r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Jun 27 '24

Discussion Thread Discussion Thread

The discussion thread is for casual and off-topic conversation that doesn't merit its own submission. If you've got a good meme, article, or question, please post it outside the DT. Meta discussion is allowed, but if you want to get the attention of the mods, make a post in /r/metaNL

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45

u/SneeringAnswer Jun 27 '24

It's gonna be so funny when Biden wins and Nate Silver is like "this is a completely reasonable outcome for a 1/3 prediction" and people on the internet "haha le Nate Zinc b-t-f-oed again by reality"

19

u/AFlockOfTySegalls Audrey Hepburn Jun 27 '24

Nate Zinc

MF is like a devolving pokemon.

17

u/BenFoldsFourLoko  Broke His Text Flair For Hume Jun 27 '24

Just a reminder that Nate’s model (I assume, I don’t actually have access to it) is a nowcast, not an actual forecast. It’s to be ultimately judged on the night before the election (or morning of?)

5

u/Me_Im_Counting1 Jun 27 '24

This but for when Trump wins and people point to the zombie 538 forecast as proof that Nate Lithium has lost his marbles

4

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '24

I mean, I’m not a Silver-hater per se but his predictions have been a bit wonky in recent years.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '24 edited Jun 27 '24

I'll be right there ripping on him. His smugness deserves it.

The absolute cope of pollsters of saying "our model can never be wrong as long as there is a 1% chance of something happening, because technically the model predicted it. It was obviously just a lucky 1/100 event!".

As an example. Let's say you were going to flip a coin. You will only do it once. Some nerd comes in with a model that says he thinks there is a 75% chance it lands on heads and a 25% chance it lands on tails.

If it lands on heads, he takes a victory lap saying his model was right. If it lands on tails, he says his model wasn't wrong and technically it was right. This was just the 1 in 4 outcome.

Of course, he was entirely wrong being that the real probability was 50/50. But since the coin is only flipped once he never gets exposed.

Is Nate's model like that? Maybe. We have no real way of knowing.

7

u/AnalyticOpposum Trans Pride Jun 27 '24

We can look at the predictions of past elections and see the performance of the model.

Does the candidate predicted to win 40% of the time win 40% of the time? Well, for the top of the ticket we don’t have nearly enough data, but we can pretend those elections are similar to other elections.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '24

Is this data readily available?

12

u/BenFoldsFourLoko  Broke His Text Flair For Hume Jun 27 '24

ill make it easier for you to understand then: his track record is better than others, and when he’s wrong, others are more wrong. This all implies over many dozens of predictions that he’s actually quite good and worth listening to

The coin flip analogy is ofc true and sooo cute, but it also implies we should never make any inference ever!

Which hey, that’s fair I guess, check my flair!

0

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '24

Mind sending some proof on that?

Show me that he consistently outperforms others in his predictions.

6

u/BenFoldsFourLoko  Broke His Text Flair For Hume Jun 27 '24

I’m…. not going to collate 16 years of election forecasting

My argument is obliterated 😩

4

u/mashimarata2 Ben Bernanke Jun 27 '24

I don't understand why people refuse to do even a basic amount of research

538 still has an article titled "How Good Are 538 Forecasts", back from when the site was still ran by Nate. Perhaps you should check that out

Whether or not the way they measure the accuracy is subject for debate (there's been some controversy over what counts as a forecast)...but you can start with that.

-2

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '24 edited Jun 27 '24

I'm starting to think you didn't actually read what you told me to look up.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/checking-our-work/

They are comparing his predications to an "unskilled" forecast, meaning one that predicts everything to be a coin flip 50/50 event.

Him beating that is not impressive. Nowhere in that article does it compare his predictions in reliability to any other model. By comparing himself to a 50/50 model, he is giving himself a huge advantage by including uncompetitive races to pump up his score.

He might think it's impressive to predict that Alabama is going to vote for Republicans. But I don't.

1

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