NancyLebovitz comments on Rationality quotes January 2012 - Less Wrong

9 Post author: Thomas 01 January 2012 10:28AM

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Comment author: NancyLebovitz 11 January 2012 05:18:07PM 8 points [-]

The problem with "electability" is that it requires voters to set aside their own feelings on the basis of what they think other people will think in a general election months in the future. The problem with this is that people are generally bad at predicting what other people will think and feel and are lousy at predicting the future. As a result, voters in primaries who focus on electability either vote based on regurgitated popular wisdom of the moment, or on an assumption that other people won't respond to the same things that they respond to in a candidate. Neither is a particularly good predictor. However, since it is impossible to rerun the election after the fact with the other candidate, it is not something easily disproved.

osewalrus