I'm afraid they wasted their sample. It's a large company, so it's probably filler for them, but still. If they had asked the same question at the end, the effect would have been clearer (assuming no big differences in audience, because that really happens). Now you can ascribe the effect to e.g. people misreading the "oppose" question.
It is very relevant, the whole questionare is about "National Service". They are tricking people into supporting slavery!
> National service is the system of compulsory or voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term national service comes from the United Kingdom's National Service Act 1939.
No they're not. They demonstrating how unethical surveys can, if portrayed improperly can appear to show different results. There is a difference between fiction and reality.
I live in Prague, had gf from Ukraine, know like 5 men who escaped just before border closed, a few guys from my company were conscripted, I know 3 men who died...
Yes, like become "voluntary" slave, or we put you into prison! US still requires men to sign up for selective service, or else they will not even get a driving licence!
It's not really voluntary if it goes on a criminal record. If a felony with punishment of up to $250,000 in fines and/or 5 years imprisonment is "voluntary", then there sure are a lot of "voluntary" laws.
I live in Sweden with a strong history of conscription. I've never seen any serious opposition to conscription on ethical grounds. My impression is that it is the same in the other Nordic countries?
I'd be surprised if there was a "huge opposition" in Switzerland or Israel, two other countries with a strong history of conscription.
I also haven't seen any international human rights law against conscription?
> That is reason why women got voting rights in 1970 in Switzerland, they were worried about conscription.
Not sure how that translates into "a huge opposition to conscription on ethical grounds"?
> Israel has a huge orthodox religious community that opposes conscription
They're 13%, is that right? Is 13% "huge"?
And do they oppose it for everyone on ethical grounds? Or just for themselves, while they'll happily let the rest take care of the national defense using conscription?
Orthodox in Israel are excluded from military service. But there are settlers... Ethical my bum.. also there are like 20% Arabs... You should really spend some time in there, crazy country.
> Orthodox in Israel are excluded from military service.
I was curious about Israel, so I did some quick Googling:
The orthodox in Israel are not excluded from forced military service. Their service can be postponed while they are in religious school. It is also shortened.
They are not against conscription on ethical grounds. They just think that religious studies are a lot more important. They also do not want to mix with the general population since they do not like their way of living.
So if they were forced into conscription where they could do a lot of religious studying together with their own people, they wouldn't have much against it.
Did I get anything wrong here?
> You should really spend some time in there, crazy country.
That's a ringing endorsement if I ever saw one. Have you considered becoming a travel agent? ;)
They were excluded until very recently. I think details are not relevant, but look how long they do studies, dodging ratios, where they serve, extremism, tax payments... It really does not belong here.
My point is that Israel is really not good example of a country with "happy conscription".
Israel is actually good pace to visit now. Cheaper than usually, far less tourist, stay on coast (Haifa
and Tel Aviv) avoid religious sites. I am going there in October for two weeks.
Not according to my research. Their service was delayed and shortened, but in general it was not excluded altogether. And again, they are not against conscription on ethical grounds.
> not good example of a country with "happy conscription"
I do not claim that conscripts are happy while they are forced to serve.
My claim is that among the top 10 happiest countries, many of them have conscription. So conscription does not equal an unhappy society.
Also, while we complained to no end during our conscription time in the army, most older swedes who served look back at their forced military service with a lot of positive feelings.
Younger people who did not serve roll their eyes when the older guys start reminiscing about their army time. You can see them thinking "shut up already" :)
Of course there are people with your level of dislike of conscription, but I haven't met very many of them in Sweden.
> Israel is actually good pace to visit now.
Oh, I thought you were kidding. It has a lot of historic sites I'd like to see, but it'd be nice if the whole region was a lot calmer before I start thinking about going there. Not holding my breath on that one...
Orthodox have certain political views, that do not mix well with majority of liberal population. They claim ethical/non-military grounds when it comes to conscription, but are very strongly opinionated in other areas.
