166 - Survey for One 📝
Hey there, !
This is more of an open brainstorm about a fiction idea I had: the one surveyed person.
While building surveys for customer research, I wondered first whether you could get a truly representative set of like...100 people that covers all types of gender, race, age, disability, education etc. etc. in proportions that reflect the wider Australian population.
Then, instead of sending your surveys out to a 'representative sample' every single time, you could just send it to this one group! This would save so much time, because you're just following this one representative sample group - which, I would assume would have to change every few years based on natural attrition but also societal changes in those dimensions.
It's silly, but then I thought, well - if you could have 100, why couldn't you just have one person represent the population?
Since you're already choosing from the population randomly, any random person's opinion is probably something that is representative in most aspects (contentious), and you'd probably be saving a lot of time and energy in surveys (not contentious).
(This also connects to another pet idea of mine which is to have an MP completely randomly chosen from the population every year like a jury, so that we can get some people in government who aren't just the same old people all the time - at the very least, it would make politics fun!)
From a fictional standpoint, it would be a fun character study to see what that one-surveyed person could do to society - since there would be so much power in the hands of one random person's opinion. I think you could do a short story anthology of the different people who are chosen as the One Surveyed Person - either those who have unintended consequences for the surveys they receive, or people who try to lead society astray, or people who are completely boring.
Would people reveal who they were, and try to get polls from their friends to help them make their decisions? Would they have large followings to try and be swayed / would they try to be an influencer? Would they sell that vote to the highest bidder? What kind of black market could crop up?
What other questions would you want to explore in this kind of concept?
Short and weird this week - classic.
Chat soon :)
Let me know if you have any feedback for the newsletter!
✔️Real Life Recommendations
-
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - you'll know if you'll like this - it's a great successor to the first movie, liked the plot, the characters were cool, the costumes were fun - go watch it!
-
Cozy KBBQ - a fantastic KBBQ place in Kew - it was reasonably priced, delicious, and not super busy (i.e. things came on time and were v delicious). Really liked the KFC they had here, and they cook the meat for you! Recommended :)
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
-
Adding a hinge to a Game Boy that God never intended - like you know, I love niches. Here's a new niche - people who make hinges for old Game Boys! Putting a bunch of time into recreating the Game Boy SP but using the old Game Boy Pocket - such a cool tear down and explanation about how they built it, designing their own PCB and finding parts from retro providers. Fun!
-
The "je ne sais quoi" of TikTok - the thing you can't explain about Tiktok! I don't know if I agree with this fully, but it's good to hear different opinions about what people think about social media.
-
A short history of Twitter Blue - for people who aren't terminally online, here's a fun lil thread that documents what the hell went down with Twitter. Hilarity, that's what.