Massive World Protests Tomorrow

[Dauphin]

Statistical sampling is better than that.

A poll can be very accurate with 1,000 as the sample size. All you need to do is ensure that it is as random as possible by removing systematic errors.

[Demerzel]

Originally posted by Big Crunch
Statistical sampling is better than that.

A poll can be very accurate with 1,000 as the sample size. All you need to do is ensure that it is as random as possible by removing systematic errors.

Still don't trust things that use such a small sample as a way of measuring a very large number's opinions. 1000 isn't a lot especially when most survey peeps grab whoever is willing on the street. And we all know that only a select few don't just bypass anyone with a clipboard when in town. Not very random eh?

[Dauphin]

That is why the first question I would ask is "How was the data collected?". Its more important than the question and the questioner.

TV audience surveys are pretty good, as are most polls by dedicated organisations (MORI, Gallop, etc)

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
When poll numbers say 55% are pro war, you think some idiot teens on the street represent the majority?

It's now down to 55% eh? Too bad.

[Shi Huangdi]

I heard 61% in favor of war.

[Demerzel]

Originally posted by Big Crunch
That is why the first question I would ask is "How was the data collected?". Its more important than the question and the questioner.

TV audience surveys are pretty good, as are most polls by dedicated organisations (MORI, Gallop, etc)

IIRC, BARB who collect the "TV Audiences" ratings have a mere 115 households as their sampling data. So ~400 people are used to say 15m watched this and 8m watched that, pretty tenuous I'd say esp. when they use the data to cancel a programme I like because some stupid couch potatoes thought it was too "highbrow".

[Bosh]

When poll numbers say 55% are pro war

This is conditional pro-war of course, if even the UK doesn't get on board the war (and I have a hard time seeing how Blair could push the war down his country's throat w/o UN approval that's looking a bit tenuos) then its much lower.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Demerzel


IIRC, BARB who collect the "TV Audiences" ratings have a mere 115 households as their sampling data. So ~400 people are used to say 15m watched this and 8m watched that, pretty tenuous I'd say esp. when they use the data to cancel a programme I like because some stupid couch potatoes thought it was too "highbrow".

5,100 households

http://www.barb.co.uk/about.cfm?report=qanda

[faded glory]

Vocal Minoritys in larger US cities. Large majorities in Europe. The one is London suprised me, being a million strong. The ones in the US were kinda small. Sure, 500,000 people went. But about 100 million others stayed home.


One thing that bothers me. I see all these signs and stuff the protesters are carrying. Half of them have nothing to do with war. Its about Kyoto, Israel, World Debt, and other stuff. The protest gave the impression it was more Anti-Bush than Anti-War..
which kind of blurred the objective. Either way, the protests had little effect on policy towards iraq. Its a good thing too, foriegn policy and national security shouldnt be attached to poll numbers.

[DuncanK]

Originally posted by Boshko
This is conditional pro-war of course, if even the UK doesn't get on board the war (and I have a hard time seeing how Blair could push the war down his country's throat w/o UN approval that's looking a bit tenuos) then its much lower.

There is a big difference between being against the war period and being against it unless the UN passes a resolution supporting it. The people who only support it if a resolution is passed are really right on the fence. The will disagree with war without the resolution, but they won't be too upset by it. That's my 2 cents.

[Ted Striker]

I'd say the middle states often take a stance that disagrees with the "vocal" opinion. When celebrities take a stance, their opinion often has an opposite effect. Witness Barbara Streisand, for instance, who I believe pretty much lost the last election for the democrats with her dorky song. So yes there is a silent majority.

As for the motives of the protesters, yes I still think alot of them really couldn't really give a damn one way or the other about the actual people of Iraq. They are more interested in making witty signs with funny pictures of Bush and Blair or burning American flags. They are simply there to bootstrap for their own motives.

Why was there no emphasis on the suffereing of the people of Iraq in these rallies?

[DuncanK]

Hey Dudes! Let go to the anti-war rally. The're will be some fine babs, and we can bring a sack of buds.

-some 19 year old who decided to go to the anti-war rally

[Sava]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Sava: The only one ignorant here is you for making that statement. Several people have tried to explain an idea to you and you keep spouting off with this garbage. Is it possible for you to debate without deliberately misrepresenting the facts of what the other side said?

So you're going to flat out lie? You've said, numerous times, that these protestors are supporting Saddam with their actions. It's one thing to be wrong, Oerdin, which you are, it's another to lie. Misrepresenting? How did I misrepresent that assertion? I simply pointed out how stupid and ignorant it is.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

And there is no "silent majority" - there never is - it's just a conservative creation.

Um... what have you been smoking?

When poll numbers say 55% are pro war, you think some idiot teens on the street represent the majority? Ya gotta be kidding me!

Nixon gets elected to the White House and you think there is no silent majority? What are you nuts?!

I'd say there is a silent majority. The big media states like California and New York create alot of what people precieve to be American public opinion but then theres all those people living in the states in between who often don't agree with the stances taken in the media.

Living in the South now allows me to apprechiate this much better. People just don't agree with "New York" and "Hollywood".

Oh, hurrah for the inbred KKK members south of the Mason-Dixon line; most of whom don't know where Iraq is. Prove it. And there is definitely no "silent majority" in Europe.

I can't believe I'm going to have to ask this question again: "Whose poll and what was the question?"

Unless the question is: "Do you agree that the US should wage a series of agressive, pre-emptive wars to protect and advance its position as the sole global superpower, irrespective of the will of any other state, states, or the United Nations?", then the answers of most respondents are going to be based upon a false conception of what is actually going on.

It's like Hitler taking a poll asking, "Do you agree that there should be a solution to the Jewish problem: namely that we Germans don't seem to like them much?" and then arguing that it justifies the Holocaust.

PS. I formulated the question by taking it from Bush's "pre-emptive strikes" policy.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Agathon
Oh, hurrah for the inbred KKK members south of the Mason-Dixon line

It's stupid stereotypes like this that hurt your case and make you look like a jackass.