And look who is doing actual fighting in Gaza. There are are like 5000 US Navy seals. Conscript army can not even man fortified bunkers!
> My claim is that among the top 10 happiest countries,
I read Israel faces genocide, that does not sound very happy!
If you look at some stats, North Korea is doing pretty well, they have like 40% gender equality or whatever.
I would really recommend you to travel a bit. You obviously do not have much experience (stats, research). Israel is quite ok now.
If you want good safe place for "cultural shock", Jeddah would be good, nice corrals...
> Orthodox have certain political views, that do not mix well with majority of liberal population. They claim ethical/non-military grounds when it comes to conscription
Their "ethical grounds" is that religious studies and keeping themselves separate is more important than military service, not that conscription is ethically wrong in itself. If they had their own country, they'd happily use conscription.
So you can make all kinds of arguments why this group is the worst. Their views doesn't support your claim that there is a "huge opposition to conscription on ethical grounds in Israel".
> Conscript army can not even man fortified bunkers
That's like saying child labor is wrong because children have a poor sense of quality. Ok, true, but that's not why I'm against it.
And of course I don't agree that the conscript armies in the nordic countries are inherently much worse than professional armies.
It is also well known that a defense force composed of volunteers performs better than one composed of conscripts, and it is well known that performing conscription tends to make the populace unhappy.
I'm Swedish. I did 12 months of conscription at a time when everyone had to do it.
The happiest country on the planet is Finland, which is even more gung-ho about conscription than Sweden. The nordic countries, Israel, and Switzerland all have conscription and are also all in the top 10 happiest countries. (Side note: I think it'd be dangerous to abolish conscription in Finland. The Finns might get so over-happy that they start talking to strangers at bus stops and doing other things signifying that the end is near.)
As far as the quality of the soldiers, I will give you that there are many countries where poorly trained conscripts are of very low quality.
But as far as the nordic countries go, I'd say that the conscript soldiers in general are motivated and perform well in combat.
Swedish UN troops composed of conscript soldiers who later volunteer for a 6 month UN mission have performed very well compared to "professional" UN troops from other countries. For instance, read up on "shootbat" (BA01) in Bosnia 1993-1994.
I have heard many stories from Swedish ex-UN soldiers about how the Swedish battalions can solve pretty much any problem in the field since they are composed of people who work as auto mechanics, heavy equipment operators, electricians, civil engineers, computer programmers, etc in their civilian lives. At the same time, the "professional" soldiers from other countries get stuck as soon as there's a problem just a little bit outside of their army training.
Sure Uncle Tom! If it's so great, why they have to force people into it?
I was conscripted, I fired 20 bullets over 12 months, I get more practise over weekend of paintball! Rest was just bullying, cleaning toilets and scraping potatoes. They would not even let me drive a truck, because I was too "unreliable"!
(You might want to review the HN guidelines on commenting before you use more invectives)
> If it's so great, why they have to force people into it?
The fact that people are forced is not in opposition to the fact that they can still be motivated and capable once training is over.
> I was conscripted, I fired 20 bullets over 12 months. Rest was just bullying, cleaning toilets and scraping potatoes. They would not even let me drive a truck, because I was too "unreliable"!
Conscription sucked for you, sure. If everyone in that army receives that level of training, I will concede that it will be neither motivated nor capable.
But we have plenty of examples where countries with conscription armies have performed well in armed conflicts.
So the concept of conscription is not obviously ineffective. It depends on the implementation.
Yes. The opposition to slavery is on ethical grounds. Not practical.
But while you will find absolutely no support for slavery in the Nordic countries, there is 100.0% support for conscription in the Swedish parliament.
The people forced into conscription in Sweden later end up voting for parties who support it. I doubt you'll find the same thing with many ex-slaves, right?
The "huge opposition" that you keep bringing up just doesn't exist here.
> 51% of Swedish population opposes conscription tooth and nail.
Uhh, what? Did you just make that up?
