Personalities in the Gaming Industry and Politics

[Shemeska]

And what an ill-informed opinion it is. The life sciences have an inferior evidentiary threshold and are not even remotely on the same epistemological footing as the physical and mathematical sciences. Indeed, examining skulls and physiology for clues used to be called phrenology and haruspicy, respectively, in another time and place.

And your credentials are....? I don't study skulls. Technically I'm a molecular virologist if you wanted to get picky. Evolution as an idea is inseperable from modern biology. And I'm hardly the most qualified person here who could expound on that. There's a number of bio PhDs here on enworld last I checked.

And phrenology was an attempt to ascribe gross personality attributes to subtle shapes of the cranium, not to use actual physical trends in the skeleton to differentiate between populations of humans and actual subspecies of the genus homo. Nice strawman.

 

[Storm Raven]

And which famous movie and famous speechwriter was that? I'm sorry but while it's quite possible I'd recognize your reference if I heard you speak it, I think it's a stretch to expect me to recognize a three word quote like that distinguished only by a pair of elipses.

It is a quote spoken by Ben Stiller in the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I note that it is not Ben Stiller's statement, or even Ben Stiller's character's statement, he is quoting someone else (actually George H.W. Bush) in a histroy class as part of his lecture. It isn't clear from the context whether Ben Stiller's character endorses the statment or not.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

And which famous movie and famous speechwriter was that? I'm sorry but while it's quite possible I'd recognize your reference if I heard you speak it, I think it's a stretch to expect me to recognize a three word quote like that distinguished only by a pair of elipses.

Ferris Buler's Day Off

Ben Stein used to write speeches for the Republican party. He's been in some movies and TV shows.

 

[WayneLigon]

Actual polling, with large sample sizes, random sampling, non-loaded questions, universal answers, and accureately coded by staffs is freakishly accureate at reading the exact mood of any population...that's why politicos spend so much money on it.

Having taken several statistics courses and the like, this is the reason I don't beleive any poll produced by 'friends of so-and-so'. I do not think any politico will risk using or funding an unbiased poll on the off chance that the unbiased staff comes back with 'Well, 80% think you're a loon and the other 20% think you're a county in Wyoming'.

 

[billd91]

You mean trends like, "Kerry won!"

Exit polling is a freakin' joke. A complete and utter failure.

Not at all. You just have to remember that there is a margin of error. Besides, exit polls earlier in the day suggested Kerry would trend ahead in Ohio. Later in the day, things were starting to shift.

And exit polling won't catch election fraud... if there is any.

 

[Shemeska]

It is a quote spoken by Ben Stiller in the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I note that it is not Ben Stiller's statement, or even Ben Stiller's character's statement, he is quoting someone else (actually George H.W. Bush) in a histroy class as part of his lecture. It isn't clear from the context whether Ben Stiller's character endorses the statment or not.

It was Ben Stein actually. And in the quote in that movie, he's not dismissing the Laffer curve, he's just pointing out that it's controversial, though it has historical analogs in tarrifs that give it relevance on some level. How much, and how far you can lower taxes before reducing overall income is the question, not that reducing taxes can have a positive effect on the economy that can at times outweigh the reduction in income from those taxes.

"In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the... Anyone? Anyone?... the Great Depression, passed the... Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act? Which, anyone? Raised or lowered?... raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effects? It did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression. Today we have a similar debate over this. Anyone know what this is? Class? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone seen this before? The Laffer Curve. Anyone know what this says? It says that at this point on the revenue curve, you will get exactly the same amount of revenue as at this point. This is very controversial. Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980? Anyone? Something-d-o-o economics. "Voodoo" economics."

 

[Mokona]

The theory of evolution through natural selection is the best available scientific explanation for the origin of species, though.

Is that considered a religious or political statement?

Yes it is both since evolution is a theory and not a law (such as the law of gravity). There is no law of evolution. Even highly educated people (including many scientists, if that matters) have looked at the claims for evolution and found the proof lacking.

If you don't have scientific training and dispute the validity of evolution, I suggest you jump off a building and test out the 'theory' of gravity at the same time you test out evolution and spare the gene pool your contribution.

This comment is blatantly offensive and I hope everyone here can recognize that fact.

It just isn't true that because you disagree with a notion (such as evolution) that you are genetically or intellectually inferior.

 

[drothgery]

Labour & Conservative in the UK are "broad church" parties. Labour includes people who are to the left of any US Democrats. US Republicans include people whose views might not be acceptable in the Conservatives, but I'm not sure about that. Overall I'd say Labour & Conservative were about as broad as Democrat & Republican, although most UK Conservatives would fit comfortably into the US Democratic party.

The UK election system has many, but not all, of the same pressures to two parties that the US has, so you've still got the two big parties, but it's not to the same degree. In the last UK parlaimentary elections, Labour & the Conservatives got about 70% of the vote. In the last US congressional elections, Democrats & Republicans got about 95% of the vote. There's only one Senator who's not a Republican or Democrat (out of 100) and only one Representative (out of 435). The minor parties in the UK manage a few MPs, I think.

 

[nothing to see here]

Having taken several statistics courses and the like, this is the reason I don't beleive any poll produced by 'friends of so-and-so'. I do not think any politico will risk using or funding an unbiased poll on the off chance that the unbiased staff comes back with 'Well, 80% think you're a loon and the other 20% think you're a county in Wyoming'.

Political Parties do fund very unbiased, highly rigorous, internal polls -- often with less than encouraging results...these polls never see the light of day in public, however. If you are crafting a long term strategy, you want to base it on accureate facts, and not your own spin. If 80% of peole actually think you're a loon, it's better you base your long term strategy on correcting this fact, than erroneously cruising along believing that everybody likes you.

However should a poll go public, it goes public for a reason...mainly to put content in the news cycle and tilt the political debate. There are three kinds of polls that make it to the public.

1) Unbiased internal polls that, as luck would have it, give you encouraging results (these 'secret' poll results are what find there way into the brown envelopes that sustain so many political commentators out there).

2) Polls conducted by reputable third party polling companies where reflecting, not influencing, the debate is the point of the survey.

3) Intentionally loaded polls, usually from special interest groups, looking to overstate the public's preferences in order to influence the debate.

There are a lot of #3's out there...and they are often impossible to differentiate from the #1's...so your caution is well advised...check the source. A surprising number of polls, however, do make an accureate reflection of the public mood.

 

[Brennin Magalus]

And your credentials are....?

Currently, I am a graduate student in mathematics (formerly statistics) who plans on doing work in quantum chemistry, among other things.