Apathy and its consequences...

PT

Off 'Motherfuckin' Topic Elite
Exactly. That is why the statistics I've given work. Whether you voted for Bush or Gore, and whether you are for or against.
 

RD_151

New Member
It makes no difference who you voted for. We aren't voting for or against a war. If I voted for Al, would it make any difference?

You are assuming that whether one is for or against the war is correlated with who you voted for. This is a very bad assumption, and thus regarless of your logic your flawed premise makes this whole exercize meaningless!
 

PT

Off 'Motherfuckin' Topic Elite
No, I'm not assuming that, I'm assuming that if you are either strongly in favor or strongly against, then you probably care enough to vote as well. It doesn't matter who you voted for or how you feel about the war.
 

RD_151

New Member
PT, sorry, I didn't read the whole discussion. Sorry, I wasn't really commenting on your statements. I'm a little behind on my reading. I was referring to Gato's orginal statement.

Unfortunately, I would have to say your assumption is that there is no correlation is flawed as well. The implicit assumption people are making is that there is a STRONG correlation between voting for Bush and favoring the war, and voting for Al and being against the war. In truth, there is probably a weak to moderate correlation between being against the war and voting for Al. Therefore, MY assumption and most likely correct assumption would be that there is not a chance in hell that there is a 50/50 split among the demonstrators. I can't give you an exact estimate, but if we knew the correlation we could give you a GOOD approximation. Of course, I quite confident you are wrong here. Sorry, there is a correlation, the only question is the strength of it. I know, I know, I said you were wrong for assuming a correlation, but I meant a strong correlation. I think common sense tells us there is some correlation, but certainly not enough to support Gato's orginal statement!
 

RD_151

New Member
btw, sorry, I've been busy lately, not time to post.

again my apologies PT, I assumed wrongly about your assumption :D That sounds funny huh!

In the case of your REAL assumption I'd have to say maybe. It depends really. It sounds reasonable, but I'd have to think about it more, and read the other 4 pages of this thread before I'd be convinced of your argument.
 

RD_151

New Member
I will give you this, if you are strongly in favor of Bush or Gore, you are probably likely to vote ;)

As for the war, well, let me think about it a little more. Without spending any time dwelling on the matter, I'd say probably not, but maybe. There may be a weak correlation, but probably not a strong one.
 

PT

Off 'Motherfuckin' Topic Elite
Well, I don't think you understand what I'm saying either then. I'm not saying there isn't a correlation between voting and supporting or not supporting the war. There is. The point I'm trying to make is that for people to care enough to speak out about it, either way, for or against, suggests that they care enough to vote, again, either way, for Al or Bush. I'm not trying to say as Gato did that all the people that voted for Bush support the war and all the people that voted for Al don't. That would be ridiculous. What I'm saying is this:

50% of the Population Voted
50% of those voted for Bush
The other 50% voted for Al

Also

50% of the people support the war
50% of the people don't support the war

From those facts, and they are facts, you can infer The following:

About 50% of those that support the war did not vote.
About 50% of the people that are against the war did not vote.

To be fair, you can also say:

About 50% of the people that are against the war did vote.
and 50% of the people that are for the war did vote.

Now, it may or may not be right on the money, but I would bet it's close.
 

RD_151

New Member
Well, there are some problems with that argument too. The fact is, being republican is correlated with voting, and being in favor of the war is also correlated with being republican, thus, its likely that there are more republicans who support the war, and voted, than there are democrats who are against the war and voted. There are a lot of repubs who favor the war because their leader favors it. This happens on both sides, so I don't mean to say somethng bad about the repubs. I'd say that there are probably more people in favor of it that voted than there are people who voted and aren't in favor of it. With that, I kind of see where Gato was going with all this.


sorry if that orginal part wasn't clear, repubs tend to vote more than dems. Clearly if this wasn't the case, repubs would loose most elections!
 

PT

Off 'Motherfuckin' Topic Elite
Maybe, but I'm not going there even, I'm saying averages, overall averages. As you pointed out, just because you voted for Bush doesn't mean you are for the war. Likewise, just because you voted for Al doesn't mean you are against.

Now, the point you bring up about more republicans voting doesn't stand here either, as they didn't.

Votes for Gore: 50,996,116 48 %
Votes for Bush: 50,456,169 48 %

Gore actually recieved more votes that Bush did, but since Bush received more electoral votes, he won.
 

RD_151

New Member
Ok, I'd say Gato was partially right, but at the same time it probably is close to 50/50, but not so close as PT thinks. I'd guess it would be at least 55/45 in favor of those in favor of the war, but of course I'm guessing ;) I don't have any real numbers to go by, and in truth, I may be completely wrong. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that without real numbers, real statistics, neither side can support their argument to well. I'm leaning in Gato's favor a little though.

However, I disagree strongly with his conclusion! As I said, I voted for GW and I'm against the war!

Again, remember, I didn't read too much of this thread. Just Gato's first post, and this last page. I'm sure I missed a lot in the middle.
 

RD_151

New Member
dont' forget about Nader!

those numbers alone don't show the whole picture. A lot of dems hated Al too, and may have voted for Bush, or Nader. Take me for example, I'm voting for a dem next time just to vote against Bush.

Also, don't forget the independents.

Myself, I voted for Ross twice (in protest)!

we need to find stats on the number of dems and repubs that voted. I'd bet you'd find that significantly more repubs voted than dems. Or put it his way, all the repubs voted, and only 25% of the dems voted, thus your 50% turn out at the poles. In reality, this is most likely what is happening. Not exactly, I'm exaggerating, but this is the point of the original argument I presume.
 

PT

Off 'Motherfuckin' Topic Elite
Ok,

Other votes : 3,874,040

They have them split up state by state per individual candidate, but not the national totals.

btw, numbers from the elections come from Here
 

RD_151

New Member
The point is, you are only counting those who turned out, and not the total population of potential voters. The correlation I'm refering to is the one that demonstrates that more repubs vote than dems, thus, if we mandated voting, the repubs should loose every future election. I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but I know its significant!
 

ris

New Member
100% of rw moderators are ris
100% of statistics can be interpreted

until you ask every single person all their views attempting to cross-interpret them will be largely assumptive. far more preferable to not interpret and stick to direct questions whose results stand alone.

until the poll reads 'do you support the war? did you vote?' then anything else is merely assumption.
 

ris

New Member
to be honest i ain't done no statistics in my life so john could be for all i know. when i read it i thought that 50% of john was owned by soda but i might have interpreted it wrong ;)
 
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