A 2 Islands Experiment - a thought experiment opinion question about which US political party would perform better

[anotherneil]

I don't think there can be an actual real-life experiment like this.

Why not?

This merely involves having people come together to do things people already do.

If it's a question of funding, I don't think that would be a problem. Plenty of money has been on experiments.

For example, billions of dollars were spent to build the LHC to smash atoms: Large Hadron Collider - Wikipedia

There's even a proposal to spend $17 billion on a larger atom smasher: CERN proposes $17 billion particle smasher that would be 3 times bigger than the Large Hadron Collider

It could even be done in a way that makes money by setting it up to be a TV show analogous to Survivor, except there isn't a contestant who wins a million dollars, etc.

Well, Republicans have also demonstrated intolerance towards LGBTQ people, as well as indifference/intolerance towards the poor and lower classes. That's what I meant by socially intolerant.

I would also include intolerance towards immigrants, although that seems to vary by the level of wealth the immigrants might have. Republicans like wealthy immigrants. They even like wealthy Muslims. I still get a chuckle at those pictures of George W. Bush kissing a Saudi prince.

Well, I am aware of how the media likes to spread these types of stories about Republicans, but I don't buy into them as if they reflect all Republicans or as if Democrats aren't any worse than any Republicans who are like that.

I don't know if one can directly associate the Democrats with cancel culture and Antifa.

They don't have to be "directly" associated - however, you do have a point regarding more recent cancel culture situations, such as with Bud Light and anyone who doesn't fully support Israel's genocidal activity.

But both parties have been known to weaponize government agencies and the legal system against people they don't like (or those they might have deemed a threat to US national security, such as MLK).

You mean like McCarthyism and Nixon's enemies list as examples of weaponization by Republicans?

Trump appears to be a divisive force within the Republicans, although my impression is that most of their grudge against Trump is personal more than ideological.

I don't know about that; these high-profile Republican politicians don't have loyalty to the Republican ideology & I think they're supporting and endorsing Kamala Harris because Trump has done and wants to do things that go against their wealth and power interests (well, I suppose that could be considered "personal").

 

[F1fan]

No need to speculate about 2 islands, just look at quality of life among the states. The ten worst are red states.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/13/10-states-worst-quality-of-life-america.html

Most of the top ten are blue states.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/13/best-states-quality-of-life-america.html

 

[anotherneil]

No need to speculate about 2 islands, just look at quality of life among the states. The ten worst are red states.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/13/10-states-worst-quality-of-life-america.html

Most of the top ten are blue states.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/13/best-states-quality-of-life-america.html

It's exactly this sort of stuff from the media that makes me want to have this "island" experiment to find out the truth. Red, blue, yellow, green, purple, orange, whatever color code you want give them, they all consist of Democrats and Republicans. I don't trust media sources, particularly NBC, and when you're talking about US states, how well each one of them is doing can be affected by federal policies that might favor some over others.

 

[Heyo]

The poll consisted of four choices.

The poll consists of two choices, two for each group.

The first is "(For US citizens or long-term US residents) Democrat island would be better."
The second is "(For US citizens or long-term US residents) Republican island would be better."
The third is "(For all others) Democrat island would be better."
The fourth is "(For all others) Republican island would be better."

So if you're not a US citizen and you aren't a long-term US resident, then you ought to be voting for the third or fourth option, otherwise you're being dishonest by choosing the first or second - and in this case it seems you got caught red-handed being dishonest.

I understand now what you meant, (and I voted now). It wasn't clear to me (and obviously to @Altfish) as the choices were ambiguously labelled. I read that as "a Democrat island would be better for US citizens" etc. Then I would have needed two votes.

 

[anotherneil]

The poll consists of two choices, two for each group.

I understand now what you meant, (and I voted now). It wasn't clear to me (and obviously to @Altfish) as the choices were ambiguously labelled. I read that as "a Democrat island would be better for US citizens" etc. Then I would have needed two votes.

Well ok; thank you for bringing this to my attention. I'm not trying to be confusing or misleading.

If anyone needs clarification, please ask and I'll do my best to try to clarify things.

