The argument given relies on a potted history of the US. It doesn’t address the relative success of UK democracy—which even British constitutional scholars sometimes describe as an elective dictatorship that notoriously doesn’t give a veto to minorities. It doesn’t address the history of France, Germany, Italy, Canada, or any other large successful democracy, none of which use the US system, most of which aren’t even presidential,
If you want to make a point about US history, fine. If you want to talk about democracy, please try drawing from a sample size larger than one.
No offence to JW, but incidentally is there a term for the common cognitive bias where someone who knows a lot about X assumes (incorrectly) the same applies to superficially similar things Y that they know little about? More specific than mere ‘overconfidence’ or ‘overgeneralising’.
I can’t think of such a term, and AI’s best effort is ultracrepidarianism, which isn’t quite the same, and which doesn’t roll off the tongue. Unless someone else has a better idea, I suggest ‘misgeneralising’. You’re right that it’s a relatively common bias and needs a name.
I think the error is not just that they generalised incorrectly, but that they didn’t know enough to be justified in doing so. So it combines overconfidence and over/misgeneralising.
The word ‘sophomoric’ includes some of the right connotations. One definition says ‘Overconfident but immature or poorly informed’.
So though ‘sophomoric’ is not quite specific enough itself, maybe it could be used to make a new phrase eg ‘sophomoric bias’ or ‘sophomoric generalisation’.
Agreed. Especially the “electoral college is good actually” part is where I started laughing. If you don’t want tyranny by the majority, perhaps just not crippling your system by not using first-past-the-post voting would be a first step to a more sane system.
The argument given relies on a potted history of the US. It doesn’t address the relative success of UK democracy—which even British constitutional scholars sometimes describe as an elective dictatorship that notoriously doesn’t give a veto to minorities. It doesn’t address the history of France, Germany, Italy, Canada, or any other large successful democracy, none of which use the US system, most of which aren’t even presidential,
If you want to make a point about US history, fine. If you want to talk about democracy, please try drawing from a sample size larger than one.
No offence to JW, but incidentally is there a term for the common cognitive bias where someone who knows a lot about X assumes (incorrectly) the same applies to superficially similar things Y that they know little about? More specific than mere ‘overconfidence’ or ‘overgeneralising’.
I can’t think of such a term, and AI’s best effort is ultracrepidarianism, which isn’t quite the same, and which doesn’t roll off the tongue. Unless someone else has a better idea, I suggest ‘misgeneralising’. You’re right that it’s a relatively common bias and needs a name.
I think the error is not just that they generalised incorrectly, but that they didn’t know enough to be justified in doing so. So it combines overconfidence and over/misgeneralising.
The word ‘sophomoric’ includes some of the right connotations. One definition says ‘Overconfident but immature or poorly informed’.
So though ‘sophomoric’ is not quite specific enough itself, maybe it could be used to make a new phrase eg ‘sophomoric bias’ or ‘sophomoric generalisation’.
Agreed. Especially the “electoral college is good actually” part is where I started laughing. If you don’t want tyranny by the majority, perhaps just not crippling your system by not using first-past-the-post voting would be a first step to a more sane system.