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NancyLebovitz comments on 2013 Census/Survey: call for changes and additions - Less Wrong Discussion
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I'd like a question about how politically active people are. Tentatively suggested list of answers: vote, vote in primaries, do research before voting, involved with parties, tries to influence legislation by contact with people who can affect it directly, has run for office.
An option for probabilities to the effect of "this is so hard to estimate that I don't think much precision is possible"-- something equivalent to "revival from cryonics isn't going to happen next year, but I don't think there's a sensible way to talk about the odds for thirty years from now". In other words, the militant agnostic position: "I don't know, and you don't either".
Here's a question I've wanted to see about religion, but it would also work for rationality: Has rationality affected any of your major decisions about sex and/or money?
Has rationality been of practical use for you? Time, money, relationships, other.
Do you use rationality (not necessarily learned at LW/CFAR) as a filter for who you associate with?
"Vote in primaries" is a bit US-specific. How about "vote in national elections only" and "vote in other elections" (which would cover primaries, elections for local government, etc.)? Something like that, anyway.
"Voting in primaries" is US specific, but it is significantly stronger than "voting in other elections." We have an order of magnitude more people voting in state elections than in primaries.
In fact, it's probably the strongest thing that you can do to influence politics in America. It's significantly rarer than volunteering to help elect parties or writing letters to your senator, and everyone who's at a primary already does those things.
I only bothered looking up the statistics for California, but there I found 31% of registered voters showing up for the 2012 presidential primary elections, as opposed to 75% for the general election. (The statistics for eligible voters are somewhat lower, but more or less proportionally so.) That's a significant difference, but we're not talking an order of magnitude, and I'd be very surprised to find that that many people are politically engaged in more substantive ways.
France has primaries too now, I think it's an informative option to offer. How about "votes in parties' internal election, like primaries"?
I believe that the amount of effort this takes depends very much on the country.
Fine with me. I'm not politically active, even in just one country, so I was fairly uncertain about what should go on the list.
For that matter, should going to demonstrations be on the list? How about organizing demonstrations?
Unintentional dark humour (does not reflect badly on you): that "does research" is considered rarer than "votes".
"Do research before voting" seems like a strange formulation. It's has a ring of pulling an allnighter before an exam.
It's a good way to decide how to vote if you strongly believe you should vote, but you don't know much about the particular issue being voted on in advance. If the studying only affects your vote and not your other behavior, then why not put it off until the last moment before the election, when the most information is available?
But it doesn't only affect your vote. Democracy lives from people discussing public events. Reducing democracy to voting seems like cargo cult democracy.
There very little real information that's made available right before an election. If you want to judge whether to elect party A or party B, you have to look at the track record of those parties.
Judging politicans by the promise that they make the month before election instead of judging them for the track record that they have gives all the wrong incentives.
The track record is still available a month before the election.
It's a better strategy than never getting informed about politics at all, though.
Yes, but I wouldn't use that strategy as a measure of whether someone is politically active.
It strikes me as taking voting more seriously than than voting on the basis of a vague impression.
It might not be a measure of being politically active, though.
...or even not voting at all.
I'm curious about what proportion of LWers refrain from voting as a matter of principle, but I'm not sure whether this is worth putting in a questionnaire.
For that matter, I'm also curious about whether anyone was convinced to stop voting by arguments against it, as distinct from people who didn't vote and now had more reasons for not doing so.
Also, following the news on a daily or even weekly basis means that you're going to get a lot of repetition.
There may be a better way to phrase it, but different people certainly acquire varying amounts of knowledge before they vote.
I think twenty years ago the relevant question would have been: "Do you read the political section of daily paper?"
Today I'm not sure how to phrase the question.
Everyone does research before voting according to them.
My family members aren't familiar with even the most basic differences between the executive and legislative branches, and routinely make mistakes that would be cleared up with a 1st year understanding of government. They attribute blame/praise to one branch that they couldn't possibly be responsible due to how the separation of powers works.
But they've all "done their research, and [they] know a lot better than [I] do about who to vote for."