On “group with preferences orthogonal to your own”: the idea is you can give the members exactly what they want, and then independently get whatever you want as well. Since they’re indifferent to the things you care about, you can choose those things however you please.
At least in the two most recent American elections (2016 and then the 2018 midterms) it seems like it was very much not the case of people racing for the most focused benefits and most diffuse cost, but rather for the most efficient way to galvanize their voters, cost be damned.
I expect that politics in most places, and US Congressional politics especially, is usually much more heavily focused on special interests than the overall media narrative would suggest. For instance, voters in Kansas care a lot about farm subsidies, but the news will mostly not talk about that because most of us find the subject rather boring. The media wants to talk about the things everyone is interested in, which is exactly the opposite of special interests.
Also I am extremely skeptical that racial issues played more than a minor role in the election, even assuming that they played a larger role in 2016 than in other elections. Every media outlet in the country (including 538) wanted to run stories about how race was super-important to the election, because those stories got tons of clicks, but that’s very different from actually playing a role.
Or does the model already support this in a way that I don’t notice?
Nope, you are completely right on that front, poor information/straight-up lying were issues I basically ignored for purposes of this post. That said, most of the post still applies once we add in lying/bullshit; the main change is that, whenever they can get away with it, leaders will lie/bullshit in order to simultaneously satisfy two groups with conflicting goals. As long as at least some people in each constituency see through the lies/bullshit, there will still be pressure to actually do what those people want. On the other hand, people who can be fooled by lies/bullshit are essentially “neutral” for purposes of influencing the political equilibrium; there’s no particular reason to worry about their preferences at all. So we just ignore the gullible people, and apply the discussion from the post to everybody else.
Thanks for the reply and sorry I couldn’t get to this for some time! Hope you’re still interested in the discussion.
I expect that politics in most places, and US Congressional politics especially, is usually much more heavily focused on special interests than the overall media narrative would suggest
This is really interesting and you probably have a good point. Do you think there’s a more reliable way (for an outsider like myself, who’s not able to, I dunno, go and ask people in a dive bar what they think) to get the lay of the political land in a particular point in space? (And time?) Maybe some centralized kind of poll repository?
Every media outlet in the country (including 538) wanted to run stories about how race was super-important to the election, because those stories got tons of clicks, but that’s very different from actually playing a role.
On a side note, I can imagine this kind of perspective, when taken to an unmitigated extreme, leading to a very cartesian-demon view of the world. Most people that publish their thoughts are incentivized to make you, the reader, like it or be interested in it. Mass-media obviously so, bloggers or analysts or think tanks less obviously so, but still. If, when faced with a choice of writing about (a) things that are real but dull vs (b) things that are not real but get clicks, no one has an incentive to do (a), how do you form a view of the world?
(Had I not known about publish-or-perish and read Gelman/Falkovich on p-hacking, I myself would give the traditionally cartesian answer of “by reading scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals”, but… yeah).
So we just ignore the gullible people, and apply the discussion from the post to everybody else.
I think we’ve made an important move in argumentation here—we’ve started to introduce the possibility of the voters differing by whether they believe the lies/bullshit or not. But if we do—that is, we introduce the possibility of the voter considering some of the politician’s commitment to a future policy Schelling point not genuine—we also open the possibility for the voter to speculate on what the politician’s true policies are.
Say, Alice runs for president on a conservative/jobs-centric platform, commits to outlaw work visas and expunge all foreign workers, and wins the race, and says that she’s working hard to achieve that goal. Bob is a total supporter and he’s sure that she does exactly that and thinks that deportations are only a couple days away. Charlie may be skeptical about the promise, because sounded very radical and campaign-y, but thinks she’s probably going to cut work visas, but not be able to expunge foreigners already in the country. Dave agrees with Charlie that the promise was radical and will not be followed through on fully, but not on what will actually happen—he thinks Alice will be able to expunge already present foreigners, but never risk the political turmoil of removing work visas. Erin is a total skeptic and thinks Alice is merely exploiting the voters, and is actually not doing anything about the foreigners, and finally Frank is a conspiracy theorist and thinks that Alice is secretly working with a cabal of globalists to bring even more foreigners (maybe even illegally!) in while bullshitting him.
All of these people have different Schelling points! If Zack, a foreigner, asks Bob to loan him money, Bob is going to refuse, because he thinks Zack will be kicked out of the country tomorrow and he’s not getting his money back. If he asks Erin, she’s likely to agree, because she doesn’t believe Zack is going anywhere.
Now, sure, there’s only so many ways to interpret a single campaign promise, and there are bound to be groups within the voter base that will agree on what Alice will actually do, the Schelling point will work for them—but since Alice is incentivized to make a lot of focused-benefit-disperse-cost promises, voters who agree on what her actions on a certain policy are, may disagree on what her actions regarding a different policy are. So… when nobody agrees on what the Schelling point is, does it, for all intents and purposes, exist?
Do you think there’s a more reliable way (for an outsider like myself, who’s not able to, I dunno, go and ask people in a dive bar what they think) to get the lay of the political land in a particular point in space?
This is wayyyy outside my zone of expertise, but I would look for specialist-oriented publications—e.g. newsletters specifically targeted at lobbyists/policymakers, or political information in the industry publications of special-interest industries.
If, when faced with a choice of writing about (a) things that are real but dull vs (b) things that are not real but get clicks, no one has an incentive to do (a), how do you form a view of the world?
