FSTDT Forums
Community => Politics and Government => Topic started by: cheese007 on May 02, 2013, 08:11:50 pm
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No, that is not an Onion headline. (http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/05/armed-rebellion-poll.php)
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COLOUR ME NOT SHOCKED.
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COLOUR ME NOT SHOCKED.
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Yeah most of these people that believe in this impending "rebellion" tend to be of a conspiracy theorist mindset. Not to mention that an armed rebellion would be squashed due to the military being a far more, stronger, harder and large complex to wipe them out. I mean how are you going to fight an army with a bunch of guns when they got those big ass tanks, planes, bombs, missiles etc. not to mention that we have some of the biggest intel branches in the world.
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Yeah most of these people that believe in this impending "rebellion" tend to be of a conspiracy theorist mindset. Not to mention that an armed rebellion would be squashed due to the military being a far more, stronger, harder and large complex to wipe them out. I mean how are you going to fight an army with a bunch of guns when they got those big ass tanks, planes, bombs, missiles etc. not to mention that we have some of the biggest intel branches in the world.
Black market.
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Yeah most of these people that believe in this impending "rebellion" tend to be of a conspiracy theorist mindset. Not to mention that an armed rebellion would be squashed due to the military being a far more, stronger, harder and large complex to wipe them out. I mean how are you going to fight an army with a bunch of guns when they got those big ass tanks, planes, bombs, missiles etc. not to mention that we have some of the biggest intel branches in the world.
While I don't think such a rebellion would outright WIN, I do think it would be possible to draw it out so long that it becomes a win by default. Vietnam and Afghanistan both show the effectiveness of guerilla armies who know what they're doing.
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But is the gun store hardware going to cut it?
Or do we have to rely on questionable assistance?
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Yeah most of these people that believe in this impending "rebellion" tend to be of a conspiracy theorist mindset. Not to mention that an armed rebellion would be squashed due to the military being a far more, stronger, harder and large complex to wipe them out. I mean how are you going to fight an army with a bunch of guns when they got those big ass tanks, planes, bombs, missiles etc. not to mention that we have some of the biggest intel branches in the world.
While I don't think such a rebellion would outright WIN, I do think it would be possible to draw it out so long that it becomes a win by default. Vietnam and Afghanistan both show the effectiveness of guerilla armies who know what they're doing.
Thing is, the US military knows the US a lot better than they knew Vietnam or Afghanistan. Familiarity with the terrain (and unfamiliarity with such on the part of the opposing force) plays a role in the effectiveness of any guerrilla action.
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But they think that such a rebellion is GOING to happen in the next decade or so. Lunatic fringe groups of conspiracy theorists exist everywhere but 30% is less a lunatic fringe and more a terrifying big chunk of the voting public. These are registered voters, meaning their inane stupid crazy BULLSHIT controls 30% of the political future of the country. THEY THINK THE GOVERNMENT MADE UP A STORY ABOUT THE MASS MURDER OF SCHOOLKIDS FOR POLITICAL REASONS. THEY THINK THEIR GUN HUMPERS STAND A CHANCE AGAINST ESSENTIALLY THE BIGGEST AND WEALTHIEST MILITARY IN THE WORLD. These people are unstable and they're an increasingly influential chunk.
It's scary and worth worrying about.
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*raises an eyebrow*
EIGHTEEN PERCENT of Democrats say this, too?
Forgive me for not jumping on the "Holy shit" bandwagon but something's fishy here. Not because of the above, but because of a few things.
Namely, an armed rebellion from what? Some people think this means corporations. Some people think this means government.
How do we know how many Republicans thought along those lines, too? Independents?
Finally, what was the sample size of this study? What was the selection process?
How many people declined to participate?
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Personally, I hope they just get it over with and try.
The suffering afflicted to the nutsos would be legendary.
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*raises an eyebrow*
EIGHTEEN PERCENT of Democrats say this, too?
Forgive me for not jumping on the "Holy shit" bandwagon but something's fishy here. Not because of the above, but because of a few things.
Namely, an armed rebellion from what? Some people think this means corporations. Some people think this means government.
How do we know how many Republicans thought along those lines, too? Independents?
Finally, what was the sample size of this study? What was the selection process?
How many people declined to participate?
The sample size was 863 registered voters. I don't know how many people declined to answer questions, but they were randomly selected nationwide. The article has tables regarding two questions specifically (about Sandy Hook and about 'armed rebellion') detailing which people agreed and disagreed, how they were registered to vote, their sex, and their level of education. It doesn't link to the study but I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to find more about it online.