Funny how both the left party and the green party are for forced conscription in Sweden if there's such a strong opposition against it. You'd think they could get a lot of votes by campaigning against conscription? Which they don't...
However, I was speaking somewhat more narrowly of active defensive combat situations. I think this is pretty different from the peacetime conscription practiced by Finland, Sweden, etc. I was speaking of the group that did not volunteer when given impetus to do so.
Let's say that Finland were invaded by Russia. First, the currently-conscripted Finnish army would defend. Secondly, any additional volunteers from the populace that would like to help defend their homeland, will also help defend. Thirdly, if these first two groups are insufficient, additional conscription will be performed against the remaining population.
My claim is that on average, the third group will perform more poorly than the second group. I don't mean to compare either to the first group.
Finland has maybe 1000 men who are trained to NATO standards. If there is a Russian invasion, current conscript army become police force to handle local population and logistics, while NATO overtakes the country.
Well, I will give an actual example of non specific country that was invaded two year ago.
First profi army becomes senior force, that trains whomever wants to hold a gun (second army). There is never political support to draft third army (like everyone). Remains of first army flee after government collapses. Political regime changes.
> First, the currently-conscripted Finnish army would defend. Secondly, any additional volunteers from the populace that would like to help defend their homeland, will also help defend. Thirdly, if these first two groups are insufficient, additional conscription will be performed against the remaining population.
Finland has a population of 5.5 million people. They have almost 900 000 soldiers including reserves in their armed forces that they can mobilize in case of war.
When war breaks out, they have already trained as many people as possible. There aren't many left to conscript at that point.
It was the same for Sweden during the cold war. The armed forces would have numbered almost a million soldiers out of a population of 8 million. On top of that, an additional 1.5 million swedes were part of the total defence forces.
> My claim is that on average, the third group will perform more poorly than the second group. I don't mean to compare either to the first group.
The thinking in Sweden has always been that conscription leads to a democratization of the army, stronger popular support for the armed forces, and a stronger will to defend the country.
So sure, if the country is invaded, the people who have not served before and refuse to do so even after an invasion will not be as good soldiers.
How well was this agreed upon, what form was the agreement in, and when was the last time it was conducted, because I've never been asked about it even once.
This mystery applies to most everything, not just conscription.
In Sweden, I've never seen any serious opposition to conscription on ethical grounds. My impression is that it is the same in the other nordic countries.
If I am offered 5 different bundles of thousands of items, and my only choice is one of the 5 bundles or no choice, am I agreeing to each item, or does it only appear like I am agreeing?
No, not for 100% of the voters. But you can still say that the issue is "well agreed upon".
If there was a "huge opposition to conscription because it is slavery", then one or more of the political parties in Sweden would be opposed to it. And those parties would get a majority of the votes if people thought that the issue was the most important one.
Instead there is no political party against conscription in Sweden. Not even the left party or the green party, which really surprised me since they are normally against that sort of thing.
There is also no political debate about conscription in Sweden on ethical grounds.
Compare this with the monarchy and the king in Sweden. Here, there is definitely a vocal opposition, and several large parties are against it. It is far less "well agreed upon" than conscription, and it is harder to say that people voting for a party that is not against the monarchy actually agree with that.
This is a problem with the way the data is presented and the questions asked, but there's a 10 point swing between "not opposed" and "in favour", and likewise between "not in favour" and "opposed".
If you like the series then this article[0] which was published in the LRB early in its run is well worth a read - it gives you a good idea of how the series came about and why it feels very closely observed. Reportedly many politicians at the time, including Margaret Thatcher, felt it to be very closely observed.
But the really clever thing about the writing is that you never know which party Jim Hacker is a member of and it is equally believable regardless of which one - it's so remarkable that it's a series about politics which manages to be really quite apolitical in that sense.
And/or people have started behaving according to the standards set in the show because they assume that everyone is that cynical. This is kind of what worries be about these extremely cynical satires and depictions.
On the other hand, it's not like politics is better in the US which had The West Wing, which is very aspirational and not cynical at all so idk...
