Kill your family! Torch your house! Then go shoot yourself!

[Demeter]

OpEdNews.com

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_daniel_g_061016_kill_your_family_21_to.htm


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October 17, 2006

Kill your family! Torch your house! Then go shoot yourself!

By Daniel Geery

- After controlling for personal attitudes and demographic membership, researchers found social networks that voters are embedded in, which exert powerful influences on their voting behavior.

- We do not merely act on information we receive directly from the media. We get new information, interpretation, re-interpretation and influence via our social networks.

- Often, those eligible to vote do not register, or are registered and choose not to vote. A common excuse given is that a single vote does not count for much. We saw in the 2000 presidential election how the tipping point of the whole national outcome was determined by a few hundred local votes. The power of a single vote has never been so obvious.

- Voter turnout is highly correlated among family, friends, and co-workers. If those in your social network vote, and make that known, then there is a much higher probability that you will vote also. We are all influenced by those who we view as similar to us.

- Trends in groups often start with one or a few persons taking a stand. Expressing your intent on
voting in your network is one way to get other network members to the voting booth. One can increase voter participation by announcing plans to vote. One must do this in a community that is predisposed to your candidate.

- Researchers investigated the effect of a single person's decision to vote. The person's influence spread throughout their local cluster. People were 15 percent more likely to vote if one of their political discussants made clear their intentions to vote.

- Within the research population, a citizen would positively affect the turnout decision of up to four other people. The researchers called this a "turnout cascade". In addition, the increased turnout was found to favor the candidate of the initiator. Human clusters tend to contain similar preferences for candidates and issues, thus an increase in participation was equivalent to an increase in between two and three votes for the candidate.

- Building connections to undecided voters and those who support your view are key battlegrounds in elections.

- If you are well integrated in your neighborhood, and are known for providing useful advice to neighbors then consider talking to them about your candidate. Also put out a yard sign supporting your candidate, and suggest others do so.

- Unless they are public figures, strangers do not influence. Instead of having strangers call
voters, or knock on doors, the campaign should find well-connected supporters and have them go out into their clusters building support for the candidate. Bringing in masses of campaign workers, who are strangers, to contact local voters may cause more harm than good.

- This may have been part of the cause in the collapse of the 2004 Dean campaign in Iowa. The Dean campaign had a strategy called the Dean Storm - they would fly in people from across the country who they had recruited on the Internet. These outsiders would then go out into the public to persuade caucus participants.

- The Kerry campaign had a more successful strategy, and an apparently better understanding of social networks. The Kerry campaign connected to local politicians who had already build local influence networks over the years. The Kerry people had friends, neighbors, and co-workers influencing each other, and a surprising victory....








Authors Bio: Geery lived off the grid for 15 years in an earth-sheltered, solar heated home, while his kids learned in school that solar energy isn't feasible. NAPTA hosts a page on Geery's foibles in education, and explains how he got his butt fired from a tenured teaching position. Here's a short clip of most recent solar contraption. His wife claims he's obsessive/ compulsive about his latest airborne project, though he argues he is merely "focused and motivated." Apparently, he's the only one in the world to respond to Osama bin Laden, call bullshit on him and George together, and expose them for the pansy ass rich kids that they are. Unfortunately, bin Laden has been too scared to write back and explain himsself; and George is still working hard to finish his goat book.

[fed-up]

1. this needs many more K/R's and maybe a different thread title n/t

[Demeter]

2. Unfortunately, That Is How the Article Is Titled At Source

The rules, you know....

the title makes sense if one reads the first quarter of the article, but the meat of the argument is here.