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Comment by curiousgal | Hacker News Reader

Talk about about being cheap! 900M is like 90M per year, that's a cheap price for understanding the structure and characteristics of a population. You can never repliacte a census using random surveys. It's the holy Grail of data.

Data from U.S. census from centuries ago is still being used to teach econometrics. But hey, if they were stupid enough to leave the EU then they're capable of doing anything.

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> You can never repliacte a census using random surveys. It's the holy Grail of data.

True. As a matter of fact it's good to use the census as a sort of periodic anchoring point for your surveys (which can happen more often).

To completely give up on the closest thing to ground truth that can be had is foolish.

The guy isn't a klutz, he's a respected statistician. He's saying that they are investigating to see whether there is a newer way that they could use to get comparable data.

It's quite possible that the answer will be "no there isn't". Worth taking a look at though.

> But hey, if they were stupid enough to leave the EU then they're capable of doing anything.

Why do you believe they are stupid to leave the EU?

> Data from U.S. census from centuries ago is still being used to teach econometrics. But hey, if they were stupid enough to leave the EU then they're capable of doing anything.

Should we judge the entire United States by the decision to elect Donald Trump then?

That's a strawman. I think we're allowed to judge the government by the actions of the government.

> But hey, if they were stupid enough to leave the EU than they're capable of doing anything.

This is quite offensive. Please don't tar the entire country with the same brush.

This was - and still is - a highly controversial & divisive subject. It was only voted in by 51.89% vs 48.11% of the population ...at the time - more recent polling suggests it has flipped (1)

1 - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-second...

> It was only voted in by 51.89% vs 48.11% of the population

It was voted for by 51.89% of the people who voted, which was 72.2% of the electorate.

It was only voted for by 37.4% of the electorate (46.5m) and only 26.2% of the overall population (66.4m).

People cast their vote by not voting too, you know.

If you cast the "I don't give a shit" vote, I'm not going to take you seriously if you cry about the outcome afterwards.

People also cast their vote by posting an invalid ballot paper, such as one with "Reform the voting system!" or "This is a stupid question!" written on it. Unfortunately it's quite hard to find out how many people do that. They're probably trying to discourage people from protesting in that way. The people who win the election like to pretend they have a mandate.

Those numbers are perfectly typical for a big vote in a western country. The US routinely decides presidential elections with less margin, less electorate turnout and a smaller portion of the population being eligible to vote.[1]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presiden...

It still aptly demonstrate the ability of the UK to shoot itself in the foot. Nobody believes that this necessary reflects badly on any individual British citizen. Unfortunately, in a democracy it only takes the barest of majorities to make bad decisions.

But to cheer you up: it's still better than in the US, where it's entirely possible to screw the country with slightly less than a majority (or even plurality).

I'd rather not be part of an organisation that feels the need to set an example to scare other members from the idea leaving. Yea the UK will suffer but partly because the EU is being vindictive.

The EU has gone out of its way to not be vindictive, even though this would be popular with voters. The only thing they haven't done is completely abandon the self-interest of its members and its principles.

It hasn't been vindictive at all, it is protecting the interests of its member states, just as it did when the UK was a member. The UK left the EU, not the other way round.

> set an example to scare other members

Ok, that attitude is fine. If I thought the EU was doing that, I would‘ve moved to Canada.

Trouble if, the only thing the EU has the power to do is to remove U.K. access to EU membership benefits. That’s not “vindictive”, it’s what the UK voted for after being repeatedly told this would happen.

In ‘92 Clinton won with barely 43% of the vote. I don’t hear people saying it didn’t reflect the mood of the country: https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_United_States_presi...

> where it's entirely possible to screw the country with slightly less than a majority (or even plurality)

I'm afraid that also applies to the UK's antiquated electoral system. Conservatives got 43.6% of the vote share, and they are screwing the country (if you think that Brexit, and particularly the hard Brexit they are heading for, counts).

Polling before the referendum also had the numbers 52% to 48% (although favouring remain)[0] so I don't put much faith in polling numbers.

The fact that there is -again- a conservative majority is quite telling with regards to /either/ how much of the country can be swayed by conservative media or by how much of the population seriously wants to leave the EU. (possibly a combination).

[0]: https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/docume...

And or something to be stupid it has to be proven to be wrong - let's see how it will turn for uk in the next decades. And UK was never a good fit culturally with the rest of the union anyway.

> it has to be proven to be wrong

Disagree: a belief can be true and stupid at the same time, for example any national lottery winner who bought the ticket because they thought it would be a good investment.

(I don’t expect success, but that’s both a separate argument and an entirely pointless argument given the events are now water under the bridge).

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