gilded conference room at the Treasury Department at 3 p.m. Monday. To their astonishment, they were each handed a one-page document that said they agreed to sell shares to the government, then Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said they must sign it before they left.
"They weren’t allowed to negotiate. Mr. Paulson requested that each of them sign. It was for their own good and the good of the country, he said, according to a person in the room."
At least one banker objected. "But by 6:30, all nine chief executives had signed — setting in motion the largest government intervention in the American banking system since the Depression."
I have written several times about fascism being our biggest danger.
ReplyDeleteYou know, that state/corporate/commerce/business partnership? The dominant power being the entity in control of the military. Usually the state, but not always.
You are seeing the second phase now. I am not going to reproduce here everything I have written on it, but you can probably find it if you are interested. If you are not, then it doesn't make a damn.