Posted on 05/21/2010 8:00:09 PM PDT by wizkid
In politics, there are several mental shortcuts that a skilled political operative can use to manipulate voters:
Short Cut One The Drunkard's Search
Conducting a drunkard's search a drunkard’s search is to look in the place that's easiest, rather than in the place most likely to yield results. Taken from an old joke about a drunkard who loses his car keys while unlocking his car and is found looking under a streetlamp down the road because the light is better, it has been an object of consideration in the social sciences since at least 1964.
(Excerpt) Read more at johnquincy.blogspot.com ...
In the hard sciences, it's called the 'drunkard's walk' and it can be a useful thing.
But the social scientists never really understood.
Math is hard.
/johnny
Insightful. Thanks.
I spent an hour once trying to convince someone (union electrician) that Obastard was a bad choice. The only thing he could come up with was “Well, we gotta do sumthin’ different”.
The moron was soon out of a job (as was I) as the economy tanked and the factory where we worked laid off over half of the workers and canceled all upgrades and modifications, keeping only enough electricians to to keep the lights on.
Hey, Ollie! How’s that hope and change working out for you?
People like that drive me crazy. I avoid talking to them like the plague.
They have NO IDEA what they would do—not even a general idea what would be wise policy.
So, whenever the Pubbies mess up, they turn to the Democrats—and things get worse.
Thank you for you adding to the discussion.
Amazon has what appears to be an interesting book on the subject: “Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives (Hardcover)”
“A drunkard’s walk is a type of random statistical distribution with important applications in scientific studies ranging from biology to astronomy. Mlodinow, a visiting lecturer at Caltech and coauthor with Stephen Hawking of A Briefer History of Time, leads readers on a walk through the hills and valleys of randomness and how it directs our lives more than we realize. Mlodinow introduces important historical figures such as Bernoulli, Laplace and Pascal, emphasizing their ideas rather than their tumultuous private lives. Mlodinow defines such tricky concepts as regression to the mean and the law of large numbers, which should help readers as they navigate the daily deluge of election polls and new studies on how to live to 100.”
You would not believe (maybe you would) how many Obama voters I’ve talked to who said the same thing your electrician friend said. And certainly, that’s the message Obama keeps spouting, regarding economics, business and healthcare.
If unions would spend more time building up their professions through better screening of their members and qualified apprenticeship programs and less on the wacky politics, they would have a lot more respect.
Unfortunately, rather than concentrating on putting out a quality work force; they resort to intimidation and agitation as rampant cronyism lards their rolls with unqualified members.
The need for intimidation in turns leads down the slope of corruption and criminality (i.e. mob ties).
Thank you for the high compliment.
Freepers are a tough (but fair) bunch of critics so you have made my morning.
Posts on how sociological theories are being used to manipulate voters will never be wildly popular as the topic requires some thought. It is unfortunate because, if the public at large was a little better informed on the subject, they would not be so easily duped.
My goal was to make the topic interesting and accessible so your comment meant a lot to me.
Yes, I would believe it. I tried to convince him that doing the WRONG thing was worse than doing nothing but he would not listen.
BTW, Ollie’s last name was Ralph. LOL!
:-) Have a great weekend!
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