I mean if you want to talk about cynical, Veep really went off the deep end as a comedy, which was good for the show, but also unfortunately life is imitating art.
It's not my impression that Veep was/is all that widely known? I just heard about it because it's the US version of The Thick of It, but then again I'm not in the US. And just like the US version of House of Cards, it's also much newer. There isn't that long of a tradition of cynical satire as in Britain going back to at least the 80s (Yes Minster, Spitting Image, House of Cards, The Thick of It).
Based on anecdata from people in the UK and Australia, the Australian show Utopia [1] is the most realistic take on the civil service while The Thick of It is the most realistic take on party machinations.
Some civil servants find Utopia too painful to watch because it hits too close to home. The show has made several very prescient predictions [2].
I don't agree with the conclusion; 3% difference is basically within the error margins for these types of things. I typically assume a ~5% error margin, which is nice round number I just pulled out of my ass, but it seems roughly accurate.
No it isn't. The first one is 45-favour, 38 don't favour. That's a totally different thing.
This proves the idea that you can get a result that points the way you want it to. But it doesn't quite prove that the leading questions have any effect.
To do that they would need to ask 2 more sets of questions with the "oppose"/"support" questions inverted. Otherwise the effect could just be due to the different wording of the final question.
You're misreading the answers. In sample A, 45% are in favor of reintroducing National Service and (38% oppose it). In sample B, the phrasing is reversed, meaning that 34% are in favor (and 48% oppose it). So, the difference is 11 percentage points.
But in that case you need to add a control for both questions without the prior four questions. How do you know the difference in phrasing doesn't matter?
> "First of all, to be clear, we would never ask questions on such a topic in this way."
I love how they worded that. Having once worked for Ipsos, they DEFINITELY do it, but the sentence is correct, I don't recall any instances of it being done "on such a topic."
The art of pollsters is to produce results reflecting the hopes of whoever commissioned them, but with just enough even-handedness to look not-obviously-prepackaged.
I had a survey construction class during my MBA. This is mainly obvious stuff, but indeed should be studied and practiced because people screw this up all the time. Assuming your goal is to find out what people think (vs, have the survey tell you what you want it to tell you) - you have to realize that most people plop down their at-the-moment emotional state as the survey response, and that state is most recently influenced by the survey itself.
Eg, if I asked you "should Israel dismantle the Hamas terrorist organization responsible for the 10/7/2023 murder of 1500 people" - most people would say "yes" because the words "dismantle the terrorist organization" resonate with most people.
If I asked them "do you support a ceasefire in Gaza" - most people would also say yes, because the word ceasefire would resonate with them.
Obviously these would be contradictory results. What this survey wouldn't tell you is how many people actually think about this topic and which way they lean.
A better designed survey would be something like this:
Question 1: How aware are you of the current conflict in Gaza (1-5)
Question 2: In your own words, how would you describe the conflict?
Question 3: If 1 is "Ceasefire at all costs" and 10 is "eliminate terrorists at all costs", where would you place your opinion?
Having these 3 datapoints would enable you to filter by those who actually have an opinion (or, find out what percentage has an opinion), use question 2 to validate that and/or gain new insights and use 3 to identify how strongly people lean one way or another.
Do note that your two example questions aren't quite as diametrically opposed as you make it out to be. You can be in favor of both and still be consistent.
How you would dismantle Hamas while having a cease fire in place is left as an exercise to the reader.
76 comments
[ 5.8 ms ] story [ 227 ms ] thread> National service is the system of compulsory or voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term national service comes from the United Kingdom's National Service Act 1939.
I'm pretty sure you're trying to caricature a type of people, but when you're this blatant about it you basically become a caricature of yourself.
I can ensure you this is not some sort of parody
Gov needs it to be "voluntary", or else they could be sued for compensations.
If there is a war, do not sign it!
Gov makes the law. They could just as easily make a law saying "no compensation shall ever be payable from anything todo with National Service"
This is not very different from being forced to pay taxes.
