Economist/YouGov Poll Results: Too Many Stupid People

I never found much use in the old adage, “If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.” Belief in a specific idea does not make you immune to being misled or gullible. You must stand for arguments that are based in fact and logic. When you make emotional stands you sometimes fall victim to confirmation bias because the story fits perfectly what the narrative that you so desperately want to be true. I myself always try to apply the principle of Occam’s Razor when examining a problem. This principle states that when a problem has potentially several different causes the actual cause is usually the simplest. Thus reviewing the latest Economist/YouGov poll results I can only conclude that we have too many stupid people.

Russian Email Hack – Percentages of people that believe that the Russians hacked the email of the Democrats in order to increase the likelihood of a Trump President.

• 52% of all people found it Definitely True or Probably True
• 75% of all Democrats found it Definitely True or Probably True

Of course this has been all the rage in the news recently and why should we not believe it when the Media says it is true. My issue is with the second half of that statement where it subscribes motive to the action. I would not be surprised that the Russians hacked or attempted to hack the Democrats. I would also not be surprised that there are multiple countries that were doing the same thing. However, there is no evidence to suggest that the emails were given to WikiLeaks by the Russians. Sources close to WikiLeaks have even suggested that the source of the emails was a Leak and not a hack. Occam’s Razor – Staffer leaked the emails.

PizzaGate – The leaked Clinton Staffer emails contain code words for Pedofillia, human trafficking and Satanic Rituals.

• 38% of all people found it Definitely True or Probably True
• 49% of Republicans found it Definitely True or Probably True

Uh…. It really does stretch the imagination that HRC while in the midst of running a campaign for President would engage in this type of behavior much less have the time to mastermind this endeavor. (What with all the naps she needed.) Occam’s Razor – Campaigns, staffed by volunteers and low paid workers, operate much the same way as startups. You want to keep people working long after they should have gone home you bring in free food. (This has been a trick of the Project Management trade as long as they have had take-out.)

Illegal Voters – Millions of illegal votes were cast in this election. Since they did not declare what type of illegal votes I am assuming that this includes all illegal votes including those cast by illegal aliens, dead people and the scumbags that voted twice.

• 46% of all people found it Definitely True or Probably True
• 52% of all Republicans found it Definitely True or Probably True

The main issue I have with this one is with the phrasing of the question. I have no doubt that some voter fraud occurred. I just have no idea on how much of it occurred. Millions implies 2 or more millions of the almost 129 million votes were cast fraudulently. Even at the low end if we say 2 million fraudulent votes, which means that for each electoral vote cast there are 3,717 illegal votes. While this then lends credence to the argument that voter fraud on small scales can add up quickly, it is impossible to know for sure without some type of random sampling audit of the entire vote. Occam’s Razor – There is voter fraud, but at this point the exact amount is unknown.

Vote Tampering – Russia tampered with vote tallies in order to get Trump elected.

• 37% of all people found it Probably True or Definitely True
• 52% of all Democrats found it Probably True or Definitely True

Considering that most voting machines are not plugged into a network or the internet this would be an incredible feat for the Russians to hack enough free standing voting machines to sway the election and not get caught. There has been no credible evidence given and the government confirms this as well. Occam’s Razor – While it is plausible that a few machines may have been tampered with, it was not enough to raise suspicions or change the results.

While this polling data disproves one old adage I believe it proves another. “There is always one more stupid person for which you have not accounted.”

 

Sources:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/ljv2ohxmzj/econTabReport.pdf