Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions • Hacker News Board

Re: Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions

#21

Post by ghaff » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 6:09 PM UTC

droithomme wrote: post #9

If someone asks me my opinion about something I'm much more likely to say what I know they want to hear if they offer to pay me to say that, and I'm less likely to debate with them instead. If they aren't paying me, I'm more likely to say what I really think.

Or you're more likely to do the troll thing for the lulz if there's no incentive to give your honest opinion. When you see poll results where some outlandish result (the earth is flat or whatever) gets 10-15% agreement, I suspect that's what is happening--combined with some percent who just misunderstood the question.

Re: Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions

#22

Post by jstanley » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 6:14 PM UTC

ForHackernews wrote: post #12

droithomme wrote: post #9

If someone asks me my opinion about something I'm much more likely to say what I know they want to hear if they offer to pay me to say that, and I'm less likely to debate with them instead. If they aren't paying me, I'm more likely to say what I really think.

Alternatively: If I'm getting paid for factually-correct answers, I'm less likely to throw away money by using my answers as an opportunity to signal my ideology.

If your ideology is at odds with factual correctness... maybe you should rethink your ideology?

Re: Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions

#23

Post by alistproducer2 » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 6:15 PM UTC

ianai wrote: post #3

"The experiments show that small payments for correct and "don't know" responses sharply diminish the gap between Democrats and Republicans in responses to "partisan" factual question"

I disagree. If a person truly believed a bullshit answer was true they'd pick it over I don't know. The experiment shows that given an incentive to not think in partisan talking points, people will admit they know that what they would normal espouse as truth is, in fact,bullshit.

Re: Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions

#24

Post by BurningFrog » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 6:17 PM UTC

So I guess this moves the mindset from "argument" towards "truth finding".

Assuming that's true, how could we use that effect for, say, good?

Re: Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions

#25

Post by ForHackernews » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 6:18 PM UTC

jstanley wrote: post #22

ForHackernews wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively: If I'm getting paid for factually-correct answers, I'm less likely to throw away money by using my answers as an opportunity to signal my ideology.

If your ideology is at odds with factual correctness... maybe you should rethink your ideology?

You can say that, but [almost] everyone has ideological beliefs that conflict with the best available evidence. Maybe you rationalize it to yourself that "well, the jury's still out...those studies aren't conclusive" or "yes, but in principle my belief is correct, it's just that X, Y and Z are confounding variables so..."

Re: Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions

#26

Post by tomjen3 » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 6:20 PM UTC

madenine wrote: post #15

sharemywin wrote: post #2

wonder if there's a way to tease out what I believe versus what I think you want to hear.

Which is scary, given that the survey was about factual information. Welcome to the post-truth world I guess. "I think want me to say the unemployment rate is X, so I'll select that, but I believe the unemployment rate is actually Y"

When you write it that way it sounds crazy, but if you believe the unemployment rate should be the U6, then we will have real disagreements over that fact.

When the media is just the media, no longer the mainstream media, but just the media with just another (biased) agenda and world-view that is no better than any others, they end up acting like spoiled children. I hope HNners are smart enough to realize that all medias are biased in some ways (some more than others) and that fake news/post truth are just another political term (unless you are talking about the spam that floated on Facebook with completely fake headlines, not justified by the content).

Re: Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions

#27

Post by twoquestions » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 6:20 PM UTC

jstanley wrote: post #22

ForHackernews wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively: If I'm getting paid for factually-correct answers, I'm less likely to throw away money by using my answers as an opportunity to signal my ideology.

If your ideology is at odds with factual correctness... maybe you should rethink your ideology?

Hardly! Professing belief in something blatantly untrue is a wonderful social signal, it says you're willing to stick with the in-group no matter what!

Example: Someone close to me thinks the Detroit Lions are the best football team.

Re: Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions

#28

Post by tomjen3 » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 6:20 PM UTC

alistproducer2 wrote: post #23

ianai wrote: post #3

"The experiments show that small payments for correct and "don't know" responses sharply diminish the gap between Democrats and Republicans in responses to "partisan" factual question"

I disagree. If a person truly believed a bullshit answer was true they'd pick it over I don't know. The experiment shows that given an incentive to not think in partisan talking points, people will admit they know that what they would normal espouse as truth is, in fact,bullshit.

Or, given an incentive people will answer with what they believe the other person wants.

Re: Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions

#29

Post by emmelaich » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 6:23 PM UTC

and

Ecclesiastes 1:2 - All is vanity

Re: Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions

#30

Post by BurningFrog » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 6:23 PM UTC

philh wrote: post #10

Fr0ntBack wrote: post #5

Interesting finding. One of the problems with voting is that there is no incentive or a very small incentive to choose the candidate with the best policies, because the chance of your vote making a difference is so small. Therefore people vote for a candidate that makes them feel good, rather than a competent one. This is arguably the cause of many bad policies. Caplan discusses this issue in his book 'The Myth of th…

Counterpoint: http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/rati... This paper argues that voting for social reasons ("this result will benefit society") is sensible even in large elections. The value depends on the percent turnout, but not on population size.

I think that agrees with Caplan. People vote for what they think is good for society, rather than personal gain.

The problem (according to Caplan) is that voters don't learn how society works and how different policies would affect it. So they support policies that sound good to the uninformed.

And here we are :)