tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post1921497931540972184..comments2024-03-29T05:14:33.223-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: Who is going to win? Does Nate Silver know?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger56125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-35012742023378996672012-11-06T19:21:56.865-08:002012-11-06T19:21:56.865-08:00Michael:
I think Nassim Taleb's books are a m...Michael:<br /><br />I think Nassim Taleb's books are a modern corrective for the tendency to think that a complicated model with lots of intimidating equations imply that you know what you're talking about.NOTAnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-49086991311340622512012-11-06T19:04:46.780-08:002012-11-06T19:04:46.780-08:00Speaking of statistical voodoo and the widespread ...Speaking of statistical voodoo and the widespread false deification of anything expressed by numbers, can anybody recommend a good book or two about this? I searched for "scientism" on Amazon, but all that comes back are modern Christian apologetics. Of course there is <i>How to Lie with Statistics</i>, but it seems like this idea is ripe for an update since the last edition of it came out in the early 90s. The powers that be have gotten a helluva lot more reliant on models since then.Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-6883813897181446482012-11-06T18:10:37.743-08:002012-11-06T18:10:37.743-08:00Anon 8:03:
Republicans do quite a bit better than...Anon 8:03:<br /><br />Republicans do quite a bit better than Democrats among higher income people. I don't know that this holds for the super-rich, though. <br /><br />A good source for this is <a href="http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/presentations/redbluetalkubc.pdf" rel="nofollow">this Andrew Gellman presentation</a> summarizing a huge amount of research. But this isn't some kind of secret--there is a lot of data about this stuff out there. Political reporters don't incorporate that stuff into their chatter because they're mostly innumerate, and it doesn't cost them anything to not know what they're talking about. NOTAnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-38741279272285798092012-11-06T17:43:31.674-08:002012-11-06T17:43:31.674-08:00toto:
I think if Silver's predicted president...toto:<br /><br />I think if Silver's predicted presidential result is seriously off, then his state predictions almost certainly will be, as well. If the state poll totals are more or less accurate, then his presidential prediction (which tracks well with much simpler models of predicting electoral votes) is very likely to also be right. NOTAnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-53814714041926991142012-11-06T17:36:35.568-08:002012-11-06T17:36:35.568-08:00Just as an aside:
a. God how I wish I were 30 ye...Just as an aside:<br /><br />a. God how I wish I were 30 years old.<br /><br />b. Re the fraction of Democrats, you are just wrong. About 33% of American adults self-identify as Democrats, and about 28% as Republicans. Both those numbers vary a little from year to year, but it's nothing like 10%. (Among voters, the fraction is about the same for both; more Democrats than Republicans don't bother voting.)<br /><br />c. By contrast, about 38% of voters self-identify as conservative, and 22% as liberal. That proportion is about the same for voters.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.people-press.org/2012/11/01/nonvoters-who-they-are-what-they-think/" rel="nofollow">This Pew report is the source</a> for these numbers.NOTAnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-24747130913848530092012-11-06T16:21:14.786-08:002012-11-06T16:21:14.786-08:00Anon 11:20:
Elections are just *bigger*--there ar...Anon 11:20:<br /><br />Elections are just *bigger*--there are way more things going on that might matter in an election than in a football game. Many a promising political career is ended early because a bad economy makes your term as governor a failure, or your cabinet post is associated with an unpopular president. NOTAnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-69645832181574682352012-11-06T12:30:51.975-08:002012-11-06T12:30:51.975-08:00if Silver had to put real money of his own - not a...<i>if Silver had to put real money of his own - not a thousand dollars, but his house - on the line here, he'd stop that nonsense in a hurry.</i><br /><br />With bets that large the downside risk overshadows the confidence you have in the accuracy of the prediction. For example, someone offers to flip a fair coin and gives you 0% of your bet if tails but 210% of your bet if heads. For a bet of a dollar you'd to that all day long and walk away richer. <br /><br />If it's a one-time offer for the value of your house, not so much, unless you've got a gambler's soul.