Riddle me this—In an AP-GfK poll conducted earlier this week, respondents seemed a bit . . . confused about how logic works, example:
Six in 10 predict an economic crisis if the government’s ability to borrow isn’t renewed later this month with an increase in the debt limit — an expectation widely shared by economists. Yet only 30 percent say they support raising the limit; 46 percent were neutral on the question.
Really folks? You’re saying that a huge part of our political decisions are based on polling and folks can’t even follow simple cause and effect?
Got it.
Also on today’s #TWiBRadio, #TeamBlackness discussed the great Jesus conspiracy, the productive habits of famous writers, and Captain Picard is outraged . . . and Black.
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And this morning on #amTWiB, we put together some of the greatest moments from the last year of #amTWiB.
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And finally, in case you missed it, we did a bit of broadcasting while on hiatus we discussed some amazing Berkeley racism thanks to the Rookie Moms twitter feed:
Jeff Spender
The derpitude is astounding.
I think a course in logic should be required to get a high school diploma.
workworkwork
To be more precise, polling is used as an excuse for political decisions. Frank Luntz has become very rich and influential exploiting this.
scav
I think the top link is to yesterday’s podcast. Here’s The Book of Brad
Southern Beale
Speaking of polls .. .Nate Silver is back!
He makes some good points about the government shutdown, probably not all what we want to hear, either. But he makes some sense.
lamh36
Chris
Say what you want about Aaron Sorkin, but I love this quote;
“68% think we give too much in foreign aid, and 59% think it should be cut.”
“You like that stat.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
“Because 9% think it’s too high, AND SHOULDN’T BE CUT! Nine percent of all respondents could not fully get their arms around the question! There should be another box you can check for ‘I have utterly no idea what you’re talking about, please, God, don’t ask for my input!'”
dmsilev
@lamh36: The GOP just finished their meeting with Obama (and per TPM, Boehner avoided the press on leaving). That news must mean that the GOP couldn’t resist adding some set of demands to the ostensibly-clean debt ceiling hike they were at least hinting at.
Citizen_X
We’ve got an epidemic of Inability to Think Things Through in this country. It’s like our national motto should be changed to “Hey, watch this!”
Yeah, but aren’t we withdrawing all troops from the AP-GfK region next year anyway?
Baud
@lamh36:
Whoa is right. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.
Interesting.
jl
@lamh36: Interesting. I assume that is because there is a ‘no extraordinary measures’ poison pill clause?
There was a problem with debt limit ceiling vote delay in Truman or Eisenhower administration, The administration bought time by either selling or playing obscure Treasury/Fed games with gold bullion. Was that an extraordinary measure?
What is defined as an extraordinary measure in the GOP proposal? Or do they define it al all?
I hope that if Obama is rejecting it, that poison pill is really poison.
JPL
haha.. So the President very politely said Shove it..
dmsilev
@lamh36: Times has a bit of a story up (edited version of earlier story):
Thoughtcrime
@lamh36:
@dmsilev:
And of course the GOP picked November 22nd as the new debt limit deadline – it’s the 50th anniversary of a day in American presidential history that they celebrate.
jl
@lamh36: Sorry. Missed the NYT link. It’s purportedly over government shutdown? Or is that an admin negotiating ploy to get rid of the ‘no extraordinary measures’ clause?
dmsilev
@Thoughtcrime: I had the misfortune to accidentally start reading a George Will column this morning (I plead insufficient caffeine) and for reasons that I don’t care to understand, he was railing about JFK.
lamh36
GOP “save face” spin?
dmsilev
@jl: See the blockquote above. It’s because it doesn’t also reopen the government. The other bits of nonsense in the “offer” probably also were deal-breakers as well, but that’s the cited reason.
Chyron HR
Your error is in assuming that nobody could seriously want an “economic crisis”. Republicans, of course, would love any form of crisis if Obama got blamed for it.
