Yeah, I’m actually more tempted here. I got in at 42 and I can sell at 52. But I think I’d rather ride it.
I’ve been wrong. But not too often.
I’d argue that I’m right often enough to claim a better-than-random ability to accurately predict the outcome of events on which I take a position.
I live in Las Vegas. Everyone I know who gambles regularly will tell you that they are ahead, winning more than they lose. They just “have a feel for it” or “a knack”. They have a talent that others do not, they will say, and so it isn’t really gambling.
None of them are correct.
That’s pretty much what Chronos was saying.
It’s important to note the distinction between dependent and independent events. If we predicted that 100 people each have a 1/3 chance of bringing an umbrella, and that these were independent, and then all 100 brought an umbrella, then we really did have a bad predictor.
But umbrellas are not independent events. Most likely, the 1/3 chance we’re predicting is really the chance of rain, and if it rains everyone brings an umbrella; otherwise not. There’s no problem with the 1/3 prediction here unless we got it wrong over a long period of time–in either direction.
At any rate, your final point is correct. It’s dumb to ding Silver for only giving Trump a 30% (IIRC) chance of victory. In fact he deserves a lot of credit for correctly handling the correlation between states, which gave Trump much better odds than if one assumed no or little correlation.
So have a cookie. What do you want, for us to all take your predictive powers seriously?
If I want fortune-telling, I probably still have a Tarot deck lying around somewhere. Analysis is what’s interesting. Not analysis of your predictive powers, analysis of the current political scene.
And yes, there’s plenty of bad analysis on this board from the left, just like there’s plenty of bad analysis on this board from the right. The worst analysis is still more interesting than bragging about bets you’ve placed.
New polling data perhaps. If it’s within the margin of error, which I think it is, I think you’d have to give the edge to Handel. As I recall she ran against something like five other conservative or right-leaning challengers while Ossoff rocked the Bernie / Hillary vote. What the recent polling data probably means is that a lot of supporters of those other right-leaning candidates probably needed some time to get up, dust themselves off, and think about how much they really wanted to support Handel. I have some relatives and friends on FB who live in Metro Atlanta, and just reading my feed, I’ve noticed a slight uptick in conservative interest in this race. I do realize this is hardly scientific but if that’s any indication, I think there’s mounting conservative urgency to keep the seat, if only for symbolic reasons. And for that reason, I’d have to agree with Bricker that she’ll probably keep the seat for the GOP, but just barely.
Even so, my position is that this seat is far more critical for Republicans than Democrats. In fact, regardless of the outcome, the Democrats have already shown that the GOP is increasingly vulnerable. Losing in the primary was probably bad optics but Handel was still the odds-on favorite to win the run-off. However, she has really struggled to gain the advantage that was anticipated, and if the Republicans lose tonight, then it would be a major shock. I agree that the Republicans could still easily recover from this, but at the same time, it’s also the sort of event that could trigger soul searching and infighting.
Having said that, the Democrats still have a very long way to go before being able to compete with Republicans where it really matters, which is at the district and state-level. I’m seeing some indications that they’re ‘getting it’ but there’s still not a real platform or message that they’re selling. Bernie Sanders, as much as I’ve criticized him in the past, is the one progressive who actually has a message. I think Perez needs to work with Sanders to figure out how to adopt and embrace some parts of his broad message while being open to working things out with moderates on the right. Not an easy line to walk on I’m afraid.
Well, I voted today, since I’m in that district.
There was a line to vote (only 5 people and it went in about 30 seconds) which is unheard of for special elections and REALLY unusual for runoffs. Probably has something to do with the fact that I’ve had canvassers come to my house 4 times in the last week. I feel bad for those folks in Ohio during presidential elections now.
You need to read up on probabilities.
A pattern of predictions is different from random chance, if the predictions turn out to be true at a rate higher than random chance.
The analysis of people who turn out to be wrong is less interesting, and less useful, than the analysis of people who turn out to be right.
The SDMB consistently over-estimates the likelihood of any Democrat winning any election. Their predictions, therefore, are less interesting than Bricker’s, because they are more likely to be wrong.
