On the dubious wisdom of crowds
In the used-to-be-popular TV show Who wants to be a millionaire? contestants had the option of using an "ask the audience" lifeline . In the US version, the audience as a whole almost always indicated the correct response. The idea that by putting enough people together we can somehow aggregate their knowledge is a popular one, and certainly true on some level. On the other hand, anyone who has sat through one too many meetings about team building or has tried to convince a stubborn majority they've made a mistake knows that sometimes a whole bunch of people are just a whole bunch of wrong or a whole bunch of dumb =) Definitive proof below the fold...
Ok, so this is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but I couldn't help but be struck by my jaunt through the liberal blogs recently today. The top diary on MyDD, a bastion of Hillary support, has this gem at the top of their rec list. Now, it's not like their rec list is typically anything to brag about
, but at least most of those anti-Obama hit pieces involved a degree of effort. Here is the sum total of original writing in this diary:
In today's conference call, Phil Singer wasn't shy about telling reporters how things are changing in the race. The email announcing the call, entitled "Obama Campaign: Just Words", made the following arguments [snip] Singer continues with a summary of the state of the race now - it's all just words from Camp Obama. [snip]
That's it? That's the best of the best of MyDD, one of the largest non-kos liberal blogs? Or, just as damningly, this is what the MyDD community considers the best it has to offer?
Over now to the big Orange, a bastion of Obama support (since Edwards dropped out, anyway), where we find BREAKING: Clinton Lied About Fundraising Totals on the top, with a plea inside to PLEASE REC. GET THIS STORY OUT THERE! Unfortunately, the story is wrong
:
Al misread the LA Times story. As I wrote on his blog, the primary source disproves his interpretation of the story. She transfered the $10 million from her senatorial account last year, and she took the loan in January. In a nutshell, the $35 million figure for February is accurate.
To the diarist's credit, the story has now been updated (edit: story now deleted); to the credit of dKos, numerous people in the comments called for the correction. However, it's another example of people reading what they want to read and refusing to think critically for themselves.
Ok, it's Friday, maybe I'm overreacting... but this to me does not speak highly for the usefulness of online political communities. Our own humble outpost excepted, naturally.
Comments :
They're idiots, Brendan
So, no, you are not overreacting. That silly MyDD conference call diary shows how dumb people can get when it comes to things like politics. They sit around pretending to believe news spin about other candidates even though they know what the truth is and what really matters.
Inotherwords,
This:
indicates willful ignorance.
Even more ridiculous
were the several diaries at DKos blaming Hillary for rifling Obama's passport files.
qui tacet consentire
Excellent Diary
I don't think it has anything to do with the wisdom of crowds, though.
People want to be reassured that their view of the world is correct. This is why conservatives like Fox News, why liberals like Keith Olbermann, and why thinking people post here :-).
Once we believe something, we have a hard time changing our minds to accept any new evidence that conflicts with those beliefs. Changing one's beliefs means accepting that you were previously misguided, bamboozled, or simply ignorant of the facts. Everyone likes to pretend they have all the answers, but it takes real courage to admit that you were wrong. Not everyone has this courage.
People who disagree with the tone that DKos takes are likely to not stick around; apparently, they went to MyDD. To that extent, political communities will become more homogeneous as the detractors drop out and find new communities. This shouldn't be shocking news because this is exactly how political parties work.
Southern Democrats have completed the transition to being Republicans, and I think that libertarians are going make a transition to the Democrats in the next few years. To an extent, I think they already have. Libertarians used to be seen as the right flank of the Republican Party, but now Libertarian candidates tend to draw equally from both parties.
I never broke the law; I am the law! --
George W. BushJudge DreddI'm listening to...
I was wondering about that as I wrote it
People want to be reassured that their view of the world is correct.
You're probably right -- it's not so much crowds per se that are the problem, but overly homogeneous crowds that have insufficient checks and balances.
I think that libertarians are going make a transition to the Democrats in the next few years.
I used to think that too, but now I'm not sure. I think we as Democrats sometimes confuse disgust with particular Republican policies or political actions with sympathy for liberal views. Maybe they'll form an uneasy alliance for a time but long-term I don't see a genuine alliance.
Would be nice if there were a viable third party.
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
three things to say
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
I love demotivators
Very nice choices... apt indeed.
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
If I ever finish it,
I started an essay asking people how they react to a brief article I chose, then using that as a springboard to discuss how we process information and make critical (or not so critical) judgments. When it's done, I'll post here and nudge you over to it. Your essay here makes a nice segue into it.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
popularity of knowledge
groups are often a whole lot of wrong.
the reason it works in the Millionaire setting is twofold I think.
One, they are asking about bits of knowledge that are in fact, overall, part of popular knowledge... so people know the answer. But two, the writers of that show are going to accept the popular answer as the correct one anyway... so if the group is likely to all answer wrong, the writer is also likely to have found the wrong answer during research... i.e. popular is right, so popular answers are by definition "right" in that context.
a group meeting on the other hand expects analysis... and proper analysis technique is not, at all, popular.
