this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2023
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We should really stop doing polls. People will answer depending on how something sounds on the surfcae with exactly no clue about details.
The same people in UK that want to rejoin the EU single market will also vote against most consequences of joining the single market.
Just like for example a majority of Europeans when asked wants to stop daylight saving time changes for permanent 'summer time' (because summer is a more positive connotation when that 1 hour shift from standard time is bad by any objective metric and actually bad for our health).
Just like a majority of Germans right now loudly agrees to more investments, to then turn around and answer in another poll how spending any money (even more when it's financed by debt) should be avoided.
People are idiots and polls have lost most their meaning as I can get any answer I want just by who I ask and how I phrase the question.
Agreed. Most American polls are still done by phone, so it only counts people who answer unknown calls, and then answer a series of questions about their beliefs. Which just gets more unbelievable every day.
And then there are online polls, that already cherry-pick the people by where they advertize. And that's on top of the effect that people with a strong opinion and desire to voice it are overrepresented in such polls.
I never understood the arguments people use surrounding daylight savings. The health risks, accident risks, any risks surround the actual switch, not really the what time is used. If the clocks were set forward for "summer time" then 3 months later Daylight savings was abolished and no one changes their clocks anymore (as you said, permanent summer time) there would be no ill effects from it cause everyone was already used to the time change.
I want to get rid of daylight savings. I don't care whether it's standard time that use used or daylight savings time that is used as long as the switchover stops happening.
With people mostly using clocks which don't need adjusting, we could have the best of both worlds.
Currently, 12 o'clock is defined as the sun being at its highest point at a specific location (in winter, standard time)
Imagine you take the same reference location, and define sunrise as 7:00 (am). No health issues, no sudden changes, and probably best for the biorhythm.
Yes, there would be "ill effects". Having more daylight later the day is a pure luxury/convenience (for the people not working at that time anymore...). Having to an hour more between waking up and the sun coming up however has adverse effects on your natural clock and health.
No, there is exactly nothing useful about daily polls how you would vote if the election that is actually happening in 3-4 years is tomorrow. It has zero worth as information and is only used for the also daily "see, that party got another 0.5%, they will totally be the one ruling party soon/we nend to fight them before they take over!" polarizing bullshit destroying democracies.
There is even less use, when a lot of these polls from (always the same) questionable sources are used by (always the same) publications for their narratives.
This has nothing to do with information and transparency anymore, but a lot with manipulation and propaganda.
Yes, they do. Companies are paid for these polls. Today, tomorrow, again next week. They don't refine their data (usual polling data isn't changing that quickly), they refine how to get the answer they want. Those polls also don't show the reaction of public opinion on policies (again those don't change every other day) for transparency. They show how yesterday's rage-inducing lie on the front page worked and how it compares to today's to refine manipulation tactics.
No I'm talking about always the same polls overvaluing one option being always used by the publications pushing that story again and again.
So you have an actual argument or do you want to keep attacking half a dozen strawman arguments you found between the line I never wrote?
"Oh, No! Someone diagrees with me! Let's find a couple of things he never actually said and then attack him repeatedly for being anti-science!!"
Are you even serious or is this just trolling at this point?
PS: Yes, a lot of different people do polls. Actually using those, or doing a weighted avarage or just mentioning they exist would be an improvement. But it is not happening, because publications always work with the same polling whose result are beneficial for that publication.
No, unlike you I know what I'm talking about. I know how YouGov does their polls. I know how YouGov was wrong at Scotlands Referendum 2014. I know how they were also wrong with their polls for the Brexit referendum, and also which publications constantly referenced them as a reason to "stay calm... UK will not leave the EU", which obviously contributed to lower turnout on the anti-Brexit side. And I know -again unlike you- why always the people wanting to tell a story about UK's EU support are referencing YouGov polls. Because they are always overvalueing certain positions again and again.
Would you chonge your mind if you heard how the chance of getting killed now is 0.05% lower next day. Then another 0.1 higher 3 days later? Oh, and on saturdays your chances to die actually go down to 19%. Unless it's in a month with an "R". Oh, and the guy doing the procdure has his own stats that show a 3% lower risk, even 4% if you're favorite color is green.
That's an actual analogy of the amount of polls we are flooded with. And that's also perfectly describing their accuracy and worth.
Do proper polls with a detailed analysis about their methodology once in a while to stay in contact with public opinion and shifts of it. Constantly doing polls again and again for your latest story, always picked from the polling group you know will lean more to your desired result however is nothing more than a tool to give credibility to a narrative.
