The big surprise of this election was learning that electoral polling is all a scam.

Errius wrote:

The big surprise of this election was learning that electoral polling is all a scam.

Nah, it can work, but you need to poll a representative group of people, who also should provide honest information, otherwise you get a biased sample (any good statistics book will explain this). Furthermore, the people doing the polling should properly explain how polling works to people who are not statisticians. Finally, polling only gives momentary information, which is problematic if you have a large group of people within the sampled group who are not sure of who they'll vote for, because that means they could have changed their opinion by the next poll...

It is likely that the people doing the electoral polling failed on all of these points...

As an outside observer a big part of this seems to be fallout from the so-called 'culture wars'. Push things too far in one particular direction and and the pendulum will only hit your ass harder when it swings back... but somehow I doubt that the particularly belligerent will take a lesson from this. For now that too-vocal contingent is only concentrating even harder on vilification and divisiveness, adding a fresh defeat to their myth of victimization, blaming everyone but themselves, and blatantly refusing to accept the outcome (in an exact mirror image of the scary pictures they were painting for the opposite scenario).

nforce4max wrote:

The things that I could say are much more aggressive than anything that I have posted thus far but we are all adults and there comes a point in life where we are expected to have thicker skin. People these days are so fragile and easily offended amazes me, the world isn't a nice place and people should wake up to that but dialog is important even when there is strong disagreements. If anything people are just still children just in aged middle age or older bodies, if ever the poop were to hit the fan like an economic collapse God help us.

This

Here are 2 photos from Trump's meeting with Obama today.

I declare, I don't believe this man is actually happy that he will be the President. I think this is the look of a man that is in over his head, because he thought he was going to lose and then just sell a bunch of books and then go on the lecture circuit. I think he is genuinely dismayed that now he has to do something.

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The problem with the polls is they only looked at people who voted in 2012, which just so happens the white blue collar workers didn't turn out to vote in 2004/2008/2012 and so the pollsters missed the actual demographic that would decide this vote, the average white blue collar worker who is tired of politicians running Washington and who are bought and paid for before they even take office.

candle_86 wrote:

The problem with the polls is they only looked at people who voted in 2012, which just so happens the white blue collar workers didn't turn out to vote in 2004/2008/2012 and so the pollsters missed the actual demographic that would decide this vote, the average white blue collar worker who is tired of politicians running Washington and who are bought and paid for before they even take office.

That is what I alluded to in my earlier post, they used an unrepresentative sample. I also wonder up to what degree it was important that the group of voters Trump managed to get to vote was a group that disliked pollsters. If people are actively avoiding getting polled, the poll's gonna be biased no matter what.

@snorg: See Brexit for more of that kind of face.

Or as you mentioned, perhaps not giving honest information.

The world needs peace! 😀

Hillary being so unlikable had a hand in this. As much as I dislike Trumps views I would have a hard time ticking the box for Hillary (if I was American that is).

Munx wrote:

Hillary being so unlikable had a hand in this. As much as I dislike Trumps views I would have a hard time ticking the box for Hillary (if I was American that is).

She also made a couple of comments about certain areas of the United States with many potential Trump-voters that were...pretty stupid...to say the least. I can't help but wonder how the election would have gone if instead she had made a genuine effort to understand why those people wanted to vote Trump and given them a compassionate answer indicating she understood their concerns and would try to do everything in her power to improve their lives. It's especially ironic because her husband was the one who did understand that problem back in 1992.

Now you mention it I don't remember ever seeing Bill on the campaign, which is strange since he was hugely popular back in the day. He should have been one of her strongest assets.

yawetaG wrote:

Munx wrote:

Hillary being so unlikable had a hand in this. As much as I dislike Trumps views I would have a hard time ticking the box for Hillary (if I was American that is).

She also made a couple of comments about certain areas of the United States with many potential Trump-voters that were...pretty stupid...to say the least. I can't help but wonder how the election would have gone if instead she had made a genuine effort to understand why those people wanted to vote Trump and given them a compassionate answer indicating she understood their concerns and would try to do everything in her power to improve their lives. It's especially ironic because her husband was the one who did understand that problem back in 1992.

Because she was only focused on people with government welfare, and those of us who have jobs and earn our keep without government assistance are who she doesn't like. She wants everyone drinking from the tit of the government and no one having any independent thought, its how the left is thinking these days. They want to tell you how to raise children, how to dress, how to not offend, how to speak, how to act, and what career to take. So the middle class blue collar worker suffering because they wanted to maintain their dignity and independence didn't fit into her narrative.

candle_86 wrote:

yawetaG wrote:

Munx wrote:

Hillary being so unlikable had a hand in this. As much as I dislike Trumps views I would have a hard time ticking the box for Hillary (if I was American that is).

