Which countries are on the right track, according to their citizens • Hacker News Board

Re: Which countries are on the right track, according to their citizens

#31

Post by bjourne » Sun, Jan 13, 2019, 1:56 PM UTC

ciguy wrote: post #6

No surprise that countries with the most oppressive internet surveillance and censorship also rank highly in self reported satisfaction. Chinese citizens probably got a boost to their social credit score for answering positively on this survey. I was just in Beijing and Shanghai for a few weeks and almost everyone I talked to in private admitted that they expect an economic crash in the near future. So this survey is…

> No surprise that countries with the most oppressive internet surveillance and censorship also rank highly in self reported satisfaction. Chinese citizens probably got a boost to their social credit score for answering positively on this survey.

How would the Chinese government determine what citizens vote on in anonymous internet polls? Supposedly, Ipsos Online Panel uses https connections and encrypts them using tls. More importantly, does Chinese citizens believe what they vote on in anonymous surveys affects their credit scores?

Re: Which countries are on the right track, according to their citizens

#32

Post by throwaway190113 » Sun, Jan 13, 2019, 1:59 PM UTC

wilhil wrote: post #28

"upon interviewing the locals, it turns out the winner is North Korea with 160% of residents saying they have full confidence in the leadership"

Parent makes the point glibly, but it is very serious.

I have considerable experience talking to people from one of the top places mentioned and the freedom to answer a survey is far from guaranteed.

To give you an idea of the scale of this (these are real, actual and exact numbers):

In that country (which I'll name as Northern East Soumania, a small autonomous island belonging to an African republic, or a similar African country) the President recently put in a bid to be able to stay President for life. This required constitutional changes, which were passed by the annual sitting of parliament.

The vote on this bid was 2,859 votes supporting lifting the term limit, 2 votes against lifting the term limit and 4 abstaining.

Can you imagine that? Can you imagine an American president at the end of their second term wanting to lift the term limit congressionally and out of 535 members of congress (435 in the house of representatives and 100 in the senate) 530 voting to remove the term limits, 2 voting against and 4 abstaining? (Actually since the basis is 535 instead of 2,859, I should divide the against and abstaining voted by 5.5)

I would personally not be surprised if the 2 "against" votes had serious consequences for their personal life, I mean things like not being able to travel and so forth. (Despite being members of parliament in that country.)

If I were a member of that country, I probably wouldn't feel free to say in a survey that the country was not headed in the right direction.

Re: Which countries are on the right track, according to their citizens

#33

Post by wenc » Sun, Jan 13, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

ciguy wrote: post #6

No surprise that countries with the most oppressive internet surveillance and censorship also rank highly in self reported satisfaction. Chinese citizens probably got a boost to their social credit score for answering positively on this survey. I was just in Beijing and Shanghai for a few weeks and almost everyone I talked to in private admitted that they expect an economic crash in the near future. So this survey is…

There are techniques to ask sensitive questions on a survey without implicating individual respondents and still obtain useful answers on the aggregate [1]. I can only imagine Ipsos, being a survey firm, would have used some of these techniques.

I would be careful about generalizing from anecdata. Unless the people you talk to come from every strata in society and your sample is representative, your conclusion may be prone to sample bias.

[1] https://imai.fas.harvard.edu/talk/files/PolMeth10.pdf

Re: Which countries are on the right track, according to their citizens

#34

Post by ppod » Sun, Jan 13, 2019, 2:16 PM UTC

thatoneuser wrote: post #14

tluyben2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> almost everyone I talked to in private admitted that they expect an economic crash in the near future That is currently the same in every country I talked to citizens. Not a very good way of measuring. Your observations about China might very well be correct, but this is not an interesting point imho. When I speak to my friends in China they worry about the economy but they do actually believe their country is goin…

There’s no way you can look at the social credit shit they have going on and say “uh yeah everything looks fine!” People in cults also say they’re doing fine...

>People in cults also say they’re doing fine...

Yep, and people in religions say they're doing fine. Some of them probably are doing fine.

I admit that this survey could be biased because of people being afraid of their answers being monitored, and also that people in a country like China are probably somewhat brainwashed by the censorship in the media.

But you have to keep your mind open to the possibility that a human might balance all things in mind and with a calm disinterested choice decide that it's worth giving up privacy and freedom for a more peaceful, orderly, and efficient society. I know those aren't the values of many Americans, but Americans sometimes seem strangely unable to imagine that any human being could possibly have different values to theirs.

Re: Which countries are on the right track, according to their citizens

#35

Post by pergadad » Sun, Jan 13, 2019, 2:19 PM UTC

Seems this reflects to a large degree societal values and current debates rather than the"real" impact. Eg US has a lot bigger inequality and higher proportion of destitute people than most of Western/Northern Europe, so the only way to explain the German & Swedish vs US numbers would be by pointing to the values/expectations and ongoing discourse.