No matter how often you say this and deny reality, I can at any given day look up the daily story of how polls shows another 0,1% increase for this party and another loss of 0.05% for that party compared to the last poll about 3 days ago for a fictional election actually happening in 2 years. Complete with pages of text how it's all X's fault for policy Y that was actually never discussed and was only mentioned by some backbencher in a Tweet (bonus points when it's a pure invention of some opposition politician). That's the reality. A reality I see every day.
A reality of total media failure using polls as a pretense to give their narrative the seeming of plausibility.
And this reality doesn't change because you don't want it to exist for your point to be true.
grooooan get over yourself. I'm done man. Feel free to have the last word, I'm sure it's very important to you.
I prefer to stick with daylight savings over standard but that is because im a late person and hate 4pm sunset.
Yeah, plus during winter sun rises after I arrive at work anyway, why should I care about that being at 08:30 or 09:30? I want at least some sunlight when going home.
yeah I don't see the advantages of standard time at all. The one guy talked about the sun being overhead at noon but who cares.
On the one hand, you are absolutely correct, people are idiots
On the other hand, your arguments against polls are equally valid arguments against any form representative democracy. Politicans, policies and programs are just like polls. People will often vote purely based on surface apperances. See: every law called "the fluffy familes act" or two-thirds of US elections going to the taller cannidate.
There's a reason it's called 'the least bad form of government'
You are the second person now that tries to tell me how important polls are, just because I didn't phrase it "we should stop such polls"... while I clearly then described my problem with these kind of polls.
Yes, polls make the same sense as elections do. That's exactly the reason we don't have direct democracies and people are voted for 4-5 years in most countries.
Asking people once for their opinion of Brexit to get a base line for public opinion is okay, although it's not that precise obviously but can at least tell you if a majority seems reachable. Asking them again after a few months or after important (unexpected) decisions is helpful. Asking them again and again when there is not vote or referendum happening however is worthless.
The same is true for polls about any question or general voting twice a week when the actual vote takes place in years. That's not about transparency but manipulation.
We saw exactly those kind of polls before Brexit constantly used for months to tell the story of how everything is okay and there is no reason to panic as there's no majority for Brexit. How many against voters might have been stayed home because of that bullshit?
We also see this in multiple countries right now, where no election is even close but there are new polls about that imaginary vote at least two or three times a week. This also has no informational value. It's just used for polarisation (who the fuck gives something about a +0.2% for some party years before the next election, unless it's either that party telling a fabvolous story of their increasing support or their opposition trying to scare people).
We have (more or less) representative democracies with long terms, because everything else is highly impractical. We don't need polls every few days as actual policies don't shift that quick. Those polls are only used to fine tune the latest propaganda narratives or (social) media campaigns, not to evaluate actual support of people for the policies their governments enact.
So I also don't need yet another "rejoining the EU single market" poll when there is no vote about it even planned and it's from the same polling group that screwed up their prediction for Brexit originally. Yes, I already know they magically find all those pro-EU Brits and get high support numbers for cooperation witht he EU. Didn't help them with the reality of Brexit...
If there ever is another referendum or an important political decision about pursuing more cooperation with the EU, would love to see some polls. With an emphasis on plural, and then some averaging between them and a proper analysis of the methodology and exact questions asked. Yet another YouGov online poll about "who wants to rejoin the single market" without actual details about the question and how detailed the people asked where informed about what this all entails... yeah, not thanks. Please get rid of that crap.
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This is total nonsense. Which time would make more sense to adopt permanently depends on several factors including the geographic location within the current very wide CET/CEST time zone (one makes more sense on the west end, the other on the east end) and when people start and end their days.
Personally I am in favour of just getting rid of the entire time zone system and just getting up at a time that makes sense for you locally without changing the entire clock to match. That would have the benefit that talking about time would become several orders of magnitude easier on a world-wide scale, the person-years required to develop anything related to calendars would be cut in half, most people could calculate travel times in their heads even across what is currently multiple time zones,.. with the only major downside being that the date would change some time while we are awake and possibly working.
It isn't. It's science. Increasing the time between us waking up and the sun naturally rising has adverse health effects. It also has the same effects on people more to the east of a time zone relatively. They are just in a slightly better position naturally.
You mean between the time the sun rises and the time we get up? Which is what east/west location determines and the other factor I mentioned.
Not to mention that it also has adverse health effects when it gets dark before most full time employees even finish their work day because some morning fetishists need extra daylight an hour before most people even get up.