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-39492511508776785422012-11-06T11:20:37.632-08:002012-11-06T11:20:37.632-08:00Sorry, I simply don't think any real compariso...Sorry, I simply don't think any real comparison can be made between forecasting sports and forecasting elections because the number of variables of the first are too limited compared to the latter's. <br /><br />Sports have highly specific rules and measurements that elections simply don't have. <br /><br />Fact is despite almost a century of presidential polling, no-one and I mean no-one, has ever called more than three successive elections to the percentage point.<br /><br />There could be a reason for that...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-67276124992271817052012-11-06T08:25:01.931-08:002012-11-06T08:25:01.931-08:00I've seen more Mitt signs and bumper stickers ...I've seen more Mitt signs and bumper stickers in north New Jersey - in a bedroom community of NYC - than I have for Obama.<br /><br />Does that mean Obama will lose NJ? Of course not. But it does mean that the left's hope that there exists a fired-up Dem base which will give them a nine or ten point edge in votes over Republicans is just whistling past the graveyard.<br /><br />And they have to have that nine or ten point edge, because Romney is cleaning up among independents.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-58513707340882281472012-11-06T08:18:27.635-08:002012-11-06T08:18:27.635-08:00Right now--the night before the election--Silver i...<i>Right now--the night before the election--Silver is saying there's a 92% chance of Obama winning, or 2:23. I'd take those odds in a heartbeat</i> <br /><br /><br />Yeah, if Silver had to put real money of his own - not a thousand dollars, but his house - on the line here, he'd stop that nonsense in a hurry.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-76824686362326823032012-11-06T08:15:10.621-08:002012-11-06T08:15:10.621-08:00The way it looks to me, the whole meme about the p...<i>The way it looks to me, the whole meme about the polls being biased and the later attacks on Silver by various hacks and shills, started when Romney's poll numbers looked particularly dire.</i> <br /><br /><br />The way it looks to me, NOTA is 32 years old, tops, and lives in one of the major urban conglomerations. He's spent his entire short life absorbing leftist thought by osmosis and though he likes to think of himself as a critical thinker, he's actually quite shallow. He's a "libertarian" because that's the only permissible alternative to leftism in the world he inhabits, and he can no more think outside the box constructed for him than he can flap his arms and fly.<br /><br />There has never been any reason to imagine that the electorate is +10 Democrat. Those of us who've been around a little longer, and/or are of a more skeptical frame of mind, have learned that the American MSM is exactly as reliable a source of information on US politics as Pravda was on Soviet politics. If you take anything you read in the New York Times without a mountain of salt, you're getting played.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-26113187146628649992012-11-06T08:06:21.445-08:002012-11-06T08:06:21.445-08:00The nice thing about Silver's predictions is t...The nice thing about Silver's predictions is that there are many of them - one per state. So after the final numbers are in, everyone can go and check whether the probabilities he gave agreed with the actual outcome - and because there are many numbers, we can actually put confidence intervals around how much we should trust Silver's model.<br /><br />Contrast with all the pundits claiming that the main election is "a toss-up" - a conveniently irrefutable statement, since it is compatible with any outcome.totohttp://toto.club-med.sonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-43834177932691484622012-11-06T08:03:24.541-08:002012-11-06T08:03:24.541-08:00Judging from my acquaintances - and I'm a whit...<i>Judging from my acquaintances - and I'm a white guy in the business world - I would guess that Obama has a 99.9% chance of being reelected.</i> <br /><br /><br />Yeah? I know a few Jews and a lesbian Asian who are voting for Romney in Hudson County, NJ.<br /><br />Of course, I'm a Republican. And you're a devoted Democrat - I've seen you here before shilling for Obama. People only know the people in their own circles, and those circles tend to be self-selecting. Nationwide, Jews, Asians and lesbians are not going to go for Romney, and white guys "in the business world" are not going to vote for Obama.<br /><br />I can safely predict that, once again, Obama will clean up among those making over $200k per year.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-26348827031058096982012-11-06T03:31:22.116-08:002012-11-06T03:31:22.116-08:00Part of Steve's problem is his height. Being a...