China... You have got to wonder is it that the past was so bad? That people aren't aware of how bad problems of eg corruption are? Or are they too scared to say their true opinion ..?

Re: Which countries are on the right track, according to their citizens

#36

Post by pergadad » Sun, Jan 13, 2019, 2:24 PM UTC

wenc wrote: post #33

ciguy wrote: post #6

No surprise that countries with the most oppressive internet surveillance and censorship also rank highly in self reported satisfaction. Chinese citizens probably got a boost to their social credit score for answering positively on this survey. I was just in Beijing and Shanghai for a few weeks and almost everyone I talked to in private admitted that they expect an economic crash in the near future. So this survey is…

There are techniques to ask sensitive questions on a survey without implicating individual respondents and still obtain useful answers on the aggregate [1]. I can only imagine Ipsos, being a survey firm, would have used some of these techniques. I would be careful about generalizing from anecdata. Unless the people you talk to come from every strata in society and your sample is representative, your conclusion may be…

Whether there are techniques is irrelevant, whether people trust that they'll not face consequences due to their answer is much more important. You can reassure them as much as you want - who really would want to risk real-world consequences for a random survey?

Alternatively there might be somewhere in the fine print how Chinese participants were invited/selected - it wouldn't be the first such data where PRC manages to manipulate the sampled group to get a positive result (see eg PISA).

Re: Which countries are on the right track, according to their citizens

#37

Post by pergadad » Sun, Jan 13, 2019, 2:26 PM UTC

bjourne wrote: post #31

ciguy wrote: post #6

No surprise that countries with the most oppressive internet surveillance and censorship also rank highly in self reported satisfaction. Chinese citizens probably got a boost to their social credit score for answering positively on this survey. I was just in Beijing and Shanghai for a few weeks and almost everyone I talked to in private admitted that they expect an economic crash in the near future. So this survey is…

> No surprise that countries with the most oppressive internet surveillance and censorship also rank highly in self reported satisfaction. Chinese citizens probably got a boost to their social credit score for answering positively on this survey. How would the Chinese government determine what citizens vote on in anonymous internet polls? Supposedly, Ipsos Online Panel uses https connections and encrypts them using t…

It doesn't matter whether the government is able to do so, more important is whether citizens have a reasonable expectation that the government can and does do so.

Re: Which countries are on the right track, according to their citizens

#38

Post by grecy » Sun, Jan 13, 2019, 2:30 PM UTC

ciguy wrote: post #6

No surprise that countries with the most oppressive internet surveillance and censorship also rank highly in self reported satisfaction. Chinese citizens probably got a boost to their social credit score for answering positively on this survey. I was just in Beijing and Shanghai for a few weeks and almost everyone I talked to in private admitted that they expect an economic crash in the near future. So this survey is…

> No surprise that countries with the most oppressive internet surveillance and censorship also rank highly in self reported satisfaction

You can look at other sources, like the "Global Livability Index" [1] - it's voted on by the residents of each city, and does a great job of ranking what it's actually like to live in various countries and cities.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Liveability_Ranking

Re: Which countries are on the right track, according to their citizens

#39

Post by bognition » Sun, Jan 13, 2019, 2:34 PM UTC

pergadad wrote: post #35

Seems this reflects to a large degree societal values and current debates rather than the"real" impact. Eg US has a lot bigger inequality and higher proportion of destitute people than most of Western/Northern Europe, so the only way to explain the German & Swedish vs US numbers would be by pointing to the values/expectations and ongoing discourse. China... You have got to wonder is it that the past was so bad? That…

> China... You have got to wonder is it that the past was so bad? That people aren't aware of how bad problems of eg corruption are? Or are they too scared to say their true opinion ..?

I imagine it's more about the citizens feeling like the government and its leaders have a strong vision and mission for the future of china.

I think the same thing can be seen with the M.A.G.A. movement. Lots of people are ignoring problems they face on a daily basis and vote against their interests because they'd rather believe in an ideal that is bigger than themselves (even if that ideal is a farce).

Re: Which countries are on the right track, according to their citizens

#40

Post by DevX101 » Sun, Jan 13, 2019, 2:44 PM UTC

pergadad wrote: post #35

Seems this reflects to a large degree societal values and current debates rather than the"real" impact. Eg US has a lot bigger inequality and higher proportion of destitute people than most of Western/Northern Europe, so the only way to explain the German & Swedish vs US numbers would be by pointing to the values/expectations and ongoing discourse. China... You have got to wonder is it that the past was so bad? That…

China has lifted 500 million people out of poverty in a generation. They're absolutely going in the net right direction, even accounting for corruption.