NationStates Jolt Archive

I've just noticed some peculiar poll results from my thread on leaders (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=423374). The majority of people believe that the further a ruler geopolitically is from the citizens he/she is governing, the less likely that the ruler really cares about those people, or the issues affecting them.

Drawing from this poll alone, with no previous knowledge of NS, one would think the posters here are opposed to organizations like world government (since in a world government, rulers are geopolitically the furthest away from the governed).

However, a few months ago there was a thread on if NS players support the idea of world government (here (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=409081)). Going back to this poll, the results showed that 70% of NSers would either support a world government, or support the idea of one

Obviously these poll results seem to contrast one another. So I ask the people of NS: What good is supporting the idea of a world government if you also share the belief that those in the world government would care less for the people the govern?

I can't speak for them, but maybe if the world government worked through delegation of power to smaller units (thereby having almost no power at the top), it would be better.

But I'm not arguing for any world government.

The discrepancy is due to the fact that polls in this forum are completely uncontrolled and unscientific. Also, consider the existance of self-selection bias. The thread on world government asks participants for their individual opinions. Such a thread is likely to attract more people who are interested in the issue of world government in general, including those who hold a positive view of world government. On the other hand, your poll question, "the further a ruler geopolitically is from the citizens he/she is governing, the less likely that the ruler really cares about those people, or the issues affecting them," asks people to agree or disagree with only one specific opinion. This opinion holds a negative view of geopolitically distant government, and thus is more likely to garner agreement from those who hold a similar negative view than the opposite positive view (EDIT: note that the margin of difference between the positive and negative answers in your poll is much larger than that in the world government poll). Not only is there self-selection bias, but the very issue and question raised in your poll is itself biased toward one particular view.

Political opinion polls are often unscientific, grossly biased, and should be consulted only with extreme skepticism and doubt.