<i> Part of Steve's problem is his height. Being a tall guy, he doesn't get the idea of pumping up and learning an art to deter attack. Those of us on the shorter side got challenged all the time; until we wised up and lifted. Being 6 foot four inches means a lot of the stuff a guy seven inches shorter experiences just doesn't register. </i><br /><br />Ah -- overcompensation. This explains Whiskey's sexual problems and his inane foreign policy prescriptions all in one swoop. It's unfortunately not uncommon for men to take their history of getting bullied in grade school and project it out onto world affairs. I wish people would get it through their head that there is NO connection, none, between getting the experience of getting picked on in junior high and the nature of modern warfare between nuclear-armed powers. Please take your need to prove your masculinity into some other arena. (Ideally not coming up with elaborate explanations for why women will never want to sleep with anyone like you, that is counterproductive).<br />MQnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-26643919144739959532012-11-06T00:29:39.176-08:002012-11-06T00:29:39.176-08:00In Boston enthusiasm for Obama (or simply hatred f...In Boston enthusiasm for Obama (or simply hatred for Romney) is way up. It's a big country - everyone lives in their own bubble. Judging from my acquaintances - and I'm a white guy in the business world - I would guess that Obama has a 99.9% chance of being reelected. I'm sure someone living in Dallas has a completely opposite view. <br /><br />We do seem to be at the point where the country is so big and so disparate that polling is just guesswork. Direct elections are probably basically meaningless as well at this point.Peter Anoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-46185420899832933872012-11-05T23:56:30.398-08:002012-11-05T23:56:30.398-08:00I'm with those who think Silver is way off. To...I'm with those who think Silver is way off. Too many of those state polls assume a party ID split similar to 2008, which was D+7, while recent polls of party ID are showing D+0 or even R+1. And yet one recent poll, showing a tie, is based on this election being D+11! I don't think so....<br /><br />In San Francisco, enthusiasm for Obama is WAY down. In 2008 his signs and bumper stickers were everywhere, but now they're actually rare. Not that Romney will take CA, but I think it's a sign that Democrats are demoralized.PapayaSFnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-14466019465065404102012-11-05T23:01:09.448-08:002012-11-05T23:01:09.448-08:00"I assume this was an attempt to keep the cam..."I assume this was an attempt to keep the campaign from losing all it's steam as volunteers and voters and donors gave it up as a lost cause."<br /><br />See, I think the Obama campaign has a strategy of attempting to project inevitability in order to discourage turnout by the opposition. <br /><br />I poke around Daily Kos once in a while. They're idiots, but they're obedient idiots, and can be relied upon to parrot whatever some campaign flunky tells them to say. As such they're a useful source of data for Obama campaign Kremlinology. The "Obama is winning so you Republicans shouldn't even bother to show up" story line is pretty prominent over there. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-6067854292340954152012-11-05T22:45:42.883-08:002012-11-05T22:45:42.883-08:00"That's not unreasonable. I should think ...<i>"That's not unreasonable. I should think about that a little."</i><br /><br />But the analogy doesn't support Whiskey's case for 25 Nimitz-class carriers. The US isn't an average-sized guy who needs to lift and learn karate. The US is Vitaliy Klitschko. The big guys won't box us unless they have to, and if they do, they'll probably lose. <br /><br />The little guys will never box us. They'll trip us when we walk in their houses, and then have their kids bite us and stick their fingers in our eyes, while they tie us down, Gulliver-style. The way to avoid that isn't by buying more boxing gloves, but by not walking into their houses.DaveinHackensackhttp://www.thehackensack.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-35884023770262964622012-11-05T21:33:20.269-08:002012-11-05T21:33:20.269-08:00"Part of Steve's problem is his height. B..."Part of Steve's problem is his height. Being a tall guy, he doesn't get the idea of pumping up and learning an art to deter attack."<br /><br />That's not unreasonable. I should think about that a little.Steve Sailerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11920109042402850214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-29239802653073685922012-11-05T21:26:15.404-08:002012-11-05T21:26:15.404-08:00Right now--the night before the election--Silver i...Right now--the night before the election--Silver is saying there's a 92% chance of Obama winning, or 2:23. I'd take those odds in a heartbeat and think it's closer to 50:50. Intrade currently has it at 68%. <br /><br />If Silver were a betting man I think there would be a lot of arbitrage going on.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-33095283837660138442012-11-05T21:21:06.739-08:002012-11-05T21:21:06.739-08:00"Seneca, Romney is anything but a free-trader..."Seneca, Romney is anything but a free-trader, his message to the Rust Belt is he'll label China a currency manipulator and impose tariffs to prevent their dumping. No he's not a systematic protectionist, but he's as good as you'll get for a long while and oceans better than Bush or McCain on that subject."