[sievebrain]

But where's the evidence? The prognostications of a Guardian journalist is not evidence. Your last line is written as if it's a fact, but that's not even close to being a fact. Peter Thiel routinely gets backlash over his opinions, the man revels in it. Why would he suddenly start obfuscating his views now?

Over time I have become weary of people trying to explain voters preferences by asking "why are you voting this way", listening to the answer and then saying, "no, you're wrong. you're actually voting for that because X, Y, Z". How rude is that? People say what they want, they have no incentive to lie, and then they aren't believed?

We saw this a lot with the Brexit vote. Leave voters were asked by pollsters "why will you vote leave" and were told either "because I am tired of competing with low-wage immigrants for jobs" or "because I think the EU is flawed and cannot reform". Then a whole bunch of pundits started saying that no, it's actually not like that at all, it's actually a backlash against the elite, or racism, or whatever alternative explanation they preferred. But there was no evidence of this.

[jamesblonde]

The same reason that websites/search-engines that rank what people are looking for do not ask for explicit feedback. When people give give explicit feedback they don't always give honest or accurate motivation for their preferences. Implicit feedback (observing behavior) works much better.