It's not a large sample size--I think the generally accepted number for a 'sample size' of the population is a thousand--but it's enough to be scary.
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In which case, forgive me for not wanting to break out my afraid face, but 863 is quite frankly a shitty sample size for what was being considered.
Something along the lines of 2,000 people would have been an improvement.
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This isn't really shocking given the morons they help in electing to congress.
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...less then 1,000 people were sampled in this? Yeah this is flawed from the get go.
Ironbite-10,000 would be a better sample size in regards to the US population.
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The others beat me to it. 863 is NOTHING for a sample size, especially considering the US population.
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Given that nature of the USA, how would an armed rebellion even be possible from a logistics standpoint.
Ignoring things like drones and such, how on earth would they be able to co-ordinate a massive armed rebellion in the 50 different states simultaneously? I know that with the internet and modern technology communicating has never been easier, but actually organizing the people for a rebellion over such a large geographic area in so many isolated areas would be a nightmare. With every attempt at co-ordination the chances of the rebellion being leaked to the authorities and effectively shutting down that cell increases.
I don't think an armed rebellion is possible in America anymore. The same effect could be achieved through individual states leaving the federation, but that would be done more on a political level than an armed rebellion one.
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And this is why stoners annoy me. Or at least the ones that smoke the paranoia inducing pot.
But yeah, armed rebellion has support from the armchair revolutionary set of all varieties.
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Take a look at Doomsday Preppers.
I think most of these people don't have a fixed idea of who is going to start a civil war/breakdown of society/communist takeover/Red Dawn/Mad Max/Walking Dead/Fallout/ etc..... just that SOMETHING is going to happen. They just believe America is going to breakdown.
Most of them are actually scared of other citizens rather than the government. The crazy belief that when "the shit hits the fan" it will be everyone out for themselves and western civilisation will collapse into anarchy overnight. For most of them the guns aren't for shooting cops and soldiers but are actually for killing their neighbours when the food runs out. Of course they will only shoot people in self defence to stop looting. Which they know is definitely going to happen, so best buy guns.
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*raises an eyebrow*
EIGHTEEN PERCENT of Democrats say this, too?
Forgive me for not jumping on the "Holy shit" bandwagon but something's fishy here. Not because of the above, but because of a few things.
Namely, an armed rebellion from what? Some people think this means corporations. Some people think this means government.
How do we know how many Republicans thought along those lines, too? Independents?
Finally, what was the sample size of this study? What was the selection process?
How many people declined to participate?
The sample size was 863 registered voters. I don't know how many people declined to answer questions, but they were randomly selected nationwide. The article has tables regarding two questions specifically (about Sandy Hook and about 'armed rebellion') detailing which people agreed and disagreed, how they were registered to vote, their sex, and their level of education. It doesn't link to the study but I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to find more about it online.
It's not a large sample size--I think the generally accepted number for a 'sample size' of the population is a thousand--but it's enough to be scary.
I'm not going to make much of this. Where was this poll taken. Now, if the majority of the US population did the poll, that might be more accurate. It'll probably still be a minority & the military is WAAAAAAAY TOOOOO HUUUGE! The only way it would work is if the whole military was made up of these weirdos. However, the military, like the population, is a variety of people.
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Let's see Nate Silver do a proper poll on these survey questions, and maybe then I'll worry, if his results are similar.
There is a lot of chronic whaaaa out there that Dems have the Whitehouse and Senate 2 terms in a row, and most of this is armchair bombastic bullshit from the conspiratards, but with every event lately being hyped up by A Jones and others, it is alarming to realize that his followers do in fact vote...and their numbers are increasing.
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In which case, forgive me for not wanting to break out my afraid face, but 863 is quite frankly a shitty sample size for what was being considered.
Something along the lines of 2,000 people would have been an improvement.
...less then 1,000 people were sampled in this? Yeah this is flawed from the get go.
Ironbite-10,000 would be a better sample size in regards to the US population.
The others beat me to it. 863 is NOTHING for a sample size, especially considering the US population.
I'm not going to make much of this. Where was this poll taken. Now, if the majority of the US population did the poll, that might be more accurate. It'll probably still be a minority & the military is WAAAAAAAY TOOOOO HUUUGE! The only way it would work is if the whole military was made up of these weirdos. However, the military, like the population, is a variety of people.