<br /><br />Yeah, I know, but most people aren't following the election or Romney's positions that closely so the "outsourcing" tag that the Dems have tried to stick on him still has traction with a lot of voters.<br /><br />"Part of Steve's problem is his height. Being a tall guy, he doesn't get the idea of pumping up and learning an art to deter attack. Those of us on the shorter side got challenged all the time; until we wised up and lifted. Being 6 foot four inches means a lot of the stuff a guy seven inches shorter experiences just doesn't register"<br /><br /><br />Okay so you got a little bit of a Napoleon complex and don't want people to take advantage of you. Nothing wrong with that and it at least explains your aggressive foreign policy stance.<br /><br />But doesn't the U.S. spend more on defense than the next twenty nations combined (I've heard the rest of the world combined from some sources)? <br /><br />I mean we spend 750 billion (a very conservative estimate) on defense while China, who spends the second most, only spends 130 billion or so.<br /><br />We could cut our defense budget in half and still be outspending them by over a 3 to 1 margin.<br /><br />I know there are other policy considerations like jobs for enlisted people and defense R&D that make cutting the defense budget in this economic environment difficult...(i.e. people need jobs right now)<br /><br />but being percieved as the neighborhood weakling is not one of those considerations.Senecanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-88681971729644638602012-11-05T21:16:13.611-08:002012-11-05T21:16:13.611-08:00I've noticed over the run of this blog how any...<i>I've noticed over the run of this blog how any & all inchoate theories of life's inexplicable phenomena and the plenitude of tragicomic happenstances eventually circle back to Steve's concern about why Lotus 1-2-3 lost market share to MS Excel back in the mid '90s</i> <br /><br /><br />Bad software drives out good.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-9666022593956933492012-11-05T21:10:35.291-08:002012-11-05T21:10:35.291-08:00I don't just hate the whole illusion of "...I don't just hate the whole illusion of "poll-based purity" around this--even if you "crunch" some polls you're still interpreting and massaging a bunch of someone else's handiwork. But it's anti-scientific at root to ignore the REALLY basic stuff under your nose, things that may not be so lively to commentate upon in a NYT blog but without which you are actually hamstringing your own punditing. For example: elections are decided by those who vote... Internet Consumer From Mars might be impressed by all the colorful libertarians, supposedly including Nate Silver according to one time he was on Charlie Rose's show (not making this up), and their protracted crying about the corrupt system and democracy deficit, blah blah. But it's a huge venerable cliche among their affiliated tribes that they abstain from voting anyway, as a fashion statement I think (now that's the way to conspire to fight The System)<br /><br />So ultimately the libertarians live like indignant grad students but vote like Amish. And their numerical clout is misunderstood, just as with surveys of people estimating America is 10% made up of gay men (source: any network TV programming schedule). I'd now refer to the "availability heuristic" but don't want to sound like one of these political analyst jerksESPN-ification of human affairsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-40601279163404811182012-11-05T20:58:49.056-08:002012-11-05T20:58:49.056-08:00"Only once before did Steve tell the story an..."Only once before did Steve tell the story and once he said that Lotus was awesome but didn't compare it to Excel."<br /><br />Well, I should have explained how awful Excel is for building anything large. Who knows? It might have saved Nate Silver and his Baseball Prospectus successors a lot of trouble.<br /><br />Also, I should have used the phrase "lotus of coincidence" before.Steve Sailerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11920109042402850214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-88443340482646082912012-11-05T20:55:04.884-08:002012-11-05T20:55:04.884-08:00Of TGGP's 38 hits, about a third are about lot...Of TGGP's 38 hits, about a third are about lotus-eaters, a third are about how Jim Manzi isn't from Lotus and a final third are directly about spreadsheets. Only once before <a href="http://isteve.blogspot.com/2012/02/anti-trend-inc.html" rel="nofollow">did Steve tell the story</a> and once <a href="http://isteve.blogspot.com/2010/11/cognitive-abilities-and-household.html" rel="nofollow">he said that Lotus was awesome</a> but didn't compare it to Excel.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com