Make up & opinions of "Occupy Wall Street" participants released

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

From the new issue of New York Magazine, results of a poll they did w/ 100 participants:

Are you...
Male: 66%
Female: 30%
Other: 4%

How old are you?
Under 20: 10
20-29: 50
30-39: 15
40-49: 9
Over 50: 2

Pick one: Capitalism...
Isn't fundamentally evil; it just needs to be regulated: 46
Can't be saved; it's inherently immortal: 37
Didn't answer: 17

Pop quiz! The proposal to prohibit banks from engaging in both client trading and proprietary trading is called...
Glass-Steagall Act: 40
Volcker Rule: 6
Buffet Rule: 11
Elizabeth Warner Bill: 11
Didn't answer: 32
(Correct answer: Volcker Rule)

What do you think of Obama?
I believed in him, and he let me down: 40
I never believed in him: 27
He's doing the best he can: 22
He's doing great: 1

Did you vote in the 2010 midterm elections?
Yes: 39
No: 55
No because I wasn't old enough: 5

Rank yourself on the following Scale of Liberalism:
Not liberal at all: 6
Liberal but fairly mainstream (i.e., Barack Obama): 3
Strongly liberal (i.e., Paul Krugman): 12
Fed up with Democrats, believe country needs overhaul (i.e., Ralph Nader): 41
Convinced the U.S. government is no better than, say, Al Qaeda (i.e., Noam Chomsky): 34

Has the occupation been a success so far?
Yes: 79
No: 13

Some individual answers:

The country with the best government in the world is...
"Canada. It's most like the U.S. but more the way I want."
"Denmark."
"I don't accept the premises of this question."

Explain how you would fix Wall Street.
"A maximum-wage law."
"President Elizabeth Warren."
"Burn it down."

[Rusty Shackleford]

*vomit*

[L.A.P.]

*vomit*

What's so bad? They did a lot better than I though they would. Sure most of them have shown to be liberals but the second-largest demographic seem to be quite conscious.

[Rusty Shackleford]

true. i guess its just a gut reaction. pun semi-intended.

[The Douche]

Obama doing great...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/archive/7/73/20110401033803!Trollface.png

Nice...

[Conscript]

It could be a lot worse. It's good a chunk of them are somewhat anti-capitalist.

[tir1944]

So it seems that they're mostly Liberals and Hippies etc.,right?

[DaringMehring]

That is way better than I thought it would be. I am actually encouraged by this.

[Lobotomy]

Looks like the Ron Paul supporters could be just a vocal minority.

[Fawkes]

To be fair, some of those questions were totally fuckin loaded.

[tfb]

Fuck the Volcker question. Especially with a trick answer like Glass-Steagall.

Oh my! I can't believe the masses aren't economists! They must be wrong about having been fucked over by capitalism after all! Carry on, then.

[Comrade Funk]

Lol at the one guy who said Obama is doing great. This is actually not as bad as I thought it would be. Seems to be a nice grouping of socialists in this protest.

[Le Socialiste]

It's interesting, to say the least. I can't say my view has changed upon seeing this, though (ftr, I know that wasn't your intent). If anything the stats only reinforce what I previously suspected.

[Bardo]

Obama doing great...

Nice...

Literally 1% of the responders answered with "He's doing great".

I'm not sure whether I'm disappointed that 46% said that capitalism just needs to be regulated, or impressed that 37% said that capitalism cannot be saved.

[Rocky Rococo]

Itthrew me that the ones who thought capitalism can't be saved consider it "inherently immortal". :cool:

[Aleenik]

I'm actually surprised at how many anti-capitalist there are. I expected their numbers to be much lower.

[Tablo]

This is surprising. It really seems like the country is radicalizing quite rapidly with the economy going to shit.

[piet11111]

Conscience always lags behind events so we have a lot to look forward too once these people are radicalizing.

[The Douche]

Literally 1% of the responders answered with "He's doing great"

I know, and the individual was at a protest which includes criticism of Obama's actions. Hence my inclusion of the troll face, because I feel confident that the individual was trolling.

[Sasha]

Lol at the one guy who said Obama is doing great. This is actually not as bad as I thought it would be. Seems to be a nice grouping of socialists in this protest.


this, not to mention most experienced radicals, non-whites etc etc there probably would not be as eager to talk to the journalists as young white liberals so the results, esp under an small number like 100 people are probably even negatively skewed.

[Commissar Rykov]

Obama doing great...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/archive/7/73/20110401033803%21Trollface.png

Nice...
Well technically he is doing great compared to the rest of the nation.;) Oh they didn't mean his own finances...well that changes it.

[Smyg]

Wow, those are some horrible statistics. And I mean that, uhm, statistically.

[Ocean Seal]

Pick one: Capitalism...
Isn't fundamentally evil; it just needs to be regulated: 46
Can't be saved; it's inherently immortal: 37
Didn't answer: 17

Rank yourself on the following Scale of Liberalism:
Not liberal at all: 6
Liberal but fairly mainstream (i.e., Barack Obama): 3
Strongly liberal (i.e., Paul Krugman): 12
Fed up with Democrats, believe country needs overhaul (i.e., Ralph Nader): 41
Convinced the U.S. government is no better than, say, Al Qaeda (i.e., Noam Chomsky): 34

Explain how you would fix Wall Street.
"Burn it down."

