How can one determine "true" sentiment?
In an age of increasing misinformation and division, I've found that it's increasingly easy to find yourself in an echo chamber of opinions (of people and/or bots). And when I go searching outside that echo chamber, I usually don't find well reasoned discussion, but a different echo chamber with the opposite opinion.
This is especially true on sites like Reddit and Twitter, but also applies to pretty much every website (including Tildes) to some extent. Even newspapers aren't helpful as they are all largely owned by a handful of billionaires with an agenda. And real life isn't much better. My friends and family all share similar values and ideals, which is great for getting along, but it doesn't help me figure out how many people actually support something in particular.
The closest thing I've found to objective polling are elections. Unfortunately, they largely group everything into one of two buckets and don't have room for nuance on individual topics. Also, a lot of people don't even vote, which doesn't necessarily muddy the data, but it does leave out the opinions of a lot of people.
Is it even possible to determine this without an individual referendum on each topic? Am I worrying too much about something unknowable?
Some example issues
(copy/pasted from my reply to chocobean)
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Belief in annexation of Canada as the 51st state. Most people (that I've seen) are not in favour of this, but some people are super gung-ho about this. Is this bot-led behaviour, or is there really such a large number of people that want to invade Canada? And how many Canadians want to become a state? Is it any, or are they all bots? How can I tell if it's 10%, 1%, or 0.1% of the population that actually wants this? A gut feeling from everything I've seen online tells me that more Americans want this than Canadians, but that doesn't really mean much without an anchor point.
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Similarly, trampling individual rights (especially when it comes to LGBTQ+ policies). The current US administration is doing everything they can to destroy this. I've seen similar sentiment in Canada, but I don't know how much this is supported by either population. Does everyone who didn't vote or who voted Republican hate queer people? Hopefully not. But there's no way to separate (in the data) a Republican full of hatred from a Republican who thought that Trump would fix the economy and prioritized that above all else. So how many people hate "the gays"? How many people say they don't hate gay people, but also don't care if they're collateral damage in a fight against "transgender indoctrination"? Maybe nuance like that doesn't actually matter, but assuming it does, the nuance disappears in any online discussion and can't be properly observed.
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Sentiment about [country]'s position in Palestine/Israel. Everything I've seen leads me to believe that almost every politician supports Israel, and almost every non-politician supports Palestine. Obviously there's a lot more nuance to "support" than I'm giving here, but it's hard to actually believe that the divide is so stark and well-defined.
Polls are the best option. But they have limitations. One intractable problem is simply that people hold multiple views at the same time. That's not an issue, it's just being human. On issue X, someone may say A to a friend and B to a different friend. It's similar to code switching. And a pollster is a particular type of person.
But nothing else is objective. Just take things with a grain of salt. It can offer guidance, though. For example
That seems too stark, and it's indeed too stark. According to gallup, 48% of Americans disapprove of Israel's military actions in Gaza, and 42% approve.
That's far from 100% disapprove, and 0% approve.
There is polling error, and biases, and it is just a sample. But it's extremely unlikely for a well-conducted poll to get 48/42 when it's actually, say, 90/10 or something. So that's a strong indication that your priors are wrong.
Perhaps I'm not understanding your question, please help me out a little? Are you looking for unbiased objective truthful reporting of events? Or an objective unbiased polling of how people feel on a zoomed out wide scale ?
If it's the latter, I would suggest looking at....
(1) where political parties overlap in their rhetoric, (2) voter apathy, and (3) poverty rates.
(1) Recent example, the recent and currently "definitely" happening Trump annexation of Canada. Our provincial leaders, federal leader, official opposition and "other" parties are pretty united on "oh hell no". Also, every party platform includes tackling housing affordability and healthcare. They dont agree on how, but they'll pretend to care. This is how we know these are issues very universally important to Canadians.
(2) Voter turn out is a good indication of how much citizens feel their vote matters: more participation = super angry or high belief in democracy; low participation = moderately angry and reflection of disenfranchisement.