It was a nationwide poll, and 863 would be good for just under 3.4% margin of error according to the study itself. Not saying that the methodology was perfect, but a sample size of 2000 would only reduce the margin of error from 3.4% to about 2.3%. While that is more accurate, polling companies don't tend to go that far for ordinary polls because of costs.
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Queen, the US population is somewhere in the realm of 312 million.
The sample size equates to 0.0000027% of the entire country. 'Margin of error' my ass, when even local polls done on issues use a sample size of 1,000.
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It's a nationwide poll and it only got 863 results?
That's not even pathetic, that's outright amateur.
Sorry, Queen, but you just convinced me the poll is even more bullshit.
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Statistics is the art of bullshit. But Queen's right based on typical assumptions.
Hence why there's little reason to listen to any given poll. Disecting their wording is often far more interesting than their results anyway.
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Statistics is the art of bullshit.
I wouldn't necessarily go that far. Statistics and polling can provide very accurate data and useful information. However, you're right, that the individual wording of a poll can greatly affect how people feel. So while some statistics may be bullshit, honest statisticians, like honest lawyers :P, try their best for accuracy.
Which leads me back to the point at hand, Magus & Cerim, I'm not saying the question asked was perfectly, just that attacking it on sample size is a flimsy at best argument. As a political science major who has had to deal with more statistics than you could shake a stick at, anything with a sample size over 600 (4% margin of error) is generally not attacked on that ground. The study said 29% of respondants believed armed revolution necessary. With a margin of error at 3.4, that would mean that 29% could be anywhere from 25.6%-32.4% of Americans feel that way. All sampling a larger size of people would do would reduce the margin of error, and sampling 2,400 people (or 0.0000077% of the population) would only reduce that margin to 2%. I'm not looking too much into the criticism of the question or how it was asked. I'm just saying that attacking the study on the grounds of sample size is a weak criticism to anyone who knows basic statistics.
To be honest, I felt Magus' criticism that the underlying reason for the revolution not being clarified (a la ambiguity) was a stronger criticism of the study than sample size.
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The problem is that it also depends on how random the sampling was. How many people were in the south? The midwest? In New England? And so forth.
Certain areas of America have different tendencies towards different attitudes.
5 people in Texas, for instance, are more likely to be conservative than 5 people in New York City.
Considering how large the country is, 863 results feels like it would have a much larger margin of error than 3.4%, simply because we're talking about proportions here.
The larger the number, the more likely it is to be representative of a group.
As it stands, though, a nationwide poll having a smaller sample size than a local poll reeks to me of bad planning anyways. And bad planning in sample size could easily be demonstrative of bad planning in other areas.
In short I have many problems with them, and the sample size is a big red flag marking it all. While I'm sure honest statisticians try their best to be honest, I have nothing showing evidence that the people who ran this poll are honest statisticians.
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The problem is that it also depends on how random the sampling was. How many people were in the south? The midwest? In New England? And so forth.
Certain areas of America have different tendencies towards different attitudes.
5 people in Texas, for instance, are more likely to be conservative than 5 people in New York City.
They include that in the study, they list the people by census demographics at the bottom. This actually hurts your case. The south is under-represented (study 32%/Census 37.1), the west and north east being over-represented (Study 27 & 20%/Census 23.3 & 17.9, respectively). That aside, those deviations are not so egregious as to intentionally skew the data. Likewise, if you read their methodology, you would see that they called random landline phones.
Considering how large the country is, 863 results feels like it would have a much larger margin of error than 3.4%, simply because we're talking about proportions here.
I'm just gonna leave this here. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margin_of_error) Wikipedia can explain this far better than I care to.
The larger the number, the more likely it is to be representative of a group.
As it stands, though, a nationwide poll having a smaller sample size than a local poll reeks to me of bad planning anyways. And bad planning in sample size could easily be demonstrative of bad planning in other areas.
In short I have many problems with them, and the sample size is a big red flag marking it all. While I'm sure honest statisticians try their best to be honest, I have nothing showing evidence that the people who ran this poll are honest statisticians.
This is wharrgarbl. If you understood how confidence intervals and sampling worked you would understand that this is a baseless argument as well. If one asks a random number of people, they can extrapolate with confidence how the larger section of people feel. If they ask 1000 Virginians, they can say with a degree of certainty how Virginians feel about an issue, not necessarily Americans, but Virginians. If they ask 1000 Americans how they feel on an issue, they can do the same, and again, not necessarily say how Virginians feel on the issue. Just because some statewide polls ask 1000 people isn't a fair criticism, it just means the margin of error for that state is lower than it is for this study. I.E. you don't need to survey a certain proportion of the populace in polls to get an accurate answer.
