Check the timestamps, looks like we overlapped (I replied to your post before you edited it). Your more thorough response is likely something I can respond to in more depth. Stay tuned.
(one edit later...)
This is incorrect. It's probably worth noting that, as an aside, here in the thread, we have anecdotal evidence that this has apparently happened, so apparently people will do that. But that's not my position.
Again, my case doesn't involve a predictive element -- it's not about saying what people will do, for the simple reason that there's far too many variables to make a reasonable prediction about the future. This isn't a laboratory, and psychology isn't typically a hard science that makes precise predictions. I don't have magical superpowers of precognition, and nothing that I've said mandates that I must be the first person in history able to correctly foretell the minds of an entire audience. Any characterization of my case as one that involves foretelling the future of a poll or the behavior of people is a mischaracterization. I'm not trying to do the impossible, here.
To correct that error, it may be useful to think of the default effect as something that accounts for observed behavior, rather than a method for divining some specific future. The studies I cited show that defaults make a significant difference in how people make decisions (and you can see plenty of evidence from other posters all over this board). They claim that this is one of the conclusions one can draw from their results, and I find the argument compelling.
Given that defaults are shown to make a significant difference in how people make decisions, how might this account for some of the comments often seen in threads about D&D monster lore? Your case seems to be "It doesn't, because D&D tells you that you can change anything you want," but because this case presumes that this is somehow materially different for decision-making from being told that you can sign up for organ donation if you want, I disagree. In both situations, the decision-maker is told that they can change the default when they want to, so I don't think that this is a significant difference. The studies say that telling the decision-maker that they can change the default doesn't remove the effect of the default. In fact, that's kind of what they're about -- they primary data points consist of people who are explicitly given the option to change a default, but don't. In no situation are we talking about people NOT given the option to change their default.
The rest of your post seems predicated on the incorrect assumption that I'm predicting what people will do when just given a default (and with conflating rejection of the decision with making a decision, but that's for down the road). I'd suggest re-evaluating your idea of what my argument is. If you'd like to engage in the dialogue, I'm open to you re-evaluating what you thought my position was to more accurately reflect the reality of the situation. Upon re-evaluation, what do you find?
I am not claiming you have some precognative abilities, I am saying you're arguing that this opt-in effect is LIKELY to have SOME INFLUENCE on how people behavior in the future. Here is how I draw that conclusion:
First, you repeatedly used future-tense language. For example, you said:
"For the lazy DM's, for the newbie DM's, and for all the reasons mentioned in the papers themselves,
the default effect will still be present. The only real
question is whether WotC
is going to try and exploit it, try and ignore it, or try and work with it. "
That's all future-tense language. You're talking about future new DMs, you're talking about "will still be present" in terms of future 5e games based on rules that have not even come out yet, and you're talking about whether WOTC is going to try and do something about it in the future. All of this is predictive/future language, not past-tense or present-tense.
You do this throughout the thread, like for example, "Lets make an easy change," which of course must happen in the future, and "changes the nature of the stories that WE can tell through it, and the nature of the worlds we
can build. If the latter is the default, it changes what our own games are about by default. And it's not a zero-sum game: there
can be both". This is all about what CAN be, not what was or is. It's all predictive language. Same with, "It doesn't empower me to define medusa for myself", which is a future-tense empowerment.
So, up until I started to try and pin you down for a future poll, you were fine claiming this opt-in issue was something one could rationally expect would have an impact on future behavior. And then all of a sudden you started to claim "my case doesn't involve a predictive element -- it's not about saying what people
will do". And yet, you used the very language "will still be present" concerning a topic which influences what people will do.
Therefore, the conclusion one reasonably draws from what you've said, is if they do not include that optional language, then people will behavior a certain way in the future, and it will be a negative thing in your opinion because it doesn't include more options.
If you're not arguing that past empirical data has some predictive value for future similar behavior, then I am failing to see what your point could be here. And, I am failing to see why you used all that future-tense language.