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Re:Does prospect theory explain Trump and Brexit votes? by mixedCase on Monday November 21, 2016 @09:49PM (#13011232)
"we face people who, perceiving that they have lost something, are willing to take high risks."

I love how throughout the post the author keeps on pushing the point that people simply have a misguided perception of reality, under no circumstance it is considered that these people are directly or indirectly affected by current policy.

There are too many people living in opaque bubbles blogging about "what REALLY happened!".

Re:Does prospect theory explain Trump and Brexit votes? by whack on Monday November 21, 2016 @10:01PM (#13011278)
Where in the article does the author "push the point that people simply have a misguided perception of reality"? I don't see any such point being made anywhere. The author stated that people perceive that they have lost something. Whether or not this perception is rational, is something the author does not take any stand on.
Re:Does prospect theory explain Trump and Brexit votes? by TTPrograms on Monday November 21, 2016 @10:58PM (#13011497)
The author is implying that the rationality of voting for Trump was, for his supporters, strongly dependent on the subtleties of their perception of the distributions of outcomes for electing each candidate. An alternative would be that Trump offered an objectively superior outcome for those constituents, in which case only highly delusional perspectives on the outcome would suggest an alternate course.
Re:Does prospect theory explain Trump and Brexit votes? by nikanj on Monday November 21, 2016 @10:04PM (#13011296)
Pundits who were 99.9 percent sure Clinton was going to win, are making new predictions and analyses with equal confidence.
Re:Does prospect theory explain Trump and Brexit votes? by rdtsc on Monday November 21, 2016 @10:24PM (#13011370)
One of my favorite cases happened on NBC on the election night.

After crying and being distraught for an hour or two, a glimmer of hope arose - after-hours and international stock market was down. And suddenly their demeanor changed, there was a chance again of a tiny victory. They were predicting disaster with the same certainty as they predicted Hillary winning. There was talk of everyone's accounts being wiped out, a lot of "we told you" and so on.

And of course next day stocks went right up and nothing happened.

I just liked it because right after talking how they mispredicted the election so badly, they turned around and predicted something else, which again was quickly shown to be false.

So I do recommend watching the popular news channels, they are a pretty good source of entertainment. Read Manufacturing Consent by Herman and Chomsky and it becomes even funnier.

Re:Does prospect theory explain Trump and Brexit votes? by adamkittelson on Monday November 21, 2016 @11:09PM (#13011548)
It felt like they weren't just predicting disaster, but hoping for it. Like being right about Trump's election victory having dire consequences is somehow preferable to everything turning out ok despite their candidate losing.
Re:Does prospect theory explain Trump and Brexit votes? by aakilfernandes on Monday November 21, 2016 @10:40PM (#13011439)
Did the author give a 99.9% chance to Clinton? If not, I fail to see how that is relevant.

Also, Nate Silvers gave Trump a 30% chance of winning. There were plenty of pundits who saw Trump as a possibility.

Re:Does prospect theory explain Trump and Brexit votes? by ChrisNorstrom on Monday November 21, 2016 @09:54PM (#13011251)
The worst part about all this, is that the same party that claims to be about Tolerance is so intolerant that you can't even explain to them why this (Trump & Brexit) happened.

No I'm not saying a word and I advise the HN members who "know what I'm talking about" to STAY quiet as well. I know it's tempting but I've tried it before on HN. I tried explaining, I'd type up these long posts with links to video evidence, scientific papers, psychology today articles and still the you-know-what-leaning downvote brigade got me. I don't mind downvotes but when you see how these people attack and censor and get you fired from work it's just not worth it. I deleted all my comments before the deletion time limit hit and vowed to just stop.

I know some of you are curious but honestly, this is your punishment. Your punishment is not Trump and Brexit, your punishment is never truely knowing why Trump and Brexit happened.

This is your hell. You made it.

Re:Does prospect theory explain Trump and Brexit votes? by Tarrosion on Monday November 21, 2016 @10:04PM (#13011295)
Your comment implies it's obvious why they happened. Is it? I've read many nuanced, data driven, and mutually exclusive articles about why Trump won.

What is so obvious that all this complexity is unnecessary? And if it doesn't seem obvious to so many people, why should I (or anyone else) update their beliefs and say ah yes of course; all those careful investigations were just missing the point?

I hope this doesn't come across as derogatory - it's not meant that way. I really am curious about the epistemology; when many people say complicated and some say obvious, what evidence should cause me to believe the latter?

Re:Does prospect theory explain Trump and Brexit votes? by ChrisNorstrom on Monday November 21, 2016 @10:43PM (#13011446)
Charts don't measure what they don't ask. Graphs and numbers don't measure emotions. The "data" on why Trump / Brexit won is hilarious. Correlation does not equal causation. By the way I just got downvoted again, and someone went through my username linked threads and downvoted them too. Welcome to the new HN, it wasn't like this 5 years ago. You can't talk anymore. You have to use code-words.
Re:Does prospect theory explain Trump and Brexit votes? by pizza on Monday November 21, 2016 @11:16PM (#13011577)
Specifically?
Re:Does prospect theory explain Trump and Brexit votes? by philovivero on Monday November 21, 2016 @11:56PM (#13011729)
I could take a stab.

Polls were specifically rigged to show a Democrat victory.

I suspect that's what he's referring to.