‘Just because you were right doesn’t prove anything.’ Yes, it does. It proves that your analysis was more likely to be useful than an analysis that says Trump/Bush/Walker/Handel/the Republican is going to lose.
I understand the desire for analysis based on wishful thinking. How did that kind of analysis work out in 2016, and what makes you think it will work out differently in 2018?
Regards,
Shodan
Super interesting, dude–thanks!
Meanwhile, a Trump PAC is running for Handel by using a quote from Obama out of context, in a repulsive manner.
ISTM that there are two separate issues being discussed.
The fact that one guy is willing to put his money where his mouth is while others are not might mean that the one guy is genuinely more confident that his predictions are reality-based, while the others may be willing to talk smack but sense at some level that they’re biased. Or it might just mean that the one guy is less risk averse than the others. I do think the broader prediction markets have value in that in aggregate they will tend to filter out the partisan wishful thinking. But it’s hard to say anything definitive about any small group of people.
The second issue is whether the guy betting is in fact a better predictor than the others. This has a bit of overlap with the above “confidence” issue but is not very heavily correlated. And it would depend on the guy’s record over a longer term, rather than the mere willingness to bet.
I would suggest a sort of game where all the participants can bet notional amounts of money might be a good way to settle the matter. There’s no real money at stake, so the risk-averse people can play, and you could track results against each other over the long term.
Do you have a robust early- and absentee-voting system? How has that turnout been?
Karen Handel voted today (presumably for herself). Jon Ossoff did not because he doesn’t live in the district.
Some people have tried to make this fact a campaign issue but I think it’s overblown. Ossoff grew up in the district but lives just outside of it now. Handel grew up in Maryland, but has lived in the district for something like 15 years.
All that said there is a small twisted part of me that hopes that Handel wins by exactly one vote as a result of this quirk.
This political ad brought to you by the Principled PAC.
Left Hand of Dorkness wrote: “Meanwhile, a Trump PAC is running for Handel by using a quote from Obama out of context, in a repulsive manner.”
What else is new?
And Sanders, on whose behalf the baseball shooter was a volunteer, isn’t even a Democrat.
‘Don’t help put Pelosi in power’ and attacks to that effect, are pretty potent for conservatives. I’m curious if there’s ever been a Republican Speaker of the House (or minority leader) that was similarly polarizing? Has anyone from the GOP been such a focal point for attacks, to the extent that he regularly appeared in attack ads for other congressional candidates’ opponents?
Or it might mean that he enjoys gambling. I enjoy roleplaying games, but if I statted up Ossoff as a fifth-level cleric, that wouldn’t make my analysis more accurate (although it might be more interesting, I admit).
Fun game; I have no interest in it, but if others do, we are fortunate enough to have a Thread Games forum where it’d fit right in.
Can we just retire this line of thinking already? Losing a scattering of national elections by a slimmer-than-expected margin doesn’t mean jack. It means that the strategy of hoping for popular backlash hasn’t yielded any useful results in a useful timeframe. It will be a long slow slog back out of the wilderness. Sorry for the rant, I’m just tired of seeing progressive energy expressed in ways that seem wasteful and ineffective to me.
I voted for Ossoff and I hope he wins, but it’s frustrating that this inexperienced nobody has become a standard-bearer for “The Resistance”. Who’s the next random dude we throw our weight behind when he gets defeated?
You seem very pessimistic about Ossoff’s chances today. I’d say he’s got a decent chance to win. Why the negativity? Or is that just my perception?
From my perspective, it seems a complete tossup to me. I’ll be thrilled if he wins, but I worry about putting too much symbolic weight on it, for a couple of reasons. First, as others have said, Democrats need to strengthen local and state positions as a priority. Second, putting this much weight on a tossup/underdog race is really risky.
That said, one takeaway has already happened, both here and in Montana: districts that should be comfortably Republican are not nearly so comfortable. I don’t know that we’ve had a lot of special elections so far in districts that were previously tossup districts; have we? Those elections are the ones that will, in my mind, be much more significant if Republicans hold on to.
Montana and Georgia were “dog bites man” stories that looked like they might turn into “man bites dog” stories. Montana turned out to be a “dog bites man” story after all. If Georgia goes the same way, that’s not super-significant; “dog bites man” is the narrative we should expect.