Mandalay
@lamh36: Completely OT, but your link also had this juicy story….
Anyone who stands up to Goldman Sachs always run the risk of having their cock hacked off, and stuffed in their mouth (figuratively speaking).
Corner Stone
Why wouldn’t Boehner come out and slam the Kenyan Usurper? Why skip past the press?
Walker
@Jeff Spender:
Logic does not go very far in arguments. Very few arguments are over the validity of deductions. Most of the issues are haggling over premises (when is it okay to rely on an authority) and induction (most of the time…).
JPL
@jl: The article doesn’t mention that. Boehner wanted to keep the government shut down but not go over the cliff, in return for negotiations, where they get everything and the citizens of the greatest country in the world get screwed.
Hal
You should only pay attention to the Ted Cruz poll in the newsmax links. The GOP is “gaining” in the Obamacare fight. I wonder what a Ted Cruz poll is? I imagine question like “on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, how wonderfully wonderful is Ted Cruz?”
David Koch
@lamh36: Obama just kicked Boehner in the nuts.
Corner Stone
Wait…what range of comments can I make in this thread that’s acceptable to Drexciya?
maya
Perhaps all these poll discrepancies indicate a far greater use of pot then previously suspected
JPL
CBS News is saying Boehner didn’t want this fight, it was the tea party’s fault. What they meant to say is Boehner is a liar and an asshole but because it’s a family channel, they could not.
geg6
Obama just kicked Boner in the nuts and sent him back to the drawing board. MSNBC showed a clip of him returning to his office and he looked like he was ill. And about to cry. Of course.
lamh36
David Koch
Shit is getting real, Boehenor just angrily attacked the media
youtube.com/watch?v=2X9E9n6GHC8
JPL
@geg6: He just realized that he would have to delay happy hour. Look at my comment at 27.. CBS painted him as a victim..
lamh36
scav
@Corner Stone: While I need to negotiate the proper forms of silence, because I’m even doing that wrong. (granted, I fled that thread so may not have the full list of my manifest real-life failings and evil habits / essence.)
Patrick
Mind-boggling, isn’t it?!
These are the same people, of which 67% wanted to attack Iraq, eventhough Iraq had nothing to do with 911 and eventhough we were still plenty busy in Afghanistan. And look how great that turned out.
Go figure…
Jeff Spender
@Walker:
Yes, of course, I’ve argued with Christian apologists and anti-vaxers.
But it would help if people understood basic syllogisms and how to determine if a premise was sound or not. Cause and effect would be useful as well.
Basically, a course that would teach people who to handle information and how it is interpreted.
eemom
@geg6:
“Obama just kicked Boner in the nuts and sent him back to the drawing board. MSNBC showed a clip of him returning to his office and he looked like he was ill. And about to cry.”
So he’ll call up his pal Jack Daniels, and his partner Jimmy Bean…
And yay for the Prez, again…..”offer” amounted to “well, ok, we won’t burn the house down, but ya gotta let us keep the hostage.” Fuck the scumbags.
Mandalay
@Chris:
The situation is not as clear as Sorkin suggests if those were yes/no questions. Just because someone believes that some arbitrary figure/rate is too high (or too low), it is not axiomatic that it should be cut or increased.
For example, ask folks if our debt level is too high (just “yes” or “no”), and most would probably reply that it is. Then ask them if our debt level should be reduced (just “yes” or “no”), and most would probably reply no. That doesn’t mean they are dumb, and did not understand the questions. On the contrary it means that they truly understood the implications of the questions. There is a huge difference between cutting/raising something in the short term as opposed to the long term.
AdamK
Does Elon suffer from adult ADHD? Because I find his podcast completely irritating and unlistenable, as much as I share his interests. It would help if he’d stick to a topic for more than half a sentence.
