Politics and Signaling
Being that I grew up in rural in southern Georgia, one of the primary things many of my friends (and I) looked forward to each year was the college football season. I have grown apart from the world I grew up in over the years, but I still get a fresh reminder of the importance of college ball in the deep south whenever I log onto my Facebook when there is a big game going on. Generally every year when, say, the University of Georgia is playing the University of Florida, I will log on to Facebook to see many comments such as “WHAT AN AWESOME PLAY DAWGS! GATORS SUCK!” or “THE GATORS ARE PROVING THEIR DOMINANCE ONCE AGAIN!” It is important to note that there is very little in the way of game analysis or dissection – it is basically just an opportunity for people to signal to other people which University they are a supporter of (and perhaps to gloat if that University’s football team is doing well).
Wednesday I found out that Presidential debates are rather treated the same way.
Yes, I logged onto my Facebook to see many comments on the debate, but I didn’t see any that seemed to be actually analyzing the debate or, well, analyzing much of anything. Mostly it was just statements of allegiance, with perhaps some thinly veiled “analysis” that was really more statements of allegiance anyway.
Granted, just because people aren’t necessarily articulating their thoughts and analysis on Facebook doesn’t mean that this analysis hasn’t taken place internally, but it did make me suspicious.
That said, from what I was unscientifically able to glean from facebook posts, most people’s core belief involving the candidates seems to be something like:
1) Team Romney: Obama just wants to give handouts to the poor, lazy, people and doesn’t want you to be able to keep any of your hard earned money.
2) Team Obama: Romney just wants to give handouts to the rich, lazy, people and doesn’t care about the poor people who work hard and make next to nothing or can’t get a job.
I have yet to see a post from one of my friends saying “Oh, I can really see both sides of this argument” nevermind questioning if the premise of both sides is even valid. So, I will say that now: I can see both sides of the argument and I think the premise of both sides is invalid.
First, unlike most of my liberal friends (most of my friends tend to be on TEAM OBAMA) I am willing to concede that incentivizing people to not work by giving them “handouts” can indeed be a problematic thing, since it isn’t exactly an efficient way to generate productivity. That said, simply allowing the ultra wealthy to get richer by gaming the system is not very desirable either. So, perhaps we could strive for a happy medium, yes? A system that doesn’t give handouts to big business at all and redistributes income from the rich to the poor in such a way as to limit disincentivizing work and instead actually allows businesses to create jobs?
But then if you had that conversation, I suppose it might lead to a conversation about how neither candidate has shown much of an inclination to do any of that. And then who’s team would you be on?
Oh, I can see both sides of the argument. To be honest, though… Romney just scares me, just as much as McCain did 4 years ago. Republicans scare me at a primal level. They have such different views than I do that it’s really hard for me to hear their side and say, “This has validity.” Romney has already said too much and screwed up too many times for me to even consider his point of view.
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Just a friendly note from a political scientist: “redistribute” is an ugly, ugly word and it’s not going to win you any votes. Keep it out of your commercials and direct mail pieces when you run for president in eight years.
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I noticed the lack of analysis as well. My Team Obama friends seem so convinced that he can do no wrong that they only hear what they want to hear from him, and don’t really listen to what Romney says beyond what they can make fun of him for. Bah
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I’m Team Frankly.
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RYN: Good points, at least in theory, regarding the betting markets. The real test is empirical, though. If the accuracy holds up in this election as well, I don’t know why they wouldn’t become the primary indicator, replacing polls. > to gloat if that … team is doing well There seems to be a lot of that (e.g. the bin Field blog on this site). Does it motivate the other teamor discourage it? I can usually see some merit (and some lack thereof) on all sides of a political contest (e.g. I am opposed to race-based affirmative-action schemes, which is typically a conservative position), but recently I have not found much redeeming about the Republican party, and rather see it as mean-spirited, more narrowly political than principled, and wrong-headed, and a vote for a Republican as en endorsement of that. I think I could have supported a number of Republican candidates and intellectual leaders in the past 50 years, but something changed. (I don’t know if it’s me or the party– probably both.) Davo
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What do you think of Nate Silver’s work? Do you know anything about his model? Have you looked at his Signal and the Noise? I’m thinking of getting it. I’ve read Taleb’s Black Swan and liked it but didn’t actually learn much I didn’t know from it. Davo
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Oh, another question: some economists are suggesting that it might not be such a bad thing to go off the “fiscal cliff” (who coined that, anyway?)– it would, if nothing else, tame the deficit, perhaps at the expense of delaying recovery. It has at least been suggested that Obama use this option as a bargaining chip. What do you think about the desirability / feasibility / likelihood of this? Davo
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I’m on my own team. =] I agree with your idea of a happy medium, but that doesn’t sell well to many people, they like to hear that someone is taking charge and “fixing” a situation. for the most part I am on team Obama.
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RYNs: I tend to agree that there is not much data to support fiscal theories of that sort, and I don’t know how well Keynesianism works– it might be a good thing in an emergency or in certain situations, but he problem is that Congress has always lacked discipline, and has lately added an inability to compromise to the mix. Some argue that we are all (including Reagan and W) Keynesians now, which increases the danger. It’s an easy slope to slide down. Why don’t we have a balanced budget amendment yet? (rhetorical question). It is a very interesting development that elections are seemingly predictable now (hedged with probabilities, of course). Although the markets seem not to have garnered a lot of popular attention yet, I believe they will. And Nate Silver can write his own ticket now with his poll-based modeling approach. The game has changed. Davo
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