The mathematics of protest

[king_of_wrong]

I'm willing to be corrected, but I believe the largest protest ever in the UK was over the Iraq war and had (it's claimed) 1 million people. Obviously the true figure is unknowable, and that's a psychologically significant point (Louis Farrakhan wanted a "Million Man March" on Washington, in a country with 4-5x the population, as that would be a

Comments

[lupie_stardust]

Awesome. I enjoy being an extremist.

[king_of_wrong]

:)

[philmophlegm]

Clever.

Of course, they never think they are, because they mostly talk to people who think like they do. If they come across views that oppose their own cosy worldview, they shut their eyes, stick their fingers in their ears and go "la la la".

[king_of_wrong]

Aye. I've no doubt that there's probably a reasonably broad distribution of views present at any decent-sized protest, and therefore it's quite easy to find people significantly more-moderate or more-extreme than the median protester to give the middle a feeling of balance and calibration... but to the population as a whole, they're all swivel-eyed loons.

[theinquisitor]

Businesses seem to hold by the principle of 'take customer feedback seriously, despite relatively small numbers, because what one says, a lot more aren't saying, but agree with'.

Certainly, I reckon any successful business which got a letter of complaint from one customer in twenty would be acting in a real hurry.

Another way to look at the numbers... The 'extremism' may be in speaking out, not in holding an opinion.

[king_of_wrong]

Indeed... "What one person is saying, ten are only thinking"

Then again, for most protests it's 3-4 sigma (a few thousand protestors), so with 10 or even 100 people silently agreeing with each activist it's still going to amount to a single digit percentage of the population.

Of course, none of this determines whether the opinion in question is right or wrong, only that the mainstream vastly outnumbers any particular position. (Which is why I count myself as a Classical Liberal and think the state should do as little as possible: for just about any action the state can take, a huge number of people will disagree with it)