I hadn't thought about that
the writers of that show are going to accept the popular answer as the correct one anyway... so if the group is likely to all answer wrong, the writer is also likely to have found the wrong answer during research
I wonder how often the show got the answer wrong when you scrutinize the questions? And how much money was gained or lost as a result!
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
Humans are amusing......
I suppose this is why in politics fear can be considered the great uniter.
I'm only half stupid
Just different cultures, I guess
Judging by the numbers, we're the odd ones ;-)
I think a lot of people post on Kos for support and belonging. You can sense this in the overwhelming response when a Kossack posts any story of personal tragedy. Whatever you say about that community, you can't say that it does not support its own, at least in word. Here, for example, we have tlaloc with MS, and I'm sure we all know that it is a tough row to hoe, but people just hammer him in post after post as if he was built of stone. Well maybe it's not *quite* that harsh ;-) But nobody gets much of a free pass here.
There's also the regular series at DailyKos, such as the Overnight News Digest which I edited once a week-- these subgroups create their own little subcommunitites, with the same folks showing up each night and supporting each other. Even though i was not of a like mind with many of the participants, I enjoyed that subcommunity, and found that the folks that knew me from that series would support my other diaries by recommending even when they disagreed with my POV. That was notable, because I found that beyond those subgroups, nearly all recommends were given because of agreement. In fact, recommending a well-argued diary with a contrary point of vew was becoming so rare that people seemed to feel that when they would do it, they needed to explain themselves in a comment-- "I disagree with you, but I'm recommending this diary becasue..."
The site was frustrating for me, because my mediocre diaries would make the rec list sometimes, but my favorite diaries, the ones that I put time into and were well-written, or the ones that got good discussions going because there was something to argue against, never would make the list. It just seemed like the community was inversely rewarding me for effort and willingness to express different ideas. My ideas for the Democratic Party just didn't get any traction at all there.
For me, this site is just a much much better fit. I'm glad that I came across it.
skymutt: accept no substitutes!
Once anything gets really big, I think a lot of the value
is found in the subgroups. You get a lot of the benefit from the larger community (site functionality, audience) but you get the best parts of small groups too -- familiarity, more in-depth discussion, perhaps a specific focus.
There's certainly a bit of a knee-jerk tendency at the large political sites to dismiss or ignore stuff that doesn't fit the comfort zone, that challenges or questions widely held beliefs.
I'm glad you came across SC too =)
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
It's agreed, skymutt.
Although I've never posted on DailyKos, I have visited that site on occasion, and can see how one could easily get totally swallowed up there, if one gets the drift.
Talk about dubious wisdom!
Our NOLA blogathon
landed with barely a whimper. The irony here is that a ton of people who didn't bother to spend time with them (not as exciting as the primaries, woo-hoo!) will still throw out the "the media doesn't care about New Orleans" soundbite when it's convenient.
Not that I'm bitter or anything. ;)
Actually I'm not: I'm used to my best work not making much of an impact, and the crap I toss off getting on the rec list. It's a weird dynamic. Disappointing that not one of those posts got a great deal of attention, but it's an unsexy topic during a heated primary season. Que sera, sera.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
That's too bad, it's an important topic
I'm gonna point it out to my wife -- she lived there for a while and followed the Katrina stuff closely, read the Brinkley book, etc. I'm sure she'll be interested.
Your "Literature for Kossacks" series sometimes got recognition, which was nice. But in general I have to agree that particularly during this primary season what gets noticed is not always what deserves attention.
The diary rescue is a good idea to try to remedy that.
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
I'm not bitter either
Okay, I can't lie. I still have a trace amount of bitterness :-)
There was a bit of irony along these same lines on DKos the other day... Kos had a post on the frontpage that centered on Bill Clinton's selfishness in regards to only helping himself win the presidency and never helping downticket. Much agreement in the comments, obvioulsy,at how selfish Bill was, and there's probably a little truth in that. At the very moment that this post was on the front page, however, the top seven items on the rec list were pro-Obama or anti-Hillary diaries, and nothing regarding downticket races in the recent diaries either. Why slam Bill for not supporting downticket races when the community is ignoring downticket races also?
In fairness, Kos himself does diary about Senate and House races. But if you look to the communtiy diaries, you'd barely be aware that there were any Senate or House seats up for grabs in less than 8 months. In fact, during this whole primary season, I can only recall a couple of primary diaries for House races. What happened to all the people who were so adamant that every "Bush Dog" needed a primary opponent? Where was the support for the progressive upstarts in the primaries against moderate and conservative Dems?
skymutt: accept no substitutes!
Yes, I think that when popular diarists have tried
to highlight downticket races or local politics or particular issues they generally don't get the response rate for which they had hoped.
For example, anything by clammyc or thereisnospoon bashing bush or calling on Dems on Congress to get a spine hits the rec list, but their blogtalkradio program, which interviews candidates for Congress, usually gets little notice. Even though it's arguably more important than the Obama/Clinton stuff; as he put it:
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
Your diary makes some good, interesting points, Brendan.
It also points out the complexities of human nature and human thinking.
Moreover, this:
is virtually always the case. Conversations and/or responses almost never evolke the kinds of responses and debates that we hope for.
Human nature and human thinking is way too complex for that.