Posted by MaxLeiter 9/4/2025
But I shudder at the thought of the new AI product that this data will inspire or train.
It’s gotten to the point that I see any significant collection of data about humans as a low-key threat to humanity.
There's 180 participants.
There's 26 people marked at "very liberal", which is 14% of the sample.
There's 39 people marked at "very conservative", which is 21% of the sample.
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Then we have 31 people marked as liberal, which is 17% of the sample.
And we have 63 people marked as conservative, which is 35% of the sample.
That already I would say is kind of an issue: more than a third of the sample are conservative people and 17% are their liberal 'counter part' or 'equivalent' (sorry for my wording, I'm not native speaker).
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If we do a little additions we therefore have:
39+63 = 102, which means that 56% of the sample is conservative
31+26= 57, which means that 31% of the sample is liberal
The rest of the sample are centrists or "neutrals" (whatever this means)
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I am NOT saying that the study is invalid I am not saying that it's poorly done
However, I think it's fair to say that the sample is skewed towards people with conservative views, by a HUGE amount, not just "a little bit".
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Aside from this: amazing UI design, I'm jealous and admirative of the results ^^
> There's 39 people marked at "very conservative", which is 21% of the sample
I think these numbers are off. Where are you getting that from? Is there raw data somewhere?
I counted the people on the page and see 39 very conservative and 47 very liberal (not 26).
I did not check the other numbers. But with that its 78 liberals which is 43%. And the total liberals + conservatives are 180. So I dont think the total participant number is 180 - thats just the total of liberals and conservatives.
And if its a 56/43 (~1.3) split for conservatives that seems to actually udnerrepresent conservatives compared to the general population without moderates. Where we see a 36/25 (1.44) conservative/liberal split in terms of ideology, not voter registration, which I think aligns more closely with the "political views" label.
>The way Americans identify themselves ideologically was unchanged in 2021, continuing the close division that has persisted in recent years between those describing themselves as either conservative or moderate, while a smaller share identifies as liberal. On average last year, 37% of Americans described their political views as moderate, 36% as conservative and 25% as liberal.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/388988/political-ideology-stead...
If I make the window narrow enough, there are 10 squares in a row and 19 rows, a total of 190 squares. The number that are coloured "very conservative", "conservative", "centrist", "liberal", "very liberal", respectively, are 39, 67, 24, 31, 29.
In percentages, that's 20.5%, 35.3%, 12.6%, 16.3%, 15.3%. Roughly 56% conservatives, 32% liberals.
If I make the window really wide, I see 20 squares in a row and 13 rows, a total of 260 squares. The distribution is now 39, 100, 37, 46, 38.
In percentages, that's 15.0%, 38.4%, 14.2%, 17.7%, 14.6%. Roughly 53% conservatives, 32% liberals.
It's weird that the number of squares increases and decreases when you resize the window, and I would argue it's misleading because there's an animated transition that is obviously meaningless. But it's a lot worse that the proportions aren't consistent! All of us saw exactly 39 in the "very conservative" category, so maybe it is failing to proportionally scale that category while scaling the others?
Conclusions:
1. There's a programming bug that misrepresents the proportions.
2. The sample is significantly skewed toward conservatives.
In any case, it would be good to see the actual data for this stuff.
How about HN users? Do you typically enjoy chatting with an Uber driver?
If this "30 minutes with a stranger" experiment was performed during the pandemic, it could be that people were short on human connection at the time, and that explains why they valued it so much.
I've had interesting conversations with uber drivers and not so interesting conversations. I prefer to use one of those charge-by-the-minute rental cars if they're available, because they tend to cost 1/3 as much and I'm perfectly capable of driving myself.
Sure, but if you've ridden in an Uber, you presumably would've noticed that your prediction was off?
Regarding social media - it has created more gaps rather than making us more social. It's ultimate goal is to capture our attention for as long as possible rather than connecting us. And lately, with the celebrities populating it, it has become a showoff/bragging machine.
If web page does not look like a blog or a newsletter, it is not wrong to assume the app format