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Knowledge from small number of debates outperforms wisdom of large crowds (2017)

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Re: Knowledge from small number of debates outperforms wisdom of large crowds (2017)

#31

Post by pjc50 »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #26
tormeh wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is quite a fundamental 'scope creep' going on in the EU How can you scope creep from "ever closer union"? The scope was as big as it could get already. Now, that passage has been removed at the behest of Cameron, but I can't remember any statement constricting the scope, so now the scope is simply undefined, I guess.

'ever closer union clause' is not tantamount to arbitrary Federalization of powers. It's mostly a strategic view. Change of power requires change in law, which happens every now in terms of treaties, the last of which, would have been roundly elected by the plebes went on to be put into motion anyhow. Arbitrary scope creep is happening in some fronts, for example, when there is a decision to be made about gray areas…

What sort of reasonable reforms, given the fundamental freedoms?

Re: Knowledge from small number of debates outperforms wisdom of large crowds (2017)

#32

Post by DennisP »

ajuc wrote: post #12

Am I correct that they asked the same people the same questions 3 times? It's no surprise that the 3rd time the answers were the best. I'd expect this to happen even if there was no debate (if not to the same degree). > Each participant was provided with pen and an answer sheet linked to their seat number. The event’s speaker (author M.S.) conducted the crowd from the stage (Fig. 1A). In the first stage of the experi…

But what you can say is that the overall procedure:

"first answered individually, then deliberated and made consensus decisions in groups of five, and finally provided revised individual estimates"

is more accurate than the usual "wisdom of crowds" procedure that only does the first step.

Re: Knowledge from small number of debates outperforms wisdom of large crowds (2017)

#33

Post by wisty »

notahacker wrote: post #22

There's a big unanswered question about whether "debate" is quite so useful at improving accuracy of answers when it consists of an audience with strong priors listening to motivated reasoning rather than people deferring to the people who are most confident they have a decent grasp of the subject of a neutral trivia question. I think it's conceivable the opposite effect might occur if the experiment were be to repea…

The backfire effect seems to be heavily exaggerated - https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2819073

And just think about how the research is done.

"Hello conservative test subject. Here's a 1 page article explaining why Climate Change is a real problem". What impact do you think it will have?

How about this. Dear liberal, belief in a just world is psychologically healthy, and belief in an unjust world is linked to mental health issues, where's a wikipedia link - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis#Current_...

It seems likely to me that a couple of pithy arguments are unlikely to change a core belief, but is very likely to create some short-term pushback. If they do change a core belief then I think it will have stronger and longer-lasting impacts than the push-back. I also suspect there's a delay - arguments might take a while to sink in.

Re: Knowledge from small number of debates outperforms wisdom of large crowds (2017)

#34

Post by tremon »

sytelus wrote: post #6

You can make a case that democracy is a grand application of “wisdom of large crowd”. But if that can easily and consistently outperformed then do we have better political system than democracy? What are the consequences of this?

I think that's a very dim view of democracy. Instead, I would argue that a democracy thrives on small debates between citizens.

Democracy isn't established with a voting ballot, the ballot is the end result of a democratic process.

Re: Knowledge from small number of debates outperforms wisdom of large crowds (2017)

#35

Post by ErikVandeWater »

ajuc wrote: post #28
thenaturalist wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t follow your reasoning. How does asking you the exact same question twice improve your accuracy? If you don’t know how high the Eiffel Tower is, why would you know it the second time? Conversely, you likely created a mental anchor when giving an estimate the first time and would be hard pressed to provide an answer contradicting your first estimate - even if it might be more accurate. There were no answers pro…

Given more time I can remember something, or I can notice that the last question gives some hints or even unrelated associations that help to answer the first question. I don't think "if you don't know the answer in 20 seconds you won't ever know it" is true.

This is a good point. And I'm highly inclined to believe this happens at a subconscious level as well.

Re: Knowledge from small number of debates outperforms wisdom of large crowds (2017)

#38

Post by malodyets »

amelius wrote: post #36

Perhaps we can save democracy by replacing the voting mechanism by placing people in groups of 10, and letting them reach consensus before making a vote.

Iowa has caucuses rather than primaries, and from what I hear from my family, that's essentially how the Democratic party caucuses work in Des Moines, Iowa. Rather than filing in and filling out a ballot, my father describes the process as going into a room, forming groups around candidates, and then trying to convince the uncommitted to support your candidate. It always sounded like a rip-roaring good time; now it's interesting to learn that this process might produce better results.

Re: Knowledge from small number of debates outperforms wisdom of large crowds (2017)

#40

Post by dpierce9 »

amelius wrote: post #36

Perhaps we can save democracy by replacing the voting mechanism by placing people in groups of 10, and letting them reach consensus before making a vote.

Various forms of this type of decision-making already exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_caucuses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_meeting
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