I’d say the key is to generate your own questions, then proactively look for the answers rather than waiting around for whatever information comes to you. There’s plenty of good information out there, it just isn’t super-viral, so you have to go looking for it.
All of these people have different Schelling points!
Important point here: these people don’t actually have different Schelling points. They presumably all agree that if Alice wins the election, then whatever Alice signs into law will be the new Schelling point. What these people disagree on is their expectations for what the future Schelling point will be.
On “group with preferences orthogonal to your own”: the idea is you can give the members exactly what they want, and then independently get whatever you want as well. Since they’re indifferent to the things you care about, you can choose those things however you please.
I expect that politics in most places, and US Congressional politics especially, is usually much more heavily focused on special interests than the overall media narrative would suggest. For instance, voters in Kansas care a lot about farm subsidies, but the news will mostly not talk about that because most of us find the subject rather boring. The media wants to talk about the things everyone is interested in, which is exactly the opposite of special interests.
Also I am extremely skeptical that racial issues played more than a minor role in the election, even assuming that they played a larger role in 2016 than in other elections. Every media outlet in the country (including 538) wanted to run stories about how race was super-important to the election, because those stories got tons of clicks, but that’s very different from actually playing a role.
Nope, you are completely right on that front, poor information/straight-up lying were issues I basically ignored for purposes of this post. That said, most of the post still applies once we add in lying/bullshit; the main change is that, whenever they can get away with it, leaders will lie/bullshit in order to simultaneously satisfy two groups with conflicting goals. As long as at least some people in each constituency see through the lies/bullshit, there will still be pressure to actually do what those people want. On the other hand, people who can be fooled by lies/bullshit are essentially “neutral” for purposes of influencing the political equilibrium; there’s no particular reason to worry about their preferences at all. So we just ignore the gullible people, and apply the discussion from the post to everybody else.
Thanks for the reply and sorry I couldn’t get to this for some time! Hope you’re still interested in the discussion.
This is really interesting and you probably have a good point. Do you think there’s a more reliable way (for an outsider like myself, who’s not able to, I dunno, go and ask people in a dive bar what they think) to get the lay of the political land in a particular point in space? (And time?) Maybe some centralized kind of poll repository?
On a side note, I can imagine this kind of perspective, when taken to an unmitigated extreme, leading to a very cartesian-demon view of the world. Most people that publish their thoughts are incentivized to make you, the reader, like it or be interested in it. Mass-media obviously so, bloggers or analysts or think tanks less obviously so, but still. If, when faced with a choice of writing about (a) things that are real but dull vs (b) things that are not real but get clicks, no one has an incentive to do (a), how do you form a view of the world?
(Had I not known about publish-or-perish and read Gelman/Falkovich on p-hacking, I myself would give the traditionally cartesian answer of “by reading scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals”, but… yeah).
I think we’ve made an important move in argumentation here—we’ve started to introduce the possibility of the voters differing by whether they believe the lies/bullshit or not. But if we do—that is, we introduce the possibility of the voter considering some of the politician’s commitment to a future policy Schelling point not genuine—we also open the possibility for the voter to speculate on what the politician’s true policies are.
Say, Alice runs for president on a conservative/jobs-centric platform, commits to outlaw work visas and expunge all foreign workers, and wins the race, and says that she’s working hard to achieve that goal. Bob is a total supporter and he’s sure that she does exactly that and thinks that deportations are only a couple days away. Charlie may be skeptical about the promise, because sounded very radical and campaign-y, but thinks she’s probably going to cut work visas, but not be able to expunge foreigners already in the country. Dave agrees with Charlie that the promise was radical and will not be followed through on fully, but not on what will actually happen—he thinks Alice will be able to expunge already present foreigners, but never risk the political turmoil of removing work visas. Erin is a total skeptic and thinks Alice is merely exploiting the voters, and is actually not doing anything about the foreigners, and finally Frank is a conspiracy theorist and thinks that Alice is secretly working with a cabal of globalists to bring even more foreigners (maybe even illegally!) in while bullshitting him.
All of these people have different Schelling points! If Zack, a foreigner, asks Bob to loan him money, Bob is going to refuse, because he thinks Zack will be kicked out of the country tomorrow and he’s not getting his money back. If he asks Erin, she’s likely to agree, because she doesn’t believe Zack is going anywhere.
Now, sure, there’s only so many ways to interpret a single campaign promise, and there are bound to be groups within the voter base that will agree on what Alice will actually do, the Schelling point will work for them—but since Alice is incentivized to make a lot of focused-benefit-disperse-cost promises, voters who agree on what her actions on a certain policy are, may disagree on what her actions regarding a different policy are. So… when nobody agrees on what the Schelling point is, does it, for all intents and purposes, exist?
Great points!
This is wayyyy outside my zone of expertise, but I would look for specialist-oriented publications—e.g. newsletters specifically targeted at lobbyists/policymakers, or political information in the industry publications of special-interest industries.
I’d say the key is to generate your own questions, then proactively look for the answers rather than waiting around for whatever information comes to you. There’s plenty of good information out there, it just isn’t super-viral, so you have to go looking for it.
Important point here: these people don’t actually have different Schelling points. They presumably all agree that if Alice wins the election, then whatever Alice signs into law will be the new Schelling point. What these people disagree on is their expectations for what the future Schelling point will be.