ETA I like him just fine as a person and a poster. This isn’t meant to be insulting.
chopper
@Jeff Spender:
it’s the derpublican party. they know how to derp. it’s in their name.
scav
@lamh36: Aah, nice. Cruz would likely be lower if more people knew who he was (another poll there). But where’s the all important Galloping Pole to bring us the really truth?
Jeff Spender
@Jeff Spender:
All elephants are pink.
Nellie is an elephant.
Therefore, Nellie is pink.
But Doctor, elephants aren’t pink!
Bah! Humans do not understand logic.
WereBear
People can have successful careers and happy lives without knowing what the debt ceiling is. I frankly don’t expect them to; though it’s easy enough to find out, and I would have thought they could have looked it up by now.
Corner Stone
@scav: Do you know how *hard* your silence in that thread has made her enforce the acceptability standard here?
Second only to those who enjoy music by The Roots.
geg6
@eemom:
Can you imagine what his office must smell like? Stale Camels and half-empty glasses of old watered down bourbon and scotch. I’m a smoker and it would turn my stomach.
MomSense
Disclaimer: My mom is a total snob. She grew up poor–we are talking no heat poor and having to use an outhouse and supporting her parents while in high school. She is a snob because she was valedictorian, had a successful career, earned her PHD, and just kicks ass at everything she does. She is NOT however a Republican and never even flirted with that pathology because she credits her success to public education and thinks that our individual lives are better when everyone has the opportunity to develop into their full potential. She is a snob because she will tell you with complete certainty that the basic problem with which we have to contend is that half the population is stupid.
I am not willing to concede this point to her–yet but I am willing to admit to all of you that she very well could be right. How else do you explain these polls??
scav
@Corner Stone: mea maxima culpas all round.
Mandalay
@Mandalay: What I just posted was a load of crap. The FP actually cites data over the debt limit to prove that people really are dumb. I need to recalibrate my faith in the human race.
PsiFighter37
After the news flashed on the screen at work, S&P 500 futures dropped over 0.5%. Not a full retracement of today’s stock market gains, but you can bet there’s still a ways to go on this roller coaster.
Clearly this ‘clean’ bill wasn’t ‘clean’ at all. Hope Orange Julius didn’t cry too hard…must’ve been why he only wanted leadership around, not the entire GOP House caucus – can’t be seen crying in front of the Teabaggers.
PsiFighter37
@MomSense: Of course most of the population in America’s stupid. I’m more than willing to say that…of course, I would never get elected to anything, but that’s why you don’t see me running for public office.
JPL
@MomSense: I’d disagree with your mom. They are not stupid, which has a certain connotation, they are uninformed. Two of the worse things that happened to the country is 24/7 news and not renewing the fairness doctrine. Bless their hearts but they are uninformed.
JPL
@PsiFighter37: haha… They are uninformed.. …
? Martin
@MomSense:
People, particularly single moms and people working two jobs, or caring for an elderly parent, or otherwise just consumed by life, even if they had the education to understand this stuff simply don’t have the bandwidth to keep tabs on it or even care about it. One benefit of a representative democracy is that you outsource the hard stuff, with the downside that people become ill equipped to evaluate who is representing them. You go in with a living wage, you provide universal daycare, healthcare, etc. and you can raise your expectations.
muddy
@JPL: Father, forgive them, they do not know what they ought know.
The Other Chuck
@Citizen_X:
Too long. How about Squirrel!
RareSanity
You have got to be kidding me…
I don’t know if “Tyrone” is a real person or merely a literary device for John Rogers, but someone needs to be nominated for a Nobel Prize in…I don’t know which subject, but something.
Source
? Martin
@RareSanity:
Truthifying
RareSanity
@? Martin:
Agreed.
Let’s draw up the papers…
Chris
@? Martin:
This.
I’m very aware that most of my understanding of this comes from the fact that I’m a complete junkie for this stuff who’s been consuming whatever he can find about it since high school at least. Most people aren’t like that. It’s what keeps me from having too low an opinion of public opinion.