I'd be surprised if there was a "huge opposition" in Switzerland or Israel, two other countries with a strong history of conscription.
I also haven't seen any international human rights law against conscription?
That is reason why women got voting rights in 1970 in Switzerland, they were worried about conscription.
Israel has a huge orthodox religious community that opposes conscription. Army is just for liberal idiots!
Not sure how that translates into "a huge opposition to conscription on ethical grounds"?
> Israel has a huge orthodox religious community that opposes conscription
They're 13%, is that right? Is 13% "huge"?
And do they oppose it for everyone on ethical grounds? Or just for themselves, while they'll happily let the rest take care of the national defense using conscription?
Orthodox in Israel are excluded from military service. But there are settlers... Ethical my bum.. also there are like 20% Arabs... You should really spend some time in there, crazy country.
I was curious about Israel, so I did some quick Googling:
The orthodox in Israel are not excluded from forced military service. Their service can be postponed while they are in religious school. It is also shortened.
They are not against conscription on ethical grounds. They just think that religious studies are a lot more important. They also do not want to mix with the general population since they do not like their way of living.
So if they were forced into conscription where they could do a lot of religious studying together with their own people, they wouldn't have much against it.
Did I get anything wrong here?
> You should really spend some time in there, crazy country.
That's a ringing endorsement if I ever saw one. Have you considered becoming a travel agent? ;)
My point is that Israel is really not good example of a country with "happy conscription".
Israel is actually good pace to visit now. Cheaper than usually, far less tourist, stay on coast (Haifa and Tel Aviv) avoid religious sites. I am going there in October for two weeks.
Not according to my research. Their service was delayed and shortened, but in general it was not excluded altogether. And again, they are not against conscription on ethical grounds.
> not good example of a country with "happy conscription"
I do not claim that conscripts are happy while they are forced to serve.
My claim is that among the top 10 happiest countries, many of them have conscription. So conscription does not equal an unhappy society.
Also, while we complained to no end during our conscription time in the army, most older swedes who served look back at their forced military service with a lot of positive feelings.
Younger people who did not serve roll their eyes when the older guys start reminiscing about their army time. You can see them thinking "shut up already" :)
Of course there are people with your level of dislike of conscription, but I haven't met very many of them in Sweden.
> Israel is actually good pace to visit now.
Oh, I thought you were kidding. It has a lot of historic sites I'd like to see, but it'd be nice if the whole region was a lot calmer before I start thinking about going there. Not holding my breath on that one...
Orthodox have certain political views, that do not mix well with majority of liberal population. They claim ethical/non-military grounds when it comes to conscription, but are very strongly opinionated in other areas.
And look who is doing actual fighting in Gaza. There are are like 5000 US Navy seals. Conscript army can not even man fortified bunkers!
> My claim is that among the top 10 happiest countries,
I read Israel faces genocide, that does not sound very happy!
If you look at some stats, North Korea is doing pretty well, they have like 40% gender equality or whatever.
I would really recommend you to travel a bit. You obviously do not have much experience (stats, research). Israel is quite ok now.
If you want good safe place for "cultural shock", Jeddah would be good, nice corrals...
Their "ethical grounds" is that religious studies and keeping themselves separate is more important than military service, not that conscription is ethically wrong in itself. If they had their own country, they'd happily use conscription.
So you can make all kinds of arguments why this group is the worst. Their views doesn't support your claim that there is a "huge opposition to conscription on ethical grounds in Israel".
> Conscript army can not even man fortified bunkers
That's like saying child labor is wrong because children have a poor sense of quality. Ok, true, but that's not why I'm against it.
And of course I don't agree that the conscript armies in the nordic countries are inherently much worse than professional armies.
The happiest country on the planet is Finland, which is even more gung-ho about conscription than Sweden. The nordic countries, Israel, and Switzerland all have conscription and are also all in the top 10 happiest countries. (Side note: I think it'd be dangerous to abolish conscription in Finland. The Finns might get so over-happy that they start talking to strangers at bus stops and doing other things signifying that the end is near.)
