Public sentiment is just people
= number of individuals
= individual magnitude doesn’t so much matter
= so basic statistics will do, e.g. asking the same question and seeing the answers
Likewise for contexts like democracy, where each vote is equal = then you can extrapolate what the state is like politically
(albeit politicians can win narrowly, and the winning party can be polar opposite of what the other half of the country wanted, so there’s that to keep in mind. )
Problems start when we’re UNEQUAL
Then you have to account for magnitude
E.g. if it’s a corporation — the opinion of the CEO is more important than opinion of hundreds of employees
Then there are of course SELECTION BIASES
This is the greatest problem
I hate to break it to you — but internet is not THE world
Hollywood is ALSO not the world
MSNBC or Fox News or whatever is NOT the world
YouTube is NOT the world
Twitter is NOT the world
Your CITY is NOT the world
Your friends are NOT the world
A fucking specific SUBREDDIT is NOT the world
Etc.
Also,
President of the United States is NOT America
The richest man in the world is NOT “THE RICH”
A fucking physics influencer also working in a hedge fund is NOT the state of the physics
The famous doctor is NOT the state of the medicine
Nor is BIG PHARMA
Some of them can have disproportionate influence
But they can’t have complete power
Power is typically WIDELY distributed
The conclusion is:
Most of what we think “PUBLIC OPINION” is — is WRONG
It’s our biased idea of it
And then, naturally, everything else you say is uninformed nonsense too
You say “America”, or “the west”, or “corporations”, or “the billionaires”, or “the oppressed”, the “experts”, the “men”, the “women”, the “boomers” and the “Gen-Zs”,
— or whatever —
and it’s usually either meaningless, or misleading
You didn’t define your terms,
But most likely you wouldn’t be able to — because your view is biased from the start
AND most of what you think about WHO IS IN POWER is nonsense too
You’ve no clue how power works
You’ve no clue how profoundly distributed it is
You’ve no clue how complex most systems are
You’ve only news,
Ideologies,
And platitudes
“omg look who you can’t criticise to see who is in power!”
Cute
“surely power is in some nefarious hands controlling everything from the dark — the only way to explain what I don’t understand is by creating an UNFALSIFIABLE ENTITY that glues together the incoherence of my understanding”
etc.
I think we regressed, as a civilisation, in that sense
It’s not that we knew more before,
It’s that we believed less nonsense
But in general, I think we will eventually progress as a civilisation, in this regard
Some ignorance is human nature
But a lot can be remedied through education
This one is really not so complicated:
-Accept system is complex
-Accept you don’t fully understand it
-Ignore all news unless those are facts
-Ignore opinions unless someone has a proven track record
-Learn some basics of statistics and selection biases, to not fall for trivial traps I described in this text
-And then for all matters of scale — indeed rely on MEANINGFUL STATISTICS — not your stupid fucking anecdotes and opinions of folk in your bubble
That should do it