• rodneylives@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Remember, Nate Silver predicted that Hillary Clinton would win in 2016, and when Trump won instead, it was chalked up to the fact that it really was a random chance.

    Don’t panic about this. Keep quiet and keep doing the work to get Trump thrown out. And charge your mental health bills to the Democrats, for putting up an old man up for election in 2020, one who’s even older than Trump, in the first place.

    • tko@tkohhh.social
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      4 months ago

      I don’t remember him predicting that she would win. His model (https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/) gave her a 71% chance of winning. 71% is a long way from 100%, and the result of that election definitely fit within the model.

      That said, you are absolutely correct… we need to keep shining a light on the realities of each of these candidates, because in the light of day Biden is a much better choice than Trump.

      • butwhyishischinabook@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Yeah, his model gave her less of a chance than most others and their podcast constantly, over and over, warned people that this means Trump wins three elections if you run it ten times. People who wrote 538 off because it didn’t call the election for Trump are some of the dumbest mouthbreathers you’ll run into.

      • Lasherz12@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Which would make it a more extreme position than his position in this election, so the point stands.

        • tko@tkohhh.social
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          4 months ago

          I agree… I was simply clarifying that Nate Silver did NOT predict that Hillary would win (nor is he predicting that Trump will win this election), which is a common misunderstanding about probability. For these types of models to be meaningful to the public, there needs to be literacy on what is meant by the percentages given. Really, I’m just reinforcing rodneylives’ point from another angle!

    • Zink@programming.dev
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      4 months ago

      Iirc, didn’t he give Trump a much higher chance of winning than other outlets, even though it was still a small chance compared to Hillary?

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Yeah well there was also that nice October surprise. Prediction models don’t work well with stuff like that.

      • rodneylives@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        And yet, that is what those models claim to do. If the possibility of late-breaking events is not included in the model then the model is flawed.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Then nothing matters because the bombshell pictures proving child sexual assault could always drop. An October surprise is called that for a reason. It’s something out of left field that could not have been predicted, prepared for, or recovered from. To say prediction models must allow for that means you never get anything other than a 50/50 prediction and everything is useless. We should all just stay home and let life come at us. After all, we could get hit by a toilet from space at any moment.