 

[Heyo]

It's exactly this sort of stuff from the media that makes me want to have this "island" experiment to find out the truth. Red, blue, yellow, green, purple, orange, whatever color code you want give them, they all consist of Democrats and Republicans. I don't trust media sources, particularly NBC, and when you're talking about US states, how well each one of them is doing can be affected by federal policies that might favor some over others.

Who do you trust? Even if that experiment could be made, you wouldn't be able to do it alone. Would you trust your co-experimenters when the result was that the Republicans tanked their economy while the Democrats were thriving?

 

[anotherneil]

Who do you trust? Even if that experiment could be made, you wouldn't be able to do it alone. Would you trust your co-experimenters when the result was that the Republicans tanked their economy while the Democrats were thriving?

My 10th grade PE teacher would occasionally make quips on the days that we had in-class sessions (as opposed to in the gym), when we were settling in at the start of class; one of them was this: "trust no one." I thought that this was pretty deep & it's what I remember from high school more clearly than anything else.

My 1st semester English composition professor in college said something similar: "always be a skeptical reader." BTW, he was a book author, and one of his books was the "original literary source" for the movie Bruce Almighty.

When it comes to large media outlets that make their money by advertising for large corporations, each with their own interests and agenda, I don't trust it. For the sake of your own interests, you shouldn't trust large media outlets, either. No one should trust them for the sake of their own interests. We're not all adversaries to each other; we're all in this together.

With experiments, we can see the results for ourselves, so we don't need to trust some narrative from media outlets.

In general, even when an experiment is carried out and isn't trusted, it can be repeated to corroborate the results.

In this case it'll take a long time to repeat an experiment that takes several years, but what I would do is allow visitors to observe for themselves the performance of the islands. Another thing that can be done is to set up web cameras that are publicly accessible on the internet for anyone to see live video streams showing how each island is doing.

I'm more likely to trust something I can directly observe myself than a report of results, alone.

So to answer your question, it depends on whether I can see those results for myself or am just handed a report with results, and if my observation is that the Republican island's economy tanked while the Democrat island's economy thrived, then I would accept that and not deny what I witnessed for myself.

If you were in the same position, would you trust your co-experimenters when the result was that the Democrats tanked their economy while the Republicans were thriving?

 

[Heyo]

If you were in the same position, would you trust your co-experimenters when the result was that the Democrats tanked their economy while the Republicans were thriving?

I would be very sceptic, as the result is opposite to "previous experiments". I would look at their sources.
You can do that with the experiment that is running for 250 years now. When the media publishes lists like the one you don't trust, look at the sources, usually numbers published by the local governments. Look at their sources, if you don't trust the government, usually self reported numbers by the local businesses. You will find some inconsistencies (they are always there), but the gist is that states run by Democrat governments fare on average better than those that are run by Republicans.
Now, don't jump to conclusions. There is a correlation, that doesn't mean there is also a causation. It may just be that people living in "rich" states, tend to vote Democrat, not the other way around. It may also be that it is a random coincidence and there is no causal connection between administration and economy.
But when you look at historical data, you might see a trend. When states run by Democrats for multiple terms still outperform Republican run states, you start to see a pattern.

 

[HonestJoe]

Yes, but that's why I distinguish between solidly Republican and solidly Democrat & the idea is to flush out which political party has a sound or better platform. If the results did turn out to be fairly similar, then I think that in itself would be very interesting!

That's the point. The platforms, policies and rhetoric might sound different (especially during elections) but the actions when it gets down to the practical realities, especially in supporters own daily lives, turn out to be very similar.

Another factor is that both US parties are extremely broad based (even more so that parties in most other countries), so the actual politics and principles of individual members would diverge significantly (even amongst the most committed supporters). That is why a random selection of supporters of any given party would still be a fairly wide cross section of US society and so would likely end up striking the same kind of balances as happen in the US anyway.

I think (yes - my opinion, here) that the Republican island has a good change of doing very well and an excellent chances of at least doing ok, and the Democrat island is going to run into so many problems and difficulties that it's likely to end in a disaster.

