NATO during a Trump Presidency: Stay, Pay, or why don't you all just f-f-fade away?

[Montmorency]

They are applied sociology, same as being an MP you are involved into practical application of political science.

Generally, politicians do not perform in some way following their studies of their profession, or else you might as well call generals historians and landscapers engineers. They could (and often do) study these things, but they are independent; a politician is a politician by virtue of their employment, not by virtue of their readings or their formal education. A member of a profession need not act upon any academic substance to carry out their job, but their job easily lends itself to academic substance.

Notice, for instance, that translation and language teaching are relevant to the field of applied linguistics, but it would be trivial to call a translator or a language teacher an "applied linguist". Translators and language teachers can be applied linguists pursuant to their careers, but their careers do not entail it.

For example: I was in doubt whether to invest into some British-EU project and wanted to be sure Britain stays in the EU. I ordered a survey the result of which said it would. I invest money and then pop goes Brexit. My investment goes down the drain. Could I sue the services that conducted the survey? If not, it seems like they may not bother to leave their office, just invent the figures and take the payment.

That's "risk". A king who would execute all his advisers because they are not soothsayers would be considered by all a foolish tyrant, and here it is no different.

The questions of how to poll effectively and how to interpret the data in an actionable way obviously have many interpretations among differing organizations and theorists, but the fact remains that polling in all forms has been for many years considered indispensable to assessment and decision-making, not because it offers deterministic solutions but because it offers useful insights toward careful questions.

[Pannonian]

Generally, politicians do not perform in some way following their studies of their profession, or else you might as well call generals historians and landscapers engineers. They could (and often do) study these things, but they are independent; a politician is a politician by virtue of their employment, not by virtue of their readings or their formal education. A member of a profession need not act upon any academic substance to carry out their job, but their job easily lends itself to academic substance.

Notice, for instance, that translation and language teaching are relevant to the field of applied linguistics, but it would be trivial to call a translator or a language teacher an "applied linguist". Translators and language teachers can be applied linguists pursuant to their careers, but their careers do not entail it.



That's "risk". A king who would execute all his advisers because they are not soothsayers would be considered by all a foolish tyrant, and here it is no different.

The questions of how to poll effectively and how to interpret the data in an actionable way obviously have many interpretations among differing organizations and theorists, but the fact remains that polling in all forms has been for many years considered indispensable to assessment and decision-making, not because it offers deterministic solutions but because it offers useful insights toward careful questions.

Politicians in a western liberal democracy are lawyers.

[Montmorency]

Politicians in a western liberal democracy are lawyers.

Law is a popular field of study for aspiring politicians, but they shouldn't be conflated. At any rate, given the popularity of "lifelong politicians" in America at least, a minority of our legislators have backgrounds in law.

[Sarmatian]

Law is a popular field of study for aspiring politicians, but they shouldn't be conflated. At any rate, given the popularity of "lifelong politicians" in America at least, a minority of our legislators have backgrounds in law.

40% of legislators in USA are lawyers, actually. By far the most numerous group.

[Montmorency]

40% of legislators

a minority of our legislators

[Gilrandir]

A king who would execute all his advisers because they are not soothsayers would be considered by all a foolish tyrant, and here it is no different.

Adisers do not give a surety of something happening, while polling pretends it does.

Still there is no answer to the question whether polling agencies are legally/financially responsible for financial losses caused by the poll results.

A related thought: I wonder if financial damage could be a lawsuit issue against a football referee who made a mistake which led to a team losing the game.

[TBFProgrammer]

And a curious fact: most polls in both cases (I mean US elections and Brexit) predicted just the opposite of what happened later. Do we still need sociology?

Brexit polls were within the error margin for a whole week leading up to the actual vote. They didn't miss, you read them wrong.

Election polls actually did put the US election on the knife's edge on election day, with the momentum in Trump's direction. The only State that they truly missed was Wisconsin (which they also badly missed in both primaries). The pundit's didn't want to admit what the data showed, just as they dragged their heels on calling the obvious Arizona result when it would put Trump over the top. That doesn't mean the data wasn't there.

Here, have a pair of aggragator results that show just how tight the race was.

[Montmorency]

Correct. Polling services rarely make firm predictions or take stances. They give their customers - for example news media - interpretations of collected data, and what the customers do with this data and other forms of information are their own responsibility.

Pollers cannot and do not pretend to be able to spoonfeed you the future.

[edyzmedieval]

Polls are polls - aggregators of information, with error margins and can swing wildly, depending on who you ask. And in a lot of cases, they're really wrong. (see NYT Election Forecast for this election)

So take all of them with a pinch of salt.

[Sarmatian]

Also - electoral college. Almost everywhere else in the world a hundred votes is a hundred votes. In America a hundred votes can be 20 000 000 votes.

[edyzmedieval]

Electoral college was thought out as a very smart idea by the Founding Fathers, but the problem nowadays is that it doesn't hold much equality in this current political state. It doesn't accurately represent the way voters express their desires.

Hence why you have two modern occasions where you have the winners of the popular vote who actually lose the election. (Al Gore and Hillary)

[Gilrandir]

Correct. Polling services rarely make firm predictions or take stances. They give their customers - for example news media - interpretations of collected data, and what the customers do with this data and other forms of information are their own responsibility.

Even if it is an erroneous interpretation/collected data?