[EM] Juho, optimists.

[Juho Laatu]

On 29.5.2012, at 4.48, Michael Ossipoff wrote:

> Juho says:
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> Voters are also optimists in the sense that they estimate the winning chances of their favourites to be higher than they actually are.
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> [endquote]
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> Where does Juho get that?

I have not often seen situations where people first say "unfortunately we will not win" and then after the election say "we were not suppopposed to win". The reverse is much more common. Some part of the positive and optimistic attitude is also intentional hype generation for propagandist needs, but part of that optimism it is very real.

>  
> American voters pessimistically believe what they’ve been told by their tv. They believe that it makes no difference what or who their favorite it, because there are only two viable parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, the two choices. In voters’ perception, their favorites are irrelevant, and voting for them can only serve to take needed votes away from the Democrat.
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> And if some voters haven’t even given any consideration to what they’d actually like more, it’s because they’ve been taught that that’s a dangerous thing to look at, because it can make you waste your vote. In fact, to even consider that you might like something better than what the Republocrats offer and do, is taboo. If you think that something else would be better than the Republocrats, then you’d better not admit it, because everyone else knows that it isn’t so. You don’t want everyone to know how wrong you are, do you? Do you want your friends to know that you’re outside the tv’s range of acceptable positions?
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> The media’s influence is amazing. No one wants to doubt what they’re told everyone else believes.
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> So no, voters are pessimists in the sense that the underestimate the likedness of what they themselves like. Approval’s first election count results will show what others really like.

If some third party voters are pessimists today in the two-party system of the U.S. they are maybe more realists than real pessimists. If they have no chances to win, they can not be very far from the truth if they think they have no chances to win. Democrats and Reublicans may well be typically optimists. They are probably more inaccurate in their estimates of their favourite to win than the third party supporters are.

Juho



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> Mike Ossipoff
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