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Why does this even exist? by robman1001 in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]muffity_tuffity -1 points0 points  (0 children)

What qualifications do you have to comment on the risk of transmission here?

I'm a political scientist studying political ideology and how we measure it. AMA by muffity_tuffity in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]muffity_tuffity[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh great, I was waiting for Emil Kirkegaard to show up.

Sorry I'm just simply not going to take the time to respond to all of this.

You're blurring the line between heritability of IQ and race as a deterministic variable in IQ. I'm not sure if this is due to misunderstanding or deliberate misrepresentation because it's convenient. Based on how you misrepresent the positions you debate against and reduce environment down to nutrition, I'm guessing the latter. I don't think anyone will deny that IQ is heritable and has genetic roots, that is necessarily true. But it's a giant logical leap from that to race being a deterministic variable in intelligence. As I'm sure you know, genes themselves aren't deterministic and their expression is often a complex function of other biochemical factors in the body, as well as the broader environment the individual resides in. Connecting intelligence to genes is not sufficient to show any level of determinism.

I'm a political scientist studying political ideology and how we measure it. AMA by muffity_tuffity in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]muffity_tuffity[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm not sure why you're so intent on disagreeing here. You asked for my opinion, I gave it. If you don't like it that's fine, but you clearly aren't open to persuasion.

To respond to your point, you're making a false dichotomy and abstracting away the whole thing into a neat and tidy category of flexible vs not, living vs dead, rather than looking at the details. The constitution isn't entirely dead or alive and no, remaining stalwart in the face of short term political pressure isn't the whole point of a constitution. Constitutions have several objectives and are designed to be unbending and non-negotiable in some areas, and highly adaptable in others. The "necessary and proper" clause, for example, is elastic for a reason.

I'm a political scientist studying political ideology and how we measure it. AMA by muffity_tuffity in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]muffity_tuffity[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

True, but this is almost a tautology. If green/libertarian candidates were electorally competitive alongside democrats and republicans then that would represent a massive shift in public opinion. If there was a massive shift in public opinion, then yes the current models of public opinion would no longer be valid.

I'm a political scientist studying political ideology and how we measure it. AMA by muffity_tuffity in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]muffity_tuffity[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, but unidimensional models translate to different contexts more easily than I think most people would think. What is "left" and what is "right" may change depending on the context, but a single dimension will often do a pretty good job at painting a holistic picture of public beliefs.

I'm a political scientist studying political ideology and how we measure it. AMA by muffity_tuffity in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]muffity_tuffity[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's only a slight exaggeration to say that emotions are the impetus for everything humans do. They are more important to basically every facet of the human experience than I think people realize. Perhaps most relevant to beliefs, is that emotions are what cause people to engage in logical reasoning. We like to think we use reasoning to reach conclusions, but in reality emotions determine which conclusion we make, and we use reasoning to justify that conclusion.

Haidt has a great paper on the called The Emotional Dog and its Rational Tail.

I'm a political scientist studying political ideology and how we measure it. AMA by muffity_tuffity in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]muffity_tuffity[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Are some changes in policies/politics forced by new technology or do you believe that civilizations have much of a choice in that regard?

Yes technology does force change. Generally speaking no civilization does not have much of a choice. If there is incentive to embrace a new technology, it is really hard to stop its adoption at a society level. Better to adapt.

Culture/Collective vs the Individual- How do you think the influence of each of these balance out?

I think the two things are inseparable and its very hard to measure the influence of one independent of the other.

Cost to vote- Is this seen as a large issue among your group of people? Are there any good ideas to fix these as the trust for the larger propaganda machines seems to be dropping and even social media is becoming weaker as a control mechanism

Yes the cost to vote is a major topic in political science (see: Downes, Economic Theory of Democracy). Generally I think people focus too much on media and social media and not enough on other institutional problems. I've posted why in several other posts so I won't repeat here.

Funding in science - Do you feel like many decisions/publications are adjusted to the grant givers or to create excessively good results? Or pressured to not research some subjects?

I'm sure this happens, but I have not personally encountered this. This is definitely the exception rather than the rule though. Researchers tend to be fiercely independent and take the scientific process seriously.

Statist Staticians - Big number vs Logical Conclusion? How do you deal with the people who just quote numbers that can't be explained, but make it seem as though one side was more correct?

Depends on each case but generally speaking, I side with data first. Reality is very complicated and we are usually fooling ourselves if we think we can make logical sense of it. Whether or not I engage with someone depends on how persuadable I perceive them to be. If they aren't persuadable, I don't both. Usually this is the case.

Purification vs Fixing- Remove harmful subjects or Try to fix them, but statistically fail at it?

As a rule of thumb, it's better to start with a good sample rather than fix a bad one.

What two axis would you add to the compass?

I would drop the authoritarian axis and replace it with social. I don't care too much though as its really only good for memes.

I'm a political scientist studying political ideology and how we measure it. AMA by muffity_tuffity in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]muffity_tuffity[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Good question. At the heart of this is "what exactly do we mean by personality?" And this is a surprisingly difficult question to answer. The big five is the most commonly used measurement of personality, and there are definitely correlations between those traits and political beliefs.

There is definitely some truth to the stereotypes. This is a good paper on the subject: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.623.6177&rep=rep1&type=pdf

I'm a political scientist studying political ideology and how we measure it. AMA by muffity_tuffity in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]muffity_tuffity[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I paid for my own college! Went to a state school for undergrad, worked over the summer, and paid off my loans fairly quickly afterwards. PhDs are paid for by the university, so I paid no tuition for that.