(It’s also why I like the “low information voter”/”high misinformation voter” dichotomy. People who are just as much junkies for this stuff as I am but insist on consuming nothing but easily disprovable shit and ignoring any and all facts, I hold in far more contempt than these “low information voters” I’m always hearing about).
srv
This poll makes complete sense if you assume the masses have resigned themselves to the reality of nihilism.
JPL
So Costa’s twitter site is saying they are hoping to open the Government by Monday… hahaha It will be a big win cuz Obama will talk to them..
MikeJ
@JPL: He’s also saying that tonight is just about the fine print. Republicans want to kill Obama(care) and destroy the government. Democrats don’t. Just small differences.
geg6
@Chris:
The people I hold a special contempt for are those who are as just as highly educated as I am but who aren’t in FIRE careers/jobs or who belong to unions who are willfully ignorant and vote GOP straight down the line. They have to work to stay ignorant because the truth is right in front of their faces all day every day. I have numerous co-workers who are die hard GOPers, complaining about taxes and the poors continually. These people work at a public university where 82% of the students receive student aid, most of which pays their salaries. Almost everyone here, even the maintenance/janitorial and staff assistants, have at least one college degree and the vast majority of us have graduate degrees. It’s nuts!
JPL
@MikeJ: I am not wealthy but maxed out on contributions to the President.. Somehow, I think it was money well spent.. This is fun. I told a son, that I could have learned parenting from him because of his skills. My son said no thanks,
MomSense
@PsiFighter37: @JPL:
My Mom would tell you that being uninformed is a choice–that stupid people make! PsiFighter, she too will never be able to run for office because I highly doubt that she could refrain from saying what she thinks.
JPL
@MomSense: but, but Fox news makes it so easy for lazy people, to be stupid.
David Koch
@JPL: withdrawing all troops from Iraq, when McCain wanted to leave them there for 100 years; repealing DADT; striking down DOMA; enacting Lilly Ledbetter; Matthew Sheppard Act; repealing Pre-existing conditions, ending lifetime caps and recession, expanding Medicaid and SChip and starting health insurance exchanges; kicking bankers out of student loans; expanding Pell grants; decimating al qaeda; nuclear arms reduction; eliminated syria’s chemical weapons; not bombing iran; rescuing the auto industry when mittens said let it go bankrupt; preventing a 2nd great depression; appointing two women on the supreme court, appointing openly gay jurists to the court of appeals; first woman to chair the fed; endorsing gay marriage; sounds like your investment paid a high yield.
JPL
@David Koch: For me it was the fact that it would cost me more personally not to. Most of the folk in GA don’t get that.
Ripley
@? Martin: Cosign.
Life is complex enough without being beset by a need to know more than what is necessary to survive and provide, at least for many. I often wonder who those insulting low-information voters would like the U.S. to be better for – themselves and those just like them? That sounds painfully familiar.
beltane
I was listening to NPR this afternoon and they were interviewing one of the teabagger reps who, of course, was talking like a crazy person. It wasn’t what he was saying that was necessarily crazy (I’m sure it was but I wasn’t really paying close attention), but he just sounded like a straight-jacket grade lunatic. The polling is indicating that this is one of those moments when low-info, tuned-out Americans take a look at the GOP and say to themselves “Wow, these people are nuts!” No amount of “both sides do it” by the media can obscure the basic lunacy of the teabaggers.
Belafon
@MomSense: As someone points out, a 100 IQ is average intelligence. Personally, and I am a major optimist, I think your mom is giving humanity too much credit. I think we’ve taken advantage of the fact that evolution has designed organisms that on the whole want to stay alive.
Mike in NC
@JPL:
How many people will have registered for an Affordable Care Act account by then? Maybe 15 million? My wife’s best friend from high school is coming for a visit tomorrow. Schoolteacher from Fairfax County, VA getting close to retirement. She’s married to an insufferable Tea Party type who in the past I’ve been able to refrain from suggesting go fuck himself. Looking forward to him gloating about this anti-Obamacare brain trust led by Ed Meese and their brilliant attempt to “defund” an existing law.