(3) No matter who anyone votes for, they still need food and shelter, and that's reflected by jobs wages economy and policies that fairly link labour to wages. Safe to say people are feeling tense and worried when there's a lot of poverty and homelessness and lack of job security and high grocery prices. That's my guess of the current sentiment across the aisle.
Or is your question about political alignment, rather than sentiment?
I avoided giving examples in my post because I thought it wasn't relevant, but I think I'll edit it to add the following examples that I was thinking of:
Belief in annexation of Canada as the 51st state. Most people (that I've seen) are not in favour of this, but some people are super gung-ho about this. Is this bot-led behaviour, or is there really such a large number of people that want to invade Canada? And how many Canadians want to become a state? Is it any, or are they all bots? How can I tell if it's 10%, 1%, or 0.1% of the population that actually wants this? A gut feeling from everything I've seen online tells me that more Americans want this than Canadians, but that doesn't really mean much without an anchor point.
Similarly, trampling individual rights (especially when it comes to LGBTQ+ policies). The current US administration is doing everything they can to destroy this. I've seen similar sentiment in Canada, but I don't know how much this is supported by either population. Does everyone who didn't vote or who voted Republican hate queer people? Hopefully not. But there's no way to separate (in the data) a Republican full of hatred from a Republican who thought that Trump would fix the economy and prioritized that above all else. So how many people hate "the gays"? How many people say they don't hate gay people, but also don't care if they're collateral damage in a fight against "transgender indoctrination"? Maybe nuance like that doesn't actually matter, but assuming it does, the nuance disappears in any online discussion and can't be properly observed.
Sentiment about [country]'s position in Palestine/Israel. Everything I've seen leads me to believe that almost every politician supports Israel, and almost every non-politician supports Palestine. Obviously there's a lot more nuance to "support" than I'm giving here, but it's hard to actually believe that the divide is so stark and well-defined.
There are other examples, but hopefully this illustrates what I'm trying to ask about.
In terms of "echo chambers", I feel there's a certain level of selection bias that goes on. Most people don't want to spend time around a bunch of other people who vehemently disagree with them. In many cases it is a matter of safety - if someone is LGBTQ+ and the people around them are speaking out about trampling their rights, I can't imagine there's any incentive for them to stick around.
People self-select with other people with whom they are comfortable, and if politics/religion/etc never comes up, then so be it. Once something comes up that drives a wedge between people's belief systems, they will have to decide if that's a deal-breaker for them or not (or if it's safe for them to continue being around the other person or people).
My views on your examples above:
Who knows, at this point. The current President/Autocrat says a lot of absurd off-the-wall stuff, and it's difficult to know what he's actually planning to act on versus what manages to result when his last remaining brain cells collide with each other. There's a not-insignificant number of people that support him regardless of what he says, so I'd imagine it's a minority of Americans that actually support "annexing Canada" - as if Canada has no say in the matter.
Given the history of the United States when it comes to slavery and genocide towards people that aren't "white" (which is a shifting, flexible thing), I imagine there's a very significant number of Americans that are all for trampling individual rights of anyone that isn't straight, white, and frankly ... "traditionally" male. The very foundation of this country is rooted in the slave trade, and it wouldn't be the continent-spanning behemoth it is without enacting, and continuing to enact, genocide on the Indigenous peoples of this land. Combine those attitudes with the country's very Victorian-era, Puritanical views towards sex and sexuality, and you've got a mix that is violently pro-white and pro-binary.
I could go on, in regards to the origins of the USA's policing policies (rooted in slave patrols, in most places), or the fact that the Nazis took direct inspiration from Jim Crow Laws, or the fact that the USA has, at many points in history, utilized concentration camps against its own people ("The Trail of Tears", WW2-era Japanese internment, etc) - but I think you get my point. Perhaps most people aren't vocally "pro" elimination of individual rights ... but a lot, and I mean a LOT, of people are very much pro-whiteness to the extent that they are willing to do harm to non-white, non-binary people.
