‘Tipping point’ makes partisan polarization irreversible in research model
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Re: ‘Tipping point’ makes partisan polarization irreversible in research model
#2Here is the original research: https://www.pnas.org/content/118/50/e2102144118
Re: ‘Tipping point’ makes partisan polarization irreversible in research model
#3Seems like completely made up pseudo-scientific bs?
Edit (due to downvotes): Like they make up a model based on the past. Probably the model is massively tuned to the past data set. If it makes any testable predictions about the future, I would be very surprised if those predictions ended up being more accurate than chance.
Re: ‘Tipping point’ makes partisan polarization irreversible in research model
#4Here is the original research: https://www.pnas.org/content/118/50/e2102144118
Thank you open access! But did I find a typo?
"Nevertheless, we make no claims about the model’s predictive accuracy. The model is highly abstract and remains to be empirically calibrated and tested. Nor can we assume that tipping points would obtain in radically different applications, such as affective polarization, voter polarization, or media polarization."
Re: ‘Tipping point’ makes partisan polarization irreversible in research model
#5From the original research:
“ In closing, our study should be viewed as a small, but important, first step. The sources of political and ideological polarization have been widely investigated, but relatively little attention has been directed to the possibility that the causal mechanisms are characterized by irreversible tipping points. The lack of attention does not reflect the low importance of the problem. The historical lesson from climate research may be instructive. As with incremental global warming (28), the dynamics of reversibility cannot be revealed with observational data tracking changes over time in the level of polarization. Instead, climatologists have relied on increasingly sophisticated and empirically calibrated computational models to show how the self-reinforcing dynamics of global warming can be reversed through the reduction of carbon and methane emissions only up to a critical threshold, beyond which civilization as we know it may be doomed. We extend the concern with an environmental tipping point to the study of polarization. The need for empirical calibration in our model calls for increased investment in the study of irreversible phase change, while our findings call for urgency in mobilizing remediation efforts before it is too late.”
Re: ‘Tipping point’ makes partisan polarization irreversible in research model
#6How could it possible be irreversible? Is there any partisan polarization that's lasted a thousand years? How about even just a couple hundred?
Even slavery was abolished in the US and that seemed like an irreversible polarization.
Re: ‘Tipping point’ makes partisan polarization irreversible in research model
#7Seems like completely made up pseudo-scientific bs? Edit (due to downvotes): Like they make up a model based on the past. Probably the model is massively tuned to the past data set. If it makes any testable predictions about the future, I would be very surprised if those predictions ended up being more accurate than chance.
If you read the actual research, they clearly state that they aren’t asserting that their model currently holds predictive accuracy, while also noting that it did have successes.
Re: ‘Tipping point’ makes partisan polarization irreversible in research model
#8[flagged]
Re: ‘Tipping point’ makes partisan polarization irreversible in research model
#9How could it possible be irreversible? Is there any partisan polarization that's lasted a thousand years? How about even just a couple hundred? Even slavery was abolished in the US and that seemed like an irreversible polarization.
I think as long as the big factors that influence the polarization stays, i.e, big tech, social media, etc, the polarization will stay here.
Re: ‘Tipping point’ makes partisan polarization irreversible in research model
#10I am skeptical of the framing of the original work in the article. If you actually read the original research, it boils down to building a model on willingness to cooperate based on differing views and observing that past a specific point cooperation is no longer possible. This is not uninteresting for the scientist in me, but the kind of large generalization made in the article are simply not supported by the work nor by the authors.
To be fair, the abstract is somewhat asking for it given this:
> Confronted with a deadly global pandemic that threatened not only massive loss of life but also the collapse of our medical system and economy, why were we unable to put partisan divisions aside and unite in a common cause, similar to the national mobilization in the Great Depression and the Second World War?
The world is complex and while trying to model that complexity is an interesting problem, this kind of statement (by a co-author) falls short of my expectations for rigorous scientific communication and vulgarization:
> “If we reach that point, we cannot unite even in the face of war, climate change, pandemics, or other challenges to the survival of our society.”