There are only a few owners of American media, and they have their agenda. This election cycle was a bit odd in that the normal right-leaning media companies were aligned with the left-leaning ones, so you got bad-mouthing of Trump all-around.

Once the right-leaning media realised they were about to put Hillary into the White House, they did an about face and started doing their normal biased reporting.

Meanwhile, the left-leaning media kept their bias strong from the start.

This seems to be playing out similarly in Great Britain, with their media taking sides, and at the moment, the left-leaning market forces are stronger. I suspect this is due to the huge benefits globalism brings to the media owners and their financial friends.

The problem is, the population at large doesn't benefit from globalism as directly and obviously as the media owners, so they're not playing along with the game anymore.

Just a guess, mind you. GP might be on about something else.

Re:Does prospect theory explain Trump and Brexit votes? by notahacker on Tuesday November 22, 2016 @12:10AM (#13011784)
> This seems to be playing out similarly in Great Britain, with their media taking sides, and at the moment, the left-leaning market forces are stronger. I suspect this is due to the huge benefits globalism brings to the media owners and their financial friends.

I don't think anybody even casually familiar with British media would argue that "left-leaning market forces are stronger" or that the British media is anything other than rabidly hostile (both on the Brexit right and anti-"neoliberalism" left) to globalism.

Re:Does prospect theory explain Trump and Brexit votes? by notahacker on Tuesday November 22, 2016 @07:16AM (#13013529)
Downvote me all you like, but the circulation of individual right-wing nationals like the Sun and Mail exceeds the circulation of all the left leaning newspapers (basically only the Guardian, the Mirror and the i since the Independent folded its offline operation due to lack of sales...) put together. It's hard to argue that "left leaning market forces are stronger" when the right leaning press has more outlets and the individually dominant news source in every category.

It's also pretty hard to argue that the left-wing, Remain-backing Guardian's doesn't publish a lot more commentary criticising the shortcomings of globalisation and berating international capital than pieces extolling its virtues.

Re:Does prospect theory explain Trump and Brexit votes? by rybosome on Monday November 21, 2016 @10:01PM (#13011274)
Why do you think it happened? I'm asking in good faith because I am in a liberal bubble, and I feel strongly that more empathy and willingness to listen is needed from my cohort.
Re:Does prospect theory explain Trump and Brexit votes? by Clubber on Monday November 21, 2016 @10:20PM (#13011359)
It really depends on the state / region. He promised a lot of things. If I had to pick one of the biggest ones, it would be:

Automation, globalization, and anti-unionization have been pushing down wages for 30+ years. Government policies by both parties seem to do nothing but speed up the process, particularly in globalization. The only thing the Dems had to offer was social safety net, but most people would rather have better paying jobs. The Republicans only offered rhetoric and an extra helping of anti-unionization.

Also, I don't think a vote for Trump is for the GOP or their policies. The GOP was the platform Trump used to get elected (as he slashed and burned their policies). I think the vote was anti-establishment (anti-GOP and anti-Dem). It could be a sign of just how economically desperate many people in the red areas are.

Also, it's very difficult / rare for a party to get a third term in recent history.

Re:Does prospect theory explain Trump and Brexit votes? by remarkEon on Tuesday November 22, 2016 @02:31AM (#13012330)
> The only thing the Dems had to offer was social safety net, but most people would rather have better paying jobs.

I'm not from one of the "Brexit States", but my family is spread across much of the rural Midwest and that sentence expresses their feelings quite succinctly. One family member, during a conversation about tech, volunteered that he thinks self-driving trucks will destroy much of what's left of the patchwork of small towns remaining near where he lives. No more relatively predictable income from truckers at diners and gas stations when the battery powered robots never have to stop for food or gas.

Re:Does prospect theory explain Trump and Brexit votes? by msravi on Monday November 21, 2016 @10:13PM (#13011338)
Hypocrisy. At least here in India, the hypocrisy of what is labeled the "liberal left" is nauseating.

- I clamor for women's rights but when a certain religion is guilty of trampling over women's rights, I go quiet

- I clamor for equality before law but when a certain religion asks for different laws for different religions, I go quiet

People don't take too lightly to their sense of fairness being trampled over, and this feeling of unfairness seems to be a cause for growing discontent.

Re:Does prospect theory explain Trump and Brexit votes? by sg47 on Monday November 21, 2016 @11:54PM (#13011722)
I think that's because people don't want to get killed. That 'certain religion' is known for mindlessly killing people. No, I'm not talking about Buddhism.
Re:Does prospect theory explain Trump and Brexit votes? by vixen99 on Tuesday November 22, 2016 @02:43AM (#13012376)
Sounds like a pretty good strategy for achieving the goal made utterly clear by the source writings. I trust the latter expression is sufficiently euphemistic.
Re:Does prospect theory explain Trump and Brexit votes? by pasquinelli on Monday November 21, 2016 @11:00PM (#13011506)
perhaps they framed it as people "perceiving that they have lost something" because perception is the relevant point, and where they have, appropriately, refrained from saying anything about a disputed and irrelevant reality, (perception, again, being the relevant point), you've filled in that bit about people living in an opaque bubble.

"There are too many people living in opaque bubbles blogging about 'what REALLY happened!'"

Re:Does prospect theory explain Trump and Brexit votes? by protomyth on Monday November 21, 2016 @11:21PM (#13011604)
I would love to have the EPA show up at the author's house and explain how the backyard is now part of a wetland.