Universities use the idea of institutional disconfirmation to try and remove individual biases inherent in scholarship through the use of scientific merit panels, etc. The idea is that if the goal is generalizable knowledge, without the individual bias, that by assembling a panel of diverse thinkers to do reviews, you end up with a more "true" result, in the sense that it is generalizable to more realms in society.
My strategy in the situation you describe is to try and be your own panel, and you treat each source or community as a members opinion that you synthesize into a greater whole. Read a variety of sources and ask a variety of questions, of yourself and if you can, others. You aren't going to get a perfect feel of the population. But if you practice your perspective taking, you should be able to understand the appeal of perspectives you disagree with, and critically construct what kinds of groups might have that perspective, their size, etc.
Your goal isn't to refute or affirm others positions, but to understand them and the appeal. I'm less sure about the Canada as a state thing because that is so new and out of left field, but the two other examples have some pretty obvious thought processes and demographics behind them to deconstruct. I didn't have time on my lunch break, so consider this the eternal mathematicians prerogative to leave something as an exercise for the reader. But you should be able to read an interview or news article about LGBT or middle east issues, and construct a profile for the different groups and why they might feel the way they do, and extrapolate from there.
That's a fantastic way to put it.
Over and over again, I see so many people saying things that amount to "<elected official> is making your life worse, but because you voted for <elected official> without realizing it would happen, you're stupid."
These comments ignore a massive amount of nuance. Everyone has a different idea of how to achieve and maintain their basic needs. If we consider Maslow' hierarchy of needs, most voters have the physiological needs worked out to some degree, and it's the safety needs that lead to drastically different perspectives.
As far as I can tell, from my own observations, there is no true sentiment. Most people don’t actually care about anything beyond their own tiny spheres of influence and day-to-day living. They don’t think about lofty international goals or nuanced issues, they don’t think about how certain policies affect their gay little neighbors a block down the street, they don’t think about anything past their tv or phone or computer, at all.
When people say they care about ‘the economy’, they don’t; they care about their own wallets, their own spending power, their own taxes, their own everything. It doesn’t really matter how things get better for them — they just want things to be better, and for them not to have to deal with unpleasantness anymore, and however that happens is good enough for them.
When people say they care about Palestine, they don’t; most of them care about keeping up with the cultural Jones’ for appearances sake, to elevate their own social standing, more than anything else; they’ll float gently on to the next socially relevant issue just as soon as the wind blows them in a new direction.
When people talk about Canada, they’re not talking about Canada the country, they’re talking about Canada the vehicle. They align themselves in that moment with whatever side they feel is most expedient to getting them what or where they want; it has nothing to do with beliefs or care about Canada — it’s all, once again, about keeping up with the cultural zeitgeist and gaining clout to trade for power for themselves. Canada might as well not even exist as an actual physical place, for all they care; it’s all about establishing oneself in the right sociopolitical fandom to gain followers. Canada is about as real to most Americans in the mid to lower U.S. as California is to most southerners, which doesn’t make sense, but I promise it makes sense, lol.
The U.S. is comprised of mostly centrists on most issues; the true believers are the outliers. Most Americans are actually quite uneasy with ‘taking sides’ because most Americans have never had to.
(Obviously assuming this question is focused on the U.S.)
Based on your views here, I would argue less that most Americans are centrists ... and more that they are simply nihilists.
If you don't want bias, drink from the tap itself. Don't consume the news itself if you don't trust it, consume the links the news points to. News is ultimately a summarized interpretation at the end of the day. If you have the time to read bills and watch press releases, you minimize outside boss.
For people, you're never going to for sure get an objective answer out of them. The entire field of statistics partially exists to mitigate the fact that people lie, as well as their own personal biases. Without that level of rigor, the best you can hope for is to
Eliminate bots. This can be done by tailoring communities that either disallow bots or have some form of verification
Making an assumption that most human internet comments are honest.
Collecting a lot of answers in multiple communities. More than usual to try and counteract bad actors and bias.
But if you can't trust 2, you can't trust much at all. Internet comments themself is response bias automatically.