Of course you do, but that isn't because of the realities of either parties policies (let alone their actual actions), it's because you already have a predetermined bias that anything labelled as one is good and anything labelled as the other is bad. That is the more relevant take-away from your thought experiment than the perceptions or opinions of any partisan individuals.

 

[Altfish]

It is; who ever said it wasn't?


Wrong; where you live is the most relevant and most important factor involved.

If you haven't spent many years living in the US, whether as a US citizen or long-term resident, then you don't have an internal perspective to formulate such an opinion.

For all others (those who are neither US citizens nor long-term residents), they - including you - only have what they and you hear about US politics, which is generally and predominantly spin & propaganda from the media, so opinion about Democrats and Republicans is going to be based primarily and exclusively on that.



The poll consisted of four choices.

The first is "(For US citizens or long-term US residents) Democrat island would be better."
The second is "(For US citizens or long-term US residents) Republican island would be better."
The third is "(For all others) Democrat island would be better."
The fourth is "(For all others) Republican island would be better."

So if you're not a US citizen and you aren't a long-term US resident, then you ought to be voting for the third or fourth option, otherwise you're being dishonest by choosing the first or second - and in this case it seems you got caught red-handed being dishonest.

It was not clear before I read this post.

 

[Stevicus]

Why not?

This merely involves having people come together to do things people already do.

If it's a question of funding, I don't think that would be a problem. Plenty of money has been on experiments.

For example, billions of dollars were spent to build the LHC to smash atoms: Large Hadron Collider - Wikipedia

There's even a proposal to spend $17 billion on a larger atom smasher: CERN proposes $17 billion particle smasher that would be 3 times bigger than the Large Hadron Collider

It could even be done in a way that makes money by setting it up to be a TV show analogous to Survivor, except there isn't a contestant who wins a million dollars, etc.

I suppose a simulation might be doable - something like the failed Biosphere 2 experiment. But as I recall from that, there was a good deal of infighting and dissension among the participants.

Well, I am aware of how the media likes to spread these types of stories about Republicans, but I don't buy into them as if they reflect all Republicans or as if Democrats aren't any worse than any Republicans who are like that.

The only real way to judge the parties is by the policies and laws they support, along with their methods, and the results/consequences of those policies. It may not reflect *all* of them, but they can be judged according to the results of the policies they support (or oppose or refuse to even address).

They don't have to be "directly" associated - however, you do have a point regarding more recent cancel culture situations, such as with Bud Light and anyone who doesn't fully support Israel's genocidal activity.

In your thought experiment here, the issue of US aid to Israel doesn't appear that it would be a factor.

"Cancel culture" is really just another way of saying "boycott," which is a peaceful, legitimate political act, though (as I mentioned), it can't be associated with any particular political party. But since it's political in nature, it can sometimes backfire and/or fail. Or it could create even more political dissension. It's a knife which cuts both ways.

You mean like McCarthyism and Nixon's enemies list as examples of weaponization by Republicans?

Yes, those would be examples of that process in action. Although Democrats can also be associated with it as well. For example, many FBI activities and surveillance against Martin Luther King (along with his assassination) occurred under the Democrats' watch.

I don't know about that; these high-profile Republican politicians don't have loyalty to the Republican ideology & I think they're supporting and endorsing Kamala Harris because Trump has done and wants to do things that go against their wealth and power interests (well, I suppose that could be considered "personal").

The reason it sounds personal is that they don't really seem to be willing to examine or look at the ideology all that closely. I've observed active resistance and deflection, which I would interpret as a refusal to discuss the ideological positions of the US government and the political factions which control that government.

But when you hear them speak, they all claim to believe in basically the same things: Freedom, liberty, justice for all. They believe America is the land of the free and the home of the brave. They say they believe in the Constitution and democracy. They all claim to revere these things. Whether or not they're telling the truth is a different matter, but at least on paper, they all have basically the same ideology. That even includes capitalism and free market economics. It also includes US foreign policy and attitudes towards military interventionism. They all wear American flag pins and pay lip service to "supporting the troops."

I'm not saying they agree on absolutely everything, but their basic core ideology remains as a foundation they have in common. All that's really left after that are personality disputes and dissension over value judgements which can happen in any organization run by humans.