Re:One pollster’s explanation for why the polls got it wrong
by snowwrestler on Wednesday November 11, 2020 @02:00AM
(#25056139)
I have a hard time believing your musings on culture are relevant to the topic of accurate polling when GOP-aligned pollsters, who firmly believed that Trump voters are less likely to answer polls and built that into their models, also missed badly.
> Trump voters are not liars. As a Democratic pollster and campaign strategist, I feel strange typing these words. But it is required to debunk the “shy Trump voter” myth.
This was written days before the election.
My post isn’t about “Shor’s personal HR problem.” It’s about a culture that caused very smart people to misperceive the facts on the ground, and misallocate funding as a result, in the middle of a high stakes situation.
People in Silicon Valley should understand better than anyone that culture matters and bears on organizational and institutional effectiveness. Often these are pretty theoretical and abstract debates. But here is a case study that elucidates culture that works versus culture that doesn’t work.
I’m not weighing in on the larger cultural issue. As I caveated, this is context sensitive. Political polling, news, academia, and the like are areas where free discourse with respect to sensitive issues is particularly important for the effectiveness of the institution. This is less true if you’re running a food delivery business.