As far as the quality of the soldiers, I will give you that there are many countries where poorly trained conscripts are of very low quality.
But as far as the nordic countries go, I'd say that the conscript soldiers in general are motivated and perform well in combat.
Swedish UN troops composed of conscript soldiers who later volunteer for a 6 month UN mission have performed very well compared to "professional" UN troops from other countries. For instance, read up on "shootbat" (BA01) in Bosnia 1993-1994.
I have heard many stories from Swedish ex-UN soldiers about how the Swedish battalions can solve pretty much any problem in the field since they are composed of people who work as auto mechanics, heavy equipment operators, electricians, civil engineers, computer programmers, etc in their civilian lives. At the same time, the "professional" soldiers from other countries get stuck as soon as there's a problem just a little bit outside of their army training.
I was conscripted, I fired 20 bullets over 12 months, I get more practise over weekend of paintball! Rest was just bullying, cleaning toilets and scraping potatoes. They would not even let me drive a truck, because I was too "unreliable"!
> If it's so great, why they have to force people into it?
The fact that people are forced is not in opposition to the fact that they can still be motivated and capable once training is over.
> I was conscripted, I fired 20 bullets over 12 months. Rest was just bullying, cleaning toilets and scraping potatoes. They would not even let me drive a truck, because I was too "unreliable"!
Conscription sucked for you, sure. If everyone in that army receives that level of training, I will concede that it will be neither motivated nor capable.
But we have plenty of examples where countries with conscription armies have performed well in armed conflicts.
So the concept of conscription is not obviously ineffective. It depends on the implementation.
But while you will find absolutely no support for slavery in the Nordic countries, there is 100.0% support for conscription in the Swedish parliament.
The people forced into conscription in Sweden later end up voting for parties who support it. I doubt you'll find the same thing with many ex-slaves, right?
The "huge opposition" that you keep bringing up just doesn't exist here.
My "practical" opposition to slavery is that I will never ever become slave again, no matter if waht, if I am forced into it!
Uhh, what? Did you just make that up?
Funny how both the left party and the green party are for forced conscription in Sweden if there's such a strong opposition against it. You'd think they could get a lot of votes by campaigning against conscription? Which they don't...
So not just Uncle Tom, but also total misogynistic! Please do not ignore women, they are human beings and they matter too!
However, I was speaking somewhat more narrowly of active defensive combat situations. I think this is pretty different from the peacetime conscription practiced by Finland, Sweden, etc. I was speaking of the group that did not volunteer when given impetus to do so.
Let's say that Finland were invaded by Russia. First, the currently-conscripted Finnish army would defend. Secondly, any additional volunteers from the populace that would like to help defend their homeland, will also help defend. Thirdly, if these first two groups are insufficient, additional conscription will be performed against the remaining population.
My claim is that on average, the third group will perform more poorly than the second group. I don't mean to compare either to the first group.
It is not 1940 something.
Perhaps the specific example I gave of Finland does not hold, but I think the spirit of my example still does.
First profi army becomes senior force, that trains whomever wants to hold a gun (second army). There is never political support to draft third army (like everyone). Remains of first army flee after government collapses. Political regime changes.
Finland has a population of 5.5 million people. They have almost 900 000 soldiers including reserves in their armed forces that they can mobilize in case of war.
When war breaks out, they have already trained as many people as possible. There aren't many left to conscript at that point.
It was the same for Sweden during the cold war. The armed forces would have numbered almost a million soldiers out of a population of 8 million. On top of that, an additional 1.5 million swedes were part of the total defence forces.
> My claim is that on average, the third group will perform more poorly than the second group. I don't mean to compare either to the first group.
The thinking in Sweden has always been that conscription leads to a democratization of the army, stronger popular support for the armed forces, and a stronger will to defend the country.
So sure, if the country is invaded, the people who have not served before and refuse to do so even after an invasion will not be as good soldiers.