Let me first say, how proud I am of the Wall St. protesters. To all of the leftists saying well their "liberals" :(:(:( oh I knew that this was going to the route of failure, I say look at the statistics. Look at the statistics. 87% think that they are more to the left of Barack Obama and see him as conservative. That is a massive change in the American mentality. In a country where liberal is essentially a dirty word and socialist means the devil in person look at this. 34% think that the way that they're running this country is shitty, and not from a right-perspective, but 34% don't like either side. Their fed up with the "alternatives" that they get to choose from.

For the first question when they asked whether or not capitalism was immoral, I think its just a typo, You got an outstanding amount of people saying that it was. Now you might think, well you know they don't have a proper Marxist analysis. Saying that capitalism is based on class interests and blah blah blah. Point is, it doesn't matter from what perspective they're critiquing capitalism on, their doing it. It's an anti-capitalist sentiment. A crude one, but 60 years of anti-communism is going down the drain really fast in this country.

[Ocean Seal]

this, not to mention most experienced radicals, non-whites etc etc there probably would not be as eager to talk to the journalists as young white liberals so the results, esp under an small number like 100 people are probably even negatively skewed.
Exactly. This isn't just some leftist group that the New Yorker happened to land upon, these are the working masses, that are saying we've had enough. Hell some of them are even saying we don't need reforms we need to end this.

[eric922]

This is really interesting. Would you mind if I posted this on another forum as long as I gave credit to you and the New Yorker?

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

:lol:

You can do whatever you want with it. You don't have to give me credit for anything, ever.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

this, not to mention most experienced radicals, non-whites etc etc there probably would not be as eager to talk to the journalists as young white liberals so the results, esp under an small number like 100 people are probably even negatively skewed.

I think that at the time they did the poll there were only a little more than 100 people in the park total.

[Seth]

Yeah, the working masses, out on Wall Street in their tiedye and drum circles.

[socialistjustin]

The results are pretty meh. I am glad people are pissed, but alot of the stuff I have read and now these results seems like there is a small group of libertarians mixed with alot of pissed off liberals with some leftists. I hope that it leads to something more revolutionary, but I dont think it will. Everything has to start somewhere so hopefully the pissed off liberals will start to even question Elizabeth Warren liberalism and find socialist ideas attractive.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

100 participants isn't really enough to extrapolate upon, though it depends upon the methodology of the survey. With that in mind, i'm inclined to say that this survey isn't reliable at all and thus we shouldn't draw ANY conclusions from it.

[thesadmafioso]

Stammer and Tickle has it spot on, this is far too small of a sample size for a movement of this size for any of its data to be considered valid. We should certainly not be drawing anything but the most tentative hypotheses from this survey.

This is before we even get into the nature of those questions. I don't know if the wording here is exactly as it was in print, but of course no one is going to choose to identify themselves with an answer which compares Noam Chomsky to a terrorist organization. This is an absolute joke by any credible standard of journalism or research.

[tfb]

It wasn't comparing Chomsky to al-Qaeda. It was saying that Chomsky thinks that the US is as bad as al-Qaeda.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

This is an absolute joke by any credible standard of journalism or research.

Well, it is from New York Magazine. :lol: But it's the only real attempt at some data collection that I've seen so far.

[Catmatic Leftist]

Well, it is from New York Magazine. :lol: But it's the only real attempt at some data collection that I've seen so far.

Is there any mention of their data collection methodology anywhere? Or is it just convenience sampling?

[Tablo]

Is there any mention of their data collection methodology anywhere? Or is it just convenience sampling?
I'm sure it is just convenience sampling.

[thesadmafioso]

It wasn't comparing Chomsky to al-Qaeda. It was saying that Chomsky thinks that the US is as bad as al-Qaeda.

Which is still a crude form of comparison. It was, in an exceedingly vulgar fashion, implying him to be on the same side on the matter of support for the US government as al-Qaeda. Sure, it may not of been direct or literal, but the connotations are enough to skewer the data.

Any proper collection of data does not use such loaded terminology, as it damages the validity of the results.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Convenience sampling of 100 people, out of a movement of several times that, will produce an error of way, way too much to make this a statistically adequate, let alone (mathematically speaking) a statistically significant piece of research, even for just getting an overall-but-inaccurate picture of events.

Depending on the amount of people in the occupy wall street movement, this survey - if conducted just as a random convenience sample with no quotas, target groups etc. - could conceivably have a margin of error of 100% or close to.

[Catmatic Leftist]

Convenience sampling of 100 people, out of a movement of several times that, will produce an error of way, way too much to make this a statistically adequate, let alone (mathematically speaking) a statistically significant piece of research, even for just getting an overall-but-inaccurate picture of events.

Depending on the amount of people in the occupy wall street movement, this survey - if conducted just as a random convenience sample with no quotas, target groups etc. - could conceivably have a margin of error of 100% or close to.

Yea, that's what I thought. Of the thousands that went there, only a hundred that they pick at their own whim get chosen? That didn't add up.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

AFAIK there weren't thousands there when they did the sampling. In the beginning, there were only a few dozen. There still aren't that many people there, if you don't count spectators and tourists. The largest numbers came during the marches. Another is schedules for tomorrow, with the support of union bureaucrats all the way up to AFL-CIO President, Richard "Obama in 2012" Trumka. It will probably have a decent size.