Which means I can go back to Iain Couzin and the behavior of swarms. He tested precisely this, using fish. It's generally assumed that the addition of less informed or undecided individuals would increase the influence of extreme minority views, because uninformed individuals would be more susceptible to persuasion, but this turns out not to be true. After a certain tipping point, the addition of undecided individuals to the swarm returns control to a less determined majority away from a determined minority. So what the Secretary of State is proposing would probably also increase moderation, and majority rule. Whether that's a good thing or not is up to you.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Uninformed Voters Increase Moderation
The Secretary of State of Oregon has a proposal to register people to vote by default when they pick up a drivers license or state ID. This should increase registration of younger and lower income residents, which is presumably why she's in favor of it (she's a democrat). But I think it's also interesting what the effect of increased participation in elections by low-information or less opinionated individuals would be, which marginal voters probably are.
Which means I can go back to Iain Couzin and the behavior of swarms. He tested precisely this, using fish. It's generally assumed that the addition of less informed or undecided individuals would increase the influence of extreme minority views, because uninformed individuals would be more susceptible to persuasion, but this turns out not to be true. After a certain tipping point, the addition of undecided individuals to the swarm returns control to a less determined majority away from a determined minority. So what the Secretary of State is proposing would probably also increase moderation, and majority rule. Whether that's a good thing or not is up to you.
The video is interesting throughout, but you can skip to 10:30 where Couzin starts talking about this.
Which means I can go back to Iain Couzin and the behavior of swarms. He tested precisely this, using fish. It's generally assumed that the addition of less informed or undecided individuals would increase the influence of extreme minority views, because uninformed individuals would be more susceptible to persuasion, but this turns out not to be true. After a certain tipping point, the addition of undecided individuals to the swarm returns control to a less determined majority away from a determined minority. So what the Secretary of State is proposing would probably also increase moderation, and majority rule. Whether that's a good thing or not is up to you.