This mystery applies to most everything, not just conscription.
In Sweden, I've never seen any serious opposition to conscription on ethical grounds. My impression is that it is the same in the other nordic countries.
No, not for 100% of the voters. But you can still say that the issue is "well agreed upon".
If there was a "huge opposition to conscription because it is slavery", then one or more of the political parties in Sweden would be opposed to it. And those parties would get a majority of the votes if people thought that the issue was the most important one.
Instead there is no political party against conscription in Sweden. Not even the left party or the green party, which really surprised me since they are normally against that sort of thing.
There is also no political debate about conscription in Sweden on ethical grounds.
Compare this with the monarchy and the king in Sweden. Here, there is definitely a vocal opposition, and several large parties are against it. It is far less "well agreed upon" than conscription, and it is harder to say that people voting for a party that is not against the monarchy actually agree with that.
What about 5%?
>But you can still say that the issue is "well agreed upon".
You can say whatever you like, but whether what one says is true is an important but often ~uncomfortable detail.
> If there was a "huge opposition to conscription because it is slavery", then one or more of the political parties in Sweden would be opposed to it.
Reality necessarily resolves this way, without exception? And, this is knowable, and known, necessarily? Incorrect belief is not possible here?
> There is also no political debate about conscription in Sweden on ethical grounds.
Are you describing your knowledge of mainstream debate, or the fact of the matter of all debate in existence, however "serious" it appears (aka: is)?
> Compare this with the monarchy and the king in Sweden.
The thing itself, or some memetic cultural narrative of it, like what one reads in the newspaper or on internet forums?
If the former: how?
If the latter: why? To what end?
These series are also scary because they somehow managed to remain relevant. Maybe the way the world works hasn't changed that much after all.
But the really clever thing about the writing is that you never know which party Jim Hacker is a member of and it is equally believable regardless of which one - it's so remarkable that it's a series about politics which manages to be really quite apolitical in that sense.
0. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v02/n10/antony-jay/informed-...
On the other hand, it's not like politics is better in the US which had The West Wing, which is very aspirational and not cynical at all so idk...
Some civil servants find Utopia too painful to watch because it hits too close to home. The show has made several very prescient predictions [2].
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_(Australian_TV_series...
[2] https://www.news.com.au/sport/sports-life/abc-comedy-series-...
I wonder how Twenty-Twelve compares to reality
This proves the idea that you can get a result that points the way you want it to. But it doesn't quite prove that the leading questions have any effect.
To do that they would need to ask 2 more sets of questions with the "oppose"/"support" questions inverted. Otherwise the effect could just be due to the different wording of the final question.
No, you're misreading too - see my other comment.
But in that case you need to add a control for both questions without the prior four questions. How do you know the difference in phrasing doesn't matter?
I love how they worded that. Having once worked for Ipsos, they DEFINITELY do it, but the sentence is correct, I don't recall any instances of it being done "on such a topic."
Eg, if I asked you "should Israel dismantle the Hamas terrorist organization responsible for the 10/7/2023 murder of 1500 people" - most people would say "yes" because the words "dismantle the terrorist organization" resonate with most people.
If I asked them "do you support a ceasefire in Gaza" - most people would also say yes, because the word ceasefire would resonate with them.
Obviously these would be contradictory results. What this survey wouldn't tell you is how many people actually think about this topic and which way they lean.
A better designed survey would be something like this:
Question 1: How aware are you of the current conflict in Gaza (1-5) Question 2: In your own words, how would you describe the conflict? Question 3: If 1 is "Ceasefire at all costs" and 10 is "eliminate terrorists at all costs", where would you place your opinion?
Having these 3 datapoints would enable you to filter by those who actually have an opinion (or, find out what percentage has an opinion), use question 2 to validate that and/or gain new insights and use 3 to identify how strongly people lean one way or another.
How you would dismantle Hamas while having a cease fire in place is left as an exercise to the reader.
I wouldn't expect the average survey to handle it too well, though.