EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

I dislike arguing semantics but data often is proof. Anecdotal data isn't. Perhaps I'm splitting hairs.

The Brexit IQ debate is almost as bad as Charles Murray using his bell curve to focus on racial differences in IQ. It's not that the data is false... it's WHY are we even focussing on that data?!

but data often is proof. Anecdotal data isn't

Well there's two sides to this - on the one hand, obviously there's a big qualitative difference between 'data' such as measurements in a physics experiment, and 'data' from gained from an attempt of assessing how well-informed people are about political processes and the like. If you want to be ultra-pedantic though, data can still never truly be proof, even when you're talking about physics experiments - it can show high concordance with a hypothesis, which can then be used as an argument that this hypothesis has a high likelihood to be true. But yeah, that's a bit too pedantic.

Also, what I said previously was obviously not a scientific statement, and I certainly didn't claim brexiters have a lower IQ. I don't really believe in the whole 'IQ' thing the way it is measured anyway, and I certainly don't think it has much of a bearing on anything else.

I do however absolutely stand by my opinion that a majority - in some countries a vast majority - of people are not particularly well-informed about political processes and politics in general, the history of their country, the way international trade works, etc. etc. And that in turn does mean that what a majority of people want, for whatever reason, is in no way guaranteed to be a smart choice when taking into account the well-being of the country as a whole.

I don't disagree, but do you think being informed makes a difference once a significant volume of targeted propaganda is involved?

I tend to work with anticipatory/momentary/episodic research and data for the latter is considered proof (at scale).

And how are you discerning which way this well-informed minority are splitting between leave and remain?

Again, for me, the more interesting discussion is how many leave/remain supporters saw decisive propaganda/false news and voted accordingly.

Data is only a collection of anecdotes too.

The most witless statement I've seen in this thread for some time.

Data is only meaningful in the context of some sort of entity interpreting it. At which point it transforms into an anecdote. "The scale says 200 g" "that's anecdotal mate"

If we follow this to its logical endpoint we just get to Descartes and are reduced to the position that "at least one conscious thing exists" and can't go any further than that.

^ Fake news.

Have you seen the great hack on Netflix? Fucking terrifying. Basically investigating Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. Essentially democracy is broken. They fixed Brexit and Trumps election using targeted propaganda and fake news.

Democracy is shit but it’s the best we have

benevolent dictatorship

Yeah, I've seen it, although most of the CA stuff I already knew.

Propaganda/fake news filters are the future:
https://www.cheatsheet.com/gear-style/browser-extensions-to-help-you-spot-fake-news.html/

But who watches the watchmen? Crowd-sourced blockchain solutions perhaps:
https://www.factom.com/solutions/

Is it any good?

If Brexit bans this trope I will class it as a success.

It's interesting to have more context for some of the characters involved, but I thought it was a bit light/disappointing.

The TED talk by Carole Cadwalladr is shorter/better/more emotive imo:
https://www.ted.com/talks/carole_cadwalladr_facebook_s_role_in_brexit_and_the_threat_to_democracy?language=en

Eye opening

The issue is that democracy has ceased to be and is now able.to be manipulated by private companies on behalf of the highest paying client.

If only. Watch the doc

Obviously have to be vaguely credible. Though who would've thought that applied to Trump.

Basically lots of elections are actually only decided by a small margin. If you can persuade enough of these people to your point of view (or convince them not to vote at all) then you can win.

Data is only meaningful in the context of some sort of entity interpreting it. At which point it transforms into an anecdote. "The scale says 200 g" "that's anecdotal mate"

Exactly that. Also, if I measure the weight of the contents of one bag of flour I bought in the supermarket and it comes out at 495g instead of the claimed 500g, that's a single observation and an anecdote that I can tell about the thieving companies. If I weigh a thousand bags of flour in a warehouse and the average comes out at 495g, that starts to become what people would call 'data'.

@itsbruce

The most witless statement I've seen in this thread for some time.

You're welcome to explain that. Just saying 'haha you're dumb' isn't very convincing.

To begin with, it's a reasonable assumption that it's split about evenly.

Just saying 'haha you're dumb' isn't very convincing.

Yeah, but if a thousand people say that, it starts to become 'data'. :)

Thanks. Hopefully give it a look tonight.

It does. I think the issue here is that people assume 'data' is immediately valuable or useful. It isn't necessarily (or even, usually) - data can contain all kinds of biases and errors and yet it's still 'data'.