You can think of the model with people as beads on a string that allows an easy thought experiment to hypothesize what happens with different strategies.
Building the Model:
Suppose that there are two answers to the debate (yes/no ). Assign ‘yes’ a positive value and ‘no’ a negative value. A high ‘yes’ value corresponds to strong conviction that ‘yes’ is the answer and vice-versa for ‘no’. Fence-sitters would be right at ‘0’, with no conviction either way. As noted above, the debate position of a person is simply described by a number on the real line. Your models propose that if a listener has position ‘x’ then their response to position ‘y’ will be to gravitate towards y if |x-y| is small and be repelled away from y if |x-y| is large. (Local attraction but long-distance repulsion).
If you accept the model above, you can write down equations but a thought experiment works to some extent: imagine many beads randomly arranged on a line. Generally they pull and repulse each other, so suppose they are in equilibrium. (...if possible, see PhilGoetz’s comment.) Then a “debater” placed anywhere along that line will have the effect of clustering nearby beads but scattering far beads away (an effect that increases with distance).
Using this thought experiment, you may determine that some kind of “collect” and “sweep” approach is best.
That sounds right. What does “collect and sweep” mean?
Communication patterns also plays a role. Extreme views can be prevented from causing much repelling by presenting them in focused media outlets that people with opposing views are unlikely to hear.
If this is an acceptable model for the second theory, then you can see that the first theory is simultaneously accommodated: a person’s affiliation (yes/no) is defined by their direction relative to zero, so the people on the fence (at 0) require only a nudge to have the desired affiliation. So if you want to increase the number of people who have a certain affiliation, aiming your persuasion at people near 0 is the best way to do that. On the other hand, if you just care about moving the center of mass in the correct direction, it is no less effective to target another position.
So if you want to increase the number of people who have a certain affiliation, aiming your persuasion at people near 0 is the best way to do that.
The problem is that the people near 0 won’t read your book. The gravitational model suggests that you can write a book on a topic targeted at people near k>0, and affect more people near 0 than by targeting them directly.
Placing a debater at position y will “collect” people with nearby views. Then the debater should “sweep” them in the direction he wants them to go by moving his arguments in that direction.
You can think of the model with people as beads on a string that allows an easy thought experiment to hypothesize what happens with different strategies.
Building the Model: Suppose that there are two answers to the debate (yes/no ). Assign ‘yes’ a positive value and ‘no’ a negative value. A high ‘yes’ value corresponds to strong conviction that ‘yes’ is the answer and vice-versa for ‘no’. Fence-sitters would be right at ‘0’, with no conviction either way. As noted above, the debate position of a person is simply described by a number on the real line. Your models propose that if a listener has position ‘x’ then their response to position ‘y’ will be to gravitate towards y if |x-y| is small and be repelled away from y if |x-y| is large. (Local attraction but long-distance repulsion).
If you accept the model above, you can write down equations but a thought experiment works to some extent: imagine many beads randomly arranged on a line. Generally they pull and repulse each other, so suppose they are in equilibrium. (...if possible, see PhilGoetz’s comment.) Then a “debater” placed anywhere along that line will have the effect of clustering nearby beads but scattering far beads away (an effect that increases with distance).
Using this thought experiment, you may determine that some kind of “collect” and “sweep” approach is best.
That sounds right. What does “collect and sweep” mean?
Communication patterns also plays a role. Extreme views can be prevented from causing much repelling by presenting them in focused media outlets that people with opposing views are unlikely to hear.
If this is an acceptable model for the second theory, then you can see that the first theory is simultaneously accommodated: a person’s affiliation (yes/no) is defined by their direction relative to zero, so the people on the fence (at 0) require only a nudge to have the desired affiliation. So if you want to increase the number of people who have a certain affiliation, aiming your persuasion at people near 0 is the best way to do that. On the other hand, if you just care about moving the center of mass in the correct direction, it is no less effective to target another position.
The problem is that the people near 0 won’t read your book. The gravitational model suggests that you can write a book on a topic targeted at people near k>0, and affect more people near 0 than by targeting them directly.
What do you mean by “collect and sweep”?
Placing a debater at position y will “collect” people with nearby views. Then the debater should “sweep” them in the direction he wants them to go by moving his arguments in that direction.