Re: high turnout and tight races?

Posted by gepr on Oct 29, 2020; 6:22pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/high-turnout-and-tight-races-tp7599243p7599275.html


On 10/29/20 10:44 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
> My instinct is to go to "correlation" only when causal relations are
> hidden, overly tangled, or demonstrably wrong.

That's interesting. In all my hand-wringing arguments about the hyper-skepticism I adhere to, I don't think I've ever heard anyone express their objection to it like that: that conceptions of cause are preferable to conceptions of correlation. I think I tend the other way. Cause is a fiction useful for brainwashing engineers into great feats like colonizing Mars. But metaphysically, it's all ambiguous mush that you can knead into whatever you want if you're motivated enough.

> Given that we only have
> a presidential election every 12 years and have had only 45 elected
> presidents, and a much shorter record (150 years?) of turnout, it seems
> we *could* do some kind of exhaustive analysis (and perhaps some
> have).   In any given election from say 2000-2020 we have our own
> personal experiences and opinions to draw on (and make the process less
> objective?)

One of the papers I skimmed talked about the significant difference between national and state/local elections. Nick's mention of "small sample theory" threw me for a loop because most of what I saw focused on larger datasets than what we have for presidential elections. The assumptions about dimension reduction and population biases are massive statements of ignorance. I can't even imagine leaping by faith from correlation to cause. Even the relatively validated partisan effect Gary mentioned seems suspicious to me.

> So I suppose my answer to the original question is that it can be
> either/both...   It seems likely to be a (at least) bimodal
> distribution.   A one-sided landslide can cause a large turnout while a
> tight, competitive race can do the same.  Maybe more interesting is what
> leads to a low-turnout?   Voter apathy (second term, a pendulum swing
> toward a weak candidate?) seems to be the dominant cause?

I'm attracted to the idea of runaway processes. Apathy and nihilism *as* runaway processes is especially attractive. It kinda reminds me of "pandemic fatigue". At this point, I don't even care if I or my loved ones die of COVID-19 or the country devolves into a tin-pot dictatorship anymore. I need to see a good band up on stage ... have too many pints at the pub ... share spit arguing with drunk Christians over a rowdy game of pool ... that feeling definitely smacks of a runaway heat death.

I did vote, though. 8^D

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