The act of adopting EDT increases the probability that, given that you kiss the baby, you are unlikable (because the only unlikable politicians that would baby-kiss are those that adopt EDT.) So EDT does nothing for you except increase the probability of getting baby barf all over your suit.
One could counterargue and say: “the listed probabilities facing the EDT politician already take into account that she’s EDT!” But the numbers can’t be coherently interpreted that way if adopting EDT has a causal effect on your choices, which one would hope it does; it can’t be the case that 80% of EDT kissers and 20% of EDT nonkissers are likable, and that 50% of EDT politicians are likable unless only half the EDTs go ahead with the kiss.
A simpler proof: suppose 400 politicians, 100 in each quadrant. (You have to shift around the expected probabilities to make this work, and I’m too lazy to do that, but I dont believe you have to do so in any way that’s damaging to the basic decision structure.) Should the 200 EDT politicians be more likable than the 200 CDT politicians? Ex hypothesi, no! If there’s an argument for EDT it would have to show that the likable politicians are more likely to adopt EDT. (And maybe this is the case because of motivated cognition—the unlikable politicians searches for a justification to not kiss, and adopts CDT; the likable searches for a justification to kiss, and adopts EDT—but my intuition is that this doesn’t demonstrate this in the relevant sense, since the superiority of EDT should work with rational agents without motivated cognition or with reversed motivated cognition.)
Re: “EDT does nothing for you except increase the probability of getting baby barf all over your suit.”
If the description is right—but is it? Why isn’t the evidence relating to the supplied fact—that kissing the baby doesn’t itself influence the election—being given much weight?
Because it’s a simplifying assumption of the model. In the real world politicians do kiss babies because there is some uncertainty (even if elections are almost always a function of unemployment.)
even if elections are almost always a function of unemployment.
I’d like to hear more of your thoughts. How much greater is the influence of unemployment than, say, the ability of the incumbent powers to create a real or perceived external threat?
What I should have said is that the vast majority variation in election outcomes can be explained by incumbency, the absolute levels of unemployment, and recent trends in unemployment. (If you’re comparing across jurisdictions, throw in demographics as a simple shock in one party’s direction.) This is a weaker claim than the one I irresponsibly made—“incumbency” includes effects that work both ways (for instance, Presidential incumbency is a barrier to his party in mid-term elections, while some incumbency advantage may be tracking the sort of threats you mention.) Additionally, campaign tactics can end up mattering in the peripheral case of one candidate simply not bothering—witness the case of Martha Coakley. But since most campaigns are run at at least the minimal level of competence necessary to avoid this, campaign competence is generally irrelevant. And, finally, things that genuinely matter are captured by the unemployment effect—for instance, fundraising and volunteer hours. (In the case of fundraising, the effect is double—people hungry for change/happy with the status quo send money to effect that, and smart corporations invest in the likely winner.)
There are definite effects for “real or percieved threats”—it’s called the “rally-round-the-flag effect”—but it comes up in such a small portion of elections that you can generally ignore it until it, well, comes up. But when it matters at all it matters.
This obviously applies less to primaries of non-incumbent parties, since the unemployment factor is controlled. There is where donors, strategy, and candidate-specific factors play the most important role. And I’m not as familiar with non-US contexts.
The truth behind all these caveats is that almost all campaign coverage you seen in the US—minute analysis of the events of the last news cycle—is for entertainment value only. Joe Biden having a gaffe or Obama giving a moving speech on race relations is not going to effect anything in the least. They cover things in this silly way because the alternative would be bad for ratings.
That doesn’t seem like a good reason for ignoring relevant evidence to the point where you do a stupid thing. Does using evidential decision theory really lead to being barfed on by babies this easily?
The act of adopting EDT increases the probability that, given that you kiss the baby, you are unlikable (because the only unlikable politicians that would baby-kiss are those that adopt EDT.) So EDT does nothing for you except increase the probability of getting baby barf all over your suit.
One could counterargue and say: “the listed probabilities facing the EDT politician already take into account that she’s EDT!” But the numbers can’t be coherently interpreted that way if adopting EDT has a causal effect on your choices, which one would hope it does; it can’t be the case that 80% of EDT kissers and 20% of EDT nonkissers are likable, and that 50% of EDT politicians are likable unless only half the EDTs go ahead with the kiss.
A simpler proof: suppose 400 politicians, 100 in each quadrant. (You have to shift around the expected probabilities to make this work, and I’m too lazy to do that, but I dont believe you have to do so in any way that’s damaging to the basic decision structure.) Should the 200 EDT politicians be more likable than the 200 CDT politicians? Ex hypothesi, no! If there’s an argument for EDT it would have to show that the likable politicians are more likely to adopt EDT. (And maybe this is the case because of motivated cognition—the unlikable politicians searches for a justification to not kiss, and adopts CDT; the likable searches for a justification to kiss, and adopts EDT—but my intuition is that this doesn’t demonstrate this in the relevant sense, since the superiority of EDT should work with rational agents without motivated cognition or with reversed motivated cognition.)
Re: “EDT does nothing for you except increase the probability of getting baby barf all over your suit.”
If the description is right—but is it? Why isn’t the evidence relating to the supplied fact—that kissing the baby doesn’t itself influence the election—being given much weight?
Because it’s a simplifying assumption of the model. In the real world politicians do kiss babies because there is some uncertainty (even if elections are almost always a function of unemployment.)
I’d like to hear more of your thoughts. How much greater is the influence of unemployment than, say, the ability of the incumbent powers to create a real or perceived external threat?
What I should have said is that the vast majority variation in election outcomes can be explained by incumbency, the absolute levels of unemployment, and recent trends in unemployment. (If you’re comparing across jurisdictions, throw in demographics as a simple shock in one party’s direction.) This is a weaker claim than the one I irresponsibly made—“incumbency” includes effects that work both ways (for instance, Presidential incumbency is a barrier to his party in mid-term elections, while some incumbency advantage may be tracking the sort of threats you mention.) Additionally, campaign tactics can end up mattering in the peripheral case of one candidate simply not bothering—witness the case of Martha Coakley. But since most campaigns are run at at least the minimal level of competence necessary to avoid this, campaign competence is generally irrelevant. And, finally, things that genuinely matter are captured by the unemployment effect—for instance, fundraising and volunteer hours. (In the case of fundraising, the effect is double—people hungry for change/happy with the status quo send money to effect that, and smart corporations invest in the likely winner.)
There are definite effects for “real or percieved threats”—it’s called the “rally-round-the-flag effect”—but it comes up in such a small portion of elections that you can generally ignore it until it, well, comes up. But when it matters at all it matters.
This obviously applies less to primaries of non-incumbent parties, since the unemployment factor is controlled. There is where donors, strategy, and candidate-specific factors play the most important role. And I’m not as familiar with non-US contexts.
The truth behind all these caveats is that almost all campaign coverage you seen in the US—minute analysis of the events of the last news cycle—is for entertainment value only. Joe Biden having a gaffe or Obama giving a moving speech on race relations is not going to effect anything in the least. They cover things in this silly way because the alternative would be bad for ratings.
That doesn’t seem like a good reason for ignoring relevant evidence to the point where you do a stupid thing. Does using evidential decision theory really lead to being barfed on by babies this easily?