She also made a couple of comments about certain areas of the United States with many potential Trump-voters that were...pretty stupid...to say the least. I can't help but wonder how the election would have gone if instead she had made a genuine effort to understand why those people wanted to vote Trump and given them a compassionate answer indicating she understood their concerns and would try to do everything in her power to improve their lives. It's especially ironic because her husband was the one who did understand that problem back in 1992.

Because she was only focused on people with government welfare, and those of us who have jobs and earn our keep without government assistance are who she doesn't like. She wants everyone drinking from the tit of the government and no one having any independent thought, its how the left is thinking these days. They want to tell you how to raise children, how to dress, how to not offend, how to speak, how to act, and what career to take. So the middle class blue collar worker suffering because they wanted to maintain their dignity and independence didn't fit into her narrative.

You better buy some chap-stick, because most people are going to be at the tit of the government before long: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/robots-will- … g-world-un-says

Automation will make most jobs irrelevant, and there isn't a damn thing anyone is going to do about it. I'm already in the process of getting back into school (at 32). It might not help, but I've always wanted a "formal" education in computer science. Watch the video I posted on page one. Universal basic income is going to be a fact of life in the next 5-10 years. http://inhabitat.com/elon-musk-says-well-need … -are-automated/

candle_86 wrote:

... how to dress...

So you don't want the government meddling with your look, but you do want the government locking up women if they have an abortion? Seems like wonky logic to me.

One is murder one isnt

badmojo wrote:

candle_86 wrote:

... how to dress...

So you don't want the government meddling with your look, but you do want the government locking up women if they have an abortion? Seems like wonky logic to me.

Well, if you take the libertarian point of view, then the government has no business preventing abortions either. Perfectly valid logic there imho.

The extremely extreme libertarian/anarchist/secularist point of view could be that since there's no God, there's also no moral code and everything from murder to theft to torture is acceptable since there's no divine standard to say it's wrong. This is a logical belief if you accept the premise of there being no absolute morals.

candle_86 wrote:

One is murder one isnt

Only if you believe in absolute morality.

So if you subscribe to traditional Western/Judeo-Christian (and Muslim) values (like me), you have to say that there's no practical difference between abortion and infanticide. By the way, there was a survey a while back which indicated that a large percentage of college students supported infanticide. After all, if you're supportive of late-term abortions, or even abortions just before birth when the fetus is completely viable, then what's the real difference? The umbilical cord? Is the fetus then still part of the woman's body? Deep questions 😜

So anyway, in the last case you have to admit that, IF there is a God and he's handed down the moral code that the Western religions define, then it's not wonky logic at all to make abortions illegal, because in that case they would just be murder cases. That's a big if though. I happen to think it's completely true but a lot of people don't, and that's what human democracy is all about. From my perspective, if we vote for something that God hates, well, whatever. I can fight against it but I won't go insane over it. He'll take care of it in the end.

EDIT: 686 posts! Woohoo!

keenmaster486 wrote:

Well, if you take the libertarian point of view, then the government has no business preventing abortions either. Perfectly vali […]
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badmojo wrote:

candle_86 wrote:

... how to dress...

So you don't want the government meddling with your look, but you do want the government locking up women if they have an abortion? Seems like wonky logic to me.

Well, if you take the libertarian point of view, then the government has no business preventing abortions either. Perfectly valid logic there imho.

The extremely extreme libertarian/anarchist/secularist point of view could be that since there's no God, there's also no moral code and everything from murder to theft to torture is acceptable since there's no divine standard to say it's wrong. This is a logical belief if you accept the premise of there being no absolute morals.

candle_86 wrote:

One is murder one isnt

Only if you believe in absolute morality.

So if you subscribe to traditional Western/Judeo-Christian (and Muslim) values (like me), you have to say that there's no practical difference between abortion and infanticide. By the way, there was a survey a while back which indicated that a large percentage of college students supported infanticide. After all, if you're supportive of late-term abortions, or even abortions just before birth when the fetus is completely viable, then what's the real difference? The umbilical cord? Is the fetus then still part of the woman's body? Deep questions 😜

So anyway, in the last case you have to admit that, IF there is a God and he's handed down the moral code that the Western religions define, then it's not wonky logic at all to make abortions illegal, because in that case they would just be murder cases. That's a big if though. I happen to think it's completely true but a lot of people don't, and that's what human democracy is all about. From my perspective, if we vote for something that God hates, well, whatever. I can fight against it but I won't go insane over it. He'll take care of it in the end.

EDIT: 686 posts! Woohoo!

I agree, but I wont show support for it either

Thoughts on the electoral college? Should states all have proportionately the same number of electoral votes? I assume the current system was set up to prevent small states from being bullied by larger ones. Is that still a concern?