We attended a community-sponsored ACA seminar last night that attracted 50-60 people and lasted two hours. Most looked eligible for Medicare but several had questions about their kids and grandkids being covered. The insurance expert who was speaking came across as “moderate Republican” but was honestly in awe of the ACA and changes it’ll bring to the middle class. He noted several examples of people he’s worked with for years who couldn’t get or afford heath insurance for various reasons. At one point he even said, “You people built this country and deserve this law”. When we drop COBRA it appears that we’ll be saving a boatload of money.
Baud
@Mike in NC:
Won’t be that high. Not even close. But more and more people are hopefully seeing real benefits every day.
Suffern ACE
Maybe it’s time for an electoral gambit. Romney did a good job running away from the Republican entitlement and tax reform plan. Perhaps the agreement can be to keep Obamacare but pass the Republican plan with a rider that it does not take effect until 2016 and only after being voted on by the next Congress.
But then I read these polls and figure the voters would vote Republican even if it meant cutting themselves out of Medicare and otherwise bankrupting the themselves.
mclaren
Welcome to Shithole America, Elon. The land where reason and evidence goes to die.
This is what happens when white people try to run a major country.
David Koch
Game’s over. The republicans just lost Chuck “it’s NOT my job to report facts” Todd
Todd describes Republican poll numbers as a “political recession or worse”. “GOP in freefall.” “The shutdown has been an unmitigated political disaster for the GOP.”
WereBear
I see most uninformed voters like submarines: they come up for air once in a great while, and what they see through the periscope lasts until they surface again.
JPL
@Baud: In Kentucky it’s in the ten’s of thousands that probably voted for Rand.
If the repubs touch it now, they will not be happy.
After WWII, we subsidized corporations to provide health care. I’m glad that now we can subsidize individuals.
scav
OT Yeti episode found!. So it was nine Dr Who episodes found in Nigeria. And I thought chortling at polls was the most satisfaction I would get all day. I mean, try as I have, I can’t break the feeling there has got to be some karmic revenge for the glee I get contemplating those digits in that order.
geg6
@Baud:
The NBC poll has good news on that front, along with the major spanking the GOP and Ted Cruz get. Apparently, approval of Obamacare (as I shall forever call it–thanks, GOP!) is up something like 7 or 8 points.
KG
@RareSanity: the amazing thing to me is that 21% number for the TP’s favorability. That’s likely outside the margin of error to get to 27%. It’s more realistically somewhere between 18 and 24%. It’s still close enough for government work, but damn if they aren’t breaking all kinds of records.
beltane
@WereBear: Yes, the narrative that will come out of this will be something like “GOP=Crazy people who put salmonella in chicken and scream at lady park rangers”.
That whole “Morning in America” thing is so ancient history at this point.
SiubhanDuinne
@David Koch:
Unpossible. Boehner never had any nuts to kick.
scav
@SiubhanDuinne: Böhner’s nuts are free-floating and tell him what to do — he lives in abject fear of them.
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
…which just happens to be a federal statutory holiday….
Nethead Jay
@AdamK: ADD, not ADHD I think, but yes, he’s talked about it several times just this last week since TWiB started again. And he’s probably mentioned it earlier, but I was only listening occasionally back then. Also, he ran out of medicine for it for a while, so he’s got rather a personal investment in the whole access to healthcare thing. It doesn’t bother me, but then we all have our different issues, to one degree or another.
Joel
No one cares about policy polls. The only ones that matter are voter intent (and arguably approval polls, which are merely a proxy for voter intent).
Steeplejack
Some of the gap could be because there are those who would welcome the economic crisis because they see it as a “cleansing fire” that would clear out the deadwood and lead to a better tomorrow. Unfortunately, these people never believe that their house might be burned down with the deadwood.