How big is it?

 

No not another election post.  Run, run, run far away.  For the past week there has been considerable focus on the candidates crowd size.  Just read this post from CBS news regarding the former President Trump's claims regarding Vice President Harris's crowd size.  So for the past week or so there has been considerable media focus on the candidates claims of crowd sizes and their opponents responses.  The first question one might have is why write about this.  Quite simply we (I) have a decision to make.  Who should we cast our ballot for this coming November?  That is what this blog has always been about; making decisions.  If you are a responsible citizen of these United States your voting decision will be influenced by many factors.  One of those factors will be information received through various media sources.  We will then process process and disseminate that information and come to a decision.

So why this issue?  It is simplistic in concept.  Issues of policies quite often are difficult to fully comprehend crowd size can be ascertained by counting the number of people.  However, this simple concept can also be misrepresented in many ways.  This allows us to investigate ways to sift through layers of misinformation and use what we learn to make a sound decision.

How would one begin?  As simple as this concept is media, politicians and pundits make careers out of adding layers of confusion to any issue.  So our first task is to avoid all the confusion.  We may not be able to avoid the confusion all together.  Confusion can be mitigated by focusing on the decision we are trying to make.  Although this is pretty much textbook strategy it easier said than done.  One of the primary benefits is that you can immediately ignore any issue that you deem irrelevant to your decision.  By continually reassessing how information affects our decision we can keep ourselves from getting drowned in the layers of confusion.

Before continuing this post is not really interested in the actual validity of the information we receive.  That to me is really a separate issue entirely.  It does go without saying that information validity is important.  However one of the main pitfalls I see, is arguments about the information accuracy and not one how the information affects our decisions.  I am not claiming that one should make decisions without checking the accuracy of the information.  All I am saying is that what is said by various candidates (and their representatives) can help us make our voting decisions.

Once we determine that the information is relevant I think the next approach would be to assess its direct affect on us and our lives.  This may seem self centered.  However I do believe it does serve a distinct purpose.  It exposes our biases.  All of our decisions are affected by our prejudices, so why not acknowledge them from the start.  I applied this strategy the first time I voted in a Canadian Federal election.  This election revolved around a non confidence vote on the federal budget of 1979.  The ruling party wanted to balance the budget by raising taxes on gasoline.  At this time I was a senior in High School and was planning to attend university.  I was madly trying to save as much money as possible.  Anything that would curtail my savings was critical.  So I voted for the opposition.  When you are 18 it is all about you.

As a more mature (aka older) adult I am able to look past my own needs to look at the bigger picture.  How does the information affect the country as a whole?  This can involve multiple layers of analysis.  It may include several concepts that we are unfamiliar with.  However I go back to some of my previous blogs, especially the one: WE all bring something....  In this post I argue that we all are capable in a variety of ways to process information.  We only have to put in the effort.

Lastly what does this information say about the actual candidate?  If a particular candidate is constantly referencing a particular piece of information would could then infer what is important to that candidate and their followers.  From what is said we can get a general idea of what is important to a particular candidate.  We could then make reasonable predictions as to how a candidate may rule given what they feel is important.

Circling back to the original information regarding crowd size.  Let's see how we would process the information available.  So again the issue/information is the alleged crowd size.  the trump campaign is disputing the size of the crowd at a Harris event.  The decision we are endeavoring to make is who to vote for.  Now we are focused not on disputing the actual information but on how it affects the decision.  We can now continue without getting bogged down in all the rhetoric regarding the validity of the information.  In this case I am going to combine my first 2 strategies.  Those being, is this relevant to the decision and how does it directly affect me.  My simple answer to both of these is no.  I feel that this issue has no relevance to the voting decision and it has no direct affect on me.  I also deem this issue irrelevant to the country as a whole.  I cannot envision how a candidates crowd size will affect my decision, affect me personally or affect the country as a whole.  So why not stop here?

What is being said does give us some insight into our candidates and what they feel is important.  I am hesitant to get too detailed regarding this part of the information processing steps.  I try my best to not let my own opinions get in the way of helping people process information.  My goal in this post is to provide a framework for processing various streams of information that aids people in making their own decisions.  I am also fully aware that 2 people can look at the same information and come to different conclusions.  This would then lead those people to make different decisions.  I am not only mindful of this conflict but I am also 100% comfortable with it.

So back to the issue at hand.  I do have a couple of thoughts on candidates commenting on this.  Many of my thoughts grow from my own biases.  One bias is that if you do not have anything constructive to say why say it?  So my first thought is, why comment?   Is there any direct correlation of crowd size and a candidates ability to govern?  How does getting into a pissing contest about photos, AI and crowd size help a candidates campaign?  I posted a link to Trump's disputes regarding Harris's crowd size at the beginning of this post.  It was very easy to find articles from the Harris campaign disputing Trump's claims.  So it seems that both sides are engaging in this dispute.  Unfortunately it leaves us stuck in the middle of a dispute that we have little interest in.  Since this is a dispute that I have little interest in I would probably think less of the person who started the entire conversation.  In this case it appears to me that this whole mess was started by the Trump campaign.  However we have the media to thank for publicizing the entire uninteresting conversation.