Again, I'm focusing on the sample size criticism. If they asked 2400 people with their same methodology, question, etc, then they could've come to a far different result. That, however, is highly unlikely as there would only be about a 5% chance it would fall outside the margin of error, with most that did being closer to 25 & 33% than not. What realistically would've happened is the margin of error would drop & the 29% that they found would fluctuate between 25.6% & 32.4%. Thus, again, if you want to criticize the study, you're focusing on the wrong part.
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Yeah, they should've definitely surveyed more people. I don't think the national average would be quite that high, but given the several semi-recent disasters that are on everyone's mind, coupled with the bad economy we've had for several years, people are really on edge about everything.
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This is wharrgarbl.
And this is where I decide to discontinue this debate. Good day, ma'am.
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Let's bear in mind that three in ten Americans couldn't find their asses with both hands and a road map. I dare say three in ten believe in ghosts, little gray men in UFO's, the extraterrestrial origin of crop circles, the divine inspiration of the bible, and that toads cause warts.
How would a nationwide armed rebellion work? Do all the rebels congregate at a few important sites? What are the logistical considerations? Or does one participate locally? If so, what are the targets? If you live in Longfart, Louisiana, you might end up with this:
"Hey, Maude, we done captured the poh-leece station, the Walmart and the landfill. Purdy good revolushun, huh?"
""That's nice, Cletus., Now don't forget you gotta slop them hawgs this afternoon."
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if you read their methodology, you would see that they called random landline phones.
Which itself is something of a problem with the distribution of landlines in the US at this point. A significant portion of people I know are excluded simply by that selection method(despite there being legal reasons behind doing it that way).
But honestly most of the reason I deride this kind of thing is that they're almost always setup to get a particular reaction. Spent twenty minutes to phrase and rephrase questions and you can get significantly different responses. The statistics is just how you make it look like you didn't design it for the reaction.
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Yeah, they should've definitely surveyed more people. I don't think the national average would be quite that high, but given the several semi-recent disasters that are on everyone's mind, coupled with the bad economy we've had for several years, people are really on edge about everything.
Okay, when I posted this, apparently I didn't read what was above me. What the hell? I thought I'd posted on the first page. I swear, I'm losing it.
That said, I stand corrected about the sample size. I didn't think the margin of error would be that low.
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@ Everyone complaining about sample sizes:
What Queen is trying to get across is that the size of the US population doesn't even enter the equations for this kind of thing*. It might just as well be infinite.
Imagine that instead of asking people how they believe about armed rebellion, we were flipping a biased coin, with some probability p of landing heads. Further, imagine that after flipping it 863 times, we had observed that 251 times we got heads. We perform some calculations, approximate some things by Gaussian distributions, and come up with an estimation for the actual value of p, of about 0.29 with a margin of error of 3.4%
Now, suppose someone comes along and says "Huh? How can you possible obtain any meaningful result by flipping the coin less than a thousand times? Why, you could continue to flip that coin for years and years and years, getting billions of results! Surely that number is completely meaningless"
That is what comparing the sample size to the size of the US population is. If you think you cannot obtain meaningful results because the upper limit of the number of experiments you can perform is really big, then you are essentially arguing that the entire field of statistics is useless. Which, y'know, if you wanna do that, it's your deal.
I'm not defending the study, for all I know maybe they had a terrible protocol for determining who they call that skewed the results, or the questions were asked in a weird way, or whatever. There is plenty of ways this could be bad statistics. But the margin of error they derived from their sample size is not. Not by much, anyway, I haven't actually sat down and done the math, but since 3% is around 1000, 3.4% for 863 is probably not that far off.
*It does matter somewhat, if you perform the exactly correct probability calculation. Not if you do statistics.
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Thank you sigmaleph for saying what I was trying to say, but only smarter :P
TBH, statistics isn't quite my forte. I do have a decent amount of experience with it, being a political science major and a math whiz, but I would only quantify my knowledge of statistics as just above that of a layperson. It also doesn't help that the last statistics course I had was in 2008 and only reviewed the concepts with polls & surveys. Because of that, it can be difficult for me to explain concepts in a clear and parsimonious way. So, I apologize if I butchered some of the concepts or laws or if I explained it in a way that dropped anyone's IQ.