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

arxiv.org

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

#41

Post by mchannon »

deytempo wrote: post #37
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.

You mean like trial by jury. I like it.

Trial by jury gets one set of 10 (12, whatever), whereas the consensus model described would have n sets of 10.

I seriously doubt the wisdom of a crowd goes up when the total crowd size shrinks to 10. I suspect it plummets.

This does call into question the notion of a multiple-jury trial (maybe videoconferenced in, where the individual juries do not interact with each other). Based on this study's findings, it would appear that juries might get their verdicts wrong less frequently with this system.

Imagine if the first OJ trial or Trayvon Martin trial had been before multiple juries; would society have been better off if the results were less dependent on the biases of juries small enough to be cherry-picked?

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

#42

Post by ivanmaeder »

I've only read the summary but Philip Tetlock comes to this conclusion based on his work with "The Good Judgment Project" (described in his book "Superforecasting").

The GJP is a kind of experiment he's been running for a few years in an attempt to learn how to improve predictions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Judgment_Project

From what I remember: overall, teams did better than individuals and wisdom of the crowds because they were able to feed off and combine each other's points of view and separate knowledge.

However! It's important for teams to not let groupthink dominate—individuals within teams needed to challenge each other.

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

#43

Post by GarvielLoken »

hobofan wrote: post #21
Askolein wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switzerland is close to a direct democracy with a model based on: representative democracy by default but direct as soon and anytime the people feels the subject should be handled so. That system has proven very stable.

> That system has proven very stable. Caveat: with a small, well-educated population. Try and apply the same system elsewhere and your mileage may vary.

Then the obvious solution is to divide nation states down to small, well-educated populations no?

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

#44

Post by agsdfgsd »

fsloth wrote: post #18
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?

Democracy is not a vehicle for correctness or efficiency. It's entire point is to distribute political power to a wide powerbase with a constant churn. This is to disable known pathologies of entrenched power bases and to discourage social stratification. Since modern states don't have an entrenched hereditary aristocracy we don't really have a concept of what democracy shields us from, since we've not had to suffer…

>Since modern states don't have an entrenched hereditary aristocracy

We absolutely do, but because we are bombarded with propaganda telling us they "earned it" by "working hard" and "pulling themselves up by their bootstraps" we pretend it is just a co-incidence that the people born into the top 1% almost always remain there, and people born in the bottom 99% almost always remain there.

>After public schooling became a things, suddenly just being able to read and write is not a distinguishing feature

It never was. The aristocracy were educated specifically on economics, justice, etc. It wasn't simply a matter of being able to read.

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

#45

Post by api »

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?

Democracy is more about limiting the negative than determining truth or wisdom or even executing on positive programs. It's a way of making sure ruling oligarchies can't completely ignore the condition or will of large numbers of people, or at least not for very long and not without some kind of consequence. It also offers a peaceful mechanism to replace ruling oligarchies that are corrupt or incompetent.

For example efficient government was absolutely not a goal of the founders of the United States. They wanted government to be slow, deliberative, and to have many interlocking systems of balanced power to prevent the rise of unchecked autocracy. It was designed to be intentionally inefficient and frustrating to those attempting to wield power within it.

I still think this was probably a good idea. Efficient government was a significant cause of death in the 20th century.

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

#46

Post by aisengard »

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.

I mean, this is essentially how the House of Representatives works.

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

#48

Post by agsdfgsd »

pjc50 wrote: post #30
sonnyblarney wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right in that nobody cares about the EU. But they care about things like migration. Folks would vote en masse on clearly articulated issues, and if leaders took note of it, there'd be less calamity. Right now the Executive doesn't really care what Europeans think, because they assume they know best, it's appallingly clear. It happens everywhere there aren't proper checks and balances. FYI the treaty of Lisbon…

As someone else pointed out, the EU is boring infrastructure: people don't care about power and sewers until they stop working. I'm not convinced that people intrinsically "care" about migration, rather that they have a set of material problems (employment, wages, housing, public services) and have been told to blame migration for them. And to the extent that they do care, how can they care about the "flow" rate of m…

>I'm not convinced that people intrinsically "care" about migration

Lots of people do. For many people it genuinely is about maintaining the nations their ancestors spent hundreds of generations creating. Nations, not states. Somalians can never be part of the German nation, no matter how long they have citizenship in the state called Germany. You can't spend decades telling white people how evil colonialism was, and then say "by the way you have to allow your native land to be colonized and if you say no you are an evil racist and we'll throw you in jail". People have a natural instinct for fairness.

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

#49

Post by throwaway7yeet »

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.

That’s how voting in China works.

There’s a hierarchical electoral system where those at the bottom of the group votes for the next position up.

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

#50

Post by sonnyblarney »

pjc50 wrote: post #31
sonnyblarney wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'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?

The 'fundamental freedoms' are dogmatic and ideological, they need to be brought into question, or at least the interpretation of them, just as a start.

The entire EU political landscape has been turned upside down and yet still the EU is not reacting.

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