VAuroch comments on On Voting for Third Parties - Less Wrong

6 Post author: Coscott 13 January 2014 03:16AM

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Comment author: VAuroch 16 January 2014 07:37:24AM 0 points [-]

Politics is not one-dimensional. You might be fairly near the middle on that primary axis but far from the two mainstream options on some other axis.

Statistically speaking, politics is largely one-dimensional, and there is no plausible case to be made for anything beyond two dimensions. The single axis covers >80%, the two-axis graph covers 95%+ of voting behavior, and the rest is more likely to be overfitting than any actual additional axis.

Comment author: gjm 16 January 2014 08:48:05AM -1 points [-]

Two is enough to invalidate the assumption I think Oligopsony made, but in any case what's true "statistically speaking" is relevant only to those who are statistically fairly typical. LW is full of people who are, in various ways, unusual, and there is some reason to think that quite a few LW participants have unconventional political opinions. (And Oligopsony was specifically addressing the less-conventional, I think; hence "assuming your politics aren't so unbelievably unimaginative ...".)