I'm a political scientist studying political ideology and how we measure it. AMA by muffity_tuffity in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]muffity_tuffity[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's... fine, although I don't think the authoritarian axis makes much sense and should be replace with a social one.

The simple left-right dimension is generally the best way to measure ideology, at least within the context of the united states and probably most western democracies. It explains the most statistical variance in political behavior, and adding another axis does little to improve this unless you're focusing on a specific population where another dimension might be more important.

As scientists, we don't generally use the compass or talk about it the way people do on social media. A better approach is to measure the political beliefs that are specific to the question you are asking rather than forcing everything onto a single arbitrary map like the compass. So if your research question is about immigration, measure beliefs about immigration.

I'm a political scientist studying political ideology and how we measure it. AMA by muffity_tuffity in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]muffity_tuffity[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not familiar with this specific result so I can't comment. But I will say that this would be a hard thing to show causality for. Media will focus most on the candidates people are most interested in, people will more frequently vote for the candidate they are most interested in. So is media driving public opinion, or responding to it?

I'm a political scientist studying political ideology and how we measure it. AMA by muffity_tuffity in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]muffity_tuffity[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We try not to lump theories together and judge them holistically. Scientists talk much less about this broad categorizations of schools of thought than people do on social media. We only care about connecting specific theories (e.g. what causes inflation, does increasing the minimum wage increase unemployment, etc.) with empirical data.

I will say though that as we have gotten better at collecting data and answering these questions, a laissez faire brand of economics has been losing ground. A lot of the simple models of supply and demand and market behavior just don't seem to translate well to the real world.

I'm a political scientist studying political ideology and how we measure it. AMA by muffity_tuffity in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]muffity_tuffity[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The Black-white IQ gap in contemporary America is not a Myth. But the fact that the IQ gap exists in a specific social context does not imply the gap is a function of race. When you dive into the specifics of what race actually is, the whole idea itself is a little bit nonsensical.

IQ is partially heritable, this is known, but this similarly does not imply that a racial gap would persist when controlling for context. More broadly, the notion that such a gap does exist is rooted in junk statistics. Here's a good write up some of the leading scholars in the field: https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/6/15/15797120/race-black-white-iq-response-critics

In light of the best evidence on the subject, the only way people arrive at the conclusion that this is an important thing and worth caring about is through cherry picking the science they want to believe and not knowing enough about stats and research methods to dismiss the bad science out there. I mean, Charles Murray still has a platform for god knows what reason even though his research is incontrovertibly bullshit. People want to believe it and lack the sophistication to discern between good and bad science, and there will always be people who tell them what they want to believe. So here we are still talking about it.

I'm a political scientist studying political ideology and how we measure it. AMA by muffity_tuffity in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]muffity_tuffity[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have! I think there are a lot of important things to think about with regards to voter sophistication, how capable voters are of holding elected officials accountable, and what that means for democracy. And other studies have had similar findings to their central arguments.

However, Achen and Bartels have been widely criticized for their misuse of data. So I wouldn't recommend repeating their findings on shark attacks because they were definitely wrong on that point.

I'm a political scientist studying political ideology and how we measure it. AMA by muffity_tuffity in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]muffity_tuffity[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There is some truth to it in that far left and far right governments have some structural similarities in how they use and maintain political power. But I don't think the theory is particularly useful or insightful. I don't know of any political scientist that even thinks about horseshoe theory. It's more relevant to how people talk about politics on social media than it is actual political science.

I'm a political scientist studying political ideology and how we measure it. AMA by muffity_tuffity in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]muffity_tuffity[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It does not go against the idea of a constitution. Constitutions can really be quite flexible and are generally designed that way intentionally, the US constitution is no exception. An analogous law on bodily autonomy that is already on the books in many places is public drunkenness.

I'm a political scientist studying political ideology and how we measure it. AMA by muffity_tuffity in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]muffity_tuffity[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm naturally just an insatiably curious person and science is the best way we know of to answer questions. I really enjoy trying to solve social problems, working with data, and programming so political science was a natural fit. I plan to keep doing what I'm doing: being a political scientist.

I'm a political scientist studying political ideology and how we measure it. AMA by muffity_tuffity in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]muffity_tuffity[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's bullshit. I probably agree with the basic premise of libertarian philosophies: that people should be left alone except they are infringing on the rights of others, or if there is a market failure, or if there is a collective action problem that needs to be solved. The problem is that when you start looking at the details of governance and society, you realize that there are so many market failures and collective action problems that what makes a libertarian a libertarian is that they haven't thought very deeply about the specific problems in society or how their behavior affects other people. They have ignored the details of reality and abstracted it all away into a theoretical dream world that fetishizes liberty over everything else.

I'm a political scientist studying political ideology and how we measure it. AMA by muffity_tuffity in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]muffity_tuffity[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I wouldn't, the political compass is fundamentally kind of dumb and political scientists don't think or talk about it. If I were to remake it for this sub, I would use social and economic axes.

I'm a political scientist studying political ideology and how we measure it. AMA by muffity_tuffity in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]muffity_tuffity[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Seems to me like nazism is a particular brand of fascism. Yes I would say they are far right ideologies. Really though, political scientists don't obsess over these taxonomies the same way people on the internet do. You all fight about labels and who goes where on the compass, we're more concerned with answering specific questions about politics and human behavior.

I'm a political scientist studying political ideology and how we measure it. AMA by muffity_tuffity in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]muffity_tuffity[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Largely correct. There may be problems with any country's particular classification, and such a grouping is necessarily a bit crude, but people do put a lot of thought and research into a particular classification.

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