I was trying to demonstrate the absurdity of certain populist
assumptions, but it didn't take.
The assumption, and I am not sure quite how evidence-based it is, but
it is the bedrock of our society, or one of the bedrocks anyway...
is that if in a test (vote) 60% of the sample (voters actually voting)
vote yes, and 40% no,
then in the population as a whole there is no result more likely to be
correct than,
and it is probably the case that
60% are in favour and 40% are against.
One might of course apply a correcting factor, if one was both
exceedingly clever and posessed of motives so pure that nobody could
possibly suspect one of shading a result, but I for one do not know the
magnitude or direction of the correction.
What I do know is that even if the vote is 95% in favour it is proper
and necessary to consider and protect the interests of the 5%
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