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On October 29 2016 03:50 Piledriver wrote:
I'm just sad that the Democrats nominated Clinton. Anyone else, especially Biden or Bernie would have just carried this election in a landslide. Instead we have to deal with this Pandora box of Clinton family misconduct, making this election unnecessarily close, and possibly losing it.
When Clinton was working in the Senate she had higher approval ratings than Biden and Obama. Obviously everybody who has to run against the Republican troll machine will heavily drop in popularity given how polarised the US is. Sanders wouldn't have been spared, they wouldd have simply started to run some red scare campaign. Which is probably a bigger deal in the US than the corruption stuff.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On October 29 2016 03:19 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2016 03:05 oneofthem wrote:On October 29 2016 03:01 LegalLord wrote:On October 29 2016 02:55 oneofthem wrote:On October 29 2016 02:45 LegalLord wrote:On October 29 2016 00:58 oneofthem wrote:On October 29 2016 00:51 LegalLord wrote:On October 29 2016 00:48 oneofthem wrote:On October 29 2016 00:31 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 29 2016 00:25 LegalLord wrote:[quote] I can do that, but I'll be rather simplistic and skim over a lot of the details that I don't think too many people care about. Sorry to anyone who thinks I'm oversimplifying. So there are basically two major "schools" of thought in statistics/probability: the frequentists and the Bayesians. The frequentist interpretation of "probabilities" is pretty much what you intuitively think of as probabilities: the odds of getting the result when you repeat the experiment a lot. This is the classic, and more deeply rooted, interpretation of probability, but it has quite a lot of limits on what you can actually do with it. The Bayesian interpretation(s) are interpretations that try to very quickly make predictions based on a small amount of prior data, and often to predict the chances of events that can happen only once. This is the more "modern" branch of statistics and it's gained a lot of steam because it does work, even if it does have the problem of giving terrible results if your prior information isn't very good. But the interpretation of what probabilities themselves are is very different, and in this case the most appropriate definition is a Bayesian one: a state of knowledge, or more appropriately in this case, a degree of belief. And while those simulations are helpful, they are just that: simulations. The actual event only happens once. Nate Silver is very Bayesian in his analysis. No problem with that but the technical difference is important to note because it just tells us that it's not random chance whether or not Trump wins - it's just how confident, based on the 538 assumptions, the model is that Trump will win the election. That's quite fascinating, thanks. I had no idea  well he is also wrong if he wants to say that a frequentist model (purely poll based) would have trump closer. the bayesian priors in 538's structural model give trump a fighting chance, but it's basically just a guess informed by history and some political science. The point is that you can't really even be frequentist effectively since this is a one-time event, and that saying that "Trump has an 18% chance" isn't true in the sense that people think of probabilities - the interpretation of "what a probability is" is more Bayesian in nature, and of course according to whatever model 538 uses. In the real world, if the election were to be re-run 100 times (e.g. let's say you got 100 ballots at the polling station) then chances are the result would be the same each time. we don't know the true distribution so in that sense it's impossible to be frequentist, but the poll only model that the PEC uses is basically looking at historical poll behavior and using that to construct their model. it's not a structural model in the sense of modeling an idea of how you think the electorate responds to various external conditions. in looking at historical poll behavior, they get around the 'one time event' thing. the claim though is that this election is a pretty unique one, and i tend to buy that argument and look beyond the polls. Man, that PEC methodology seems extremely sketch after reading through it. It's hard to say whether they are just being opaque or overly simplistic about how they do their analysis. I would go with the latter. Besides being a lot more comprehensive, I like Nate Silver's underlying assumptions about which data is more valid a lot more than PEC's here. Though that is certainly a different topic than Bayesian vs frequentist approaches to the interpretation of what a probability actually is. for data selection PEC only uses state polls. the other major feature of theirs is the use of poll based prior vs economic fundamental priors by other models. they are basically looking at how historical polls have converged to election day and adding an uncertainty to that, then doing some simulations. http://election.princeton.edu/2016/08/03/why-is-the-pec-polls-only-forecast-so-stable/ Their entire shtick is their focus on meta-analysis (lol) and specifically, their idea of the meta margin. I really don't like how they just hide behind "we have these statistical methods to deal with problems" and really just abstract away the issues related to accuracy in polling in a way that doesn't really make sense. They put much less thought into that issue than 538 does, and that is strongly to their detriment. They talk a lot about how stable their model is, but honestly this election is pretty far from stable. There were times when it genuinely seemed that Trump was likely to win. well they have this arbitrary uncertainty parameter that they adjusted to very high for this year. it's just a reflection of the current polling margin that trump is a very bad underdog. it could be possible that the polls are very wrong, or that the race is very volatile (like i see it), and their approach gets upturned. if trump does do significantly better than what the poll aggregates show, it would not be because 538's model is smart. they have a bunch of economic indicators in there that don't capture the source of the current year volatility. Again, that all just comes off as a bunch of simplistic arbitrarium that makes their whole project seem more like something I'd do for a first or second course statistics project than something I'd publish expecting to be taken seriously. 538, like everyone else, is constrained by the accuracy of polls. They do about as good a job as anyone at filtering the good from the bad, and their model clearly has a lot of thought, and it seems mostly statistically sound, even if they make a fair few assumptions I disagree with. But I would say that "I'm 85% sure Hillary will win" is much more accurate than "I'm 98% sure Hillary will win" based on pretty much everything. Putting statistical models aside for a second and looking at this just from a cursory perspective, the former statement is more logically reasonable, and that corresponds well to a Bayesian "probability as belief" statement. I could see some scenarios that the polls didn't account for that would lead to a Trump win. They aren't likely, but they are a lot more than 2% likely to occur. So both from a statistical and logical perspective, PEC doesn't seem right to me.
there are two things here basically. PEC uses only state polls, so there is a lot of local errors getting cancelled out. there's also no national level poll pull that other models have, another layer of uncertainty.
their choice of doing poll only is basically not trying to cheat with tuning the numbers. their model is more of a reflection of polling information.
you can look at their model for an idea of what the polls are saying, then add in various theories to balance the poll picture. the PEC guys just doesn't package these two steps together.
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On October 29 2016 03:50 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2016 03:44 LegalLord wrote:
They probably just found more emails in some other issue they were investigating that had some relation to Hillary's server. Maybe some of the missing emails were in there. Or they are parts of email chains they have already reviewed or seen, but at different points. It might not have anything new at all, but it is to much for them to go through quickly.
As an aside, if there are emails undisclosed/deleted by Hillary's team and discovered as a part of Russian hacks, is the FBI obligated to investigate them? Since technically the emails are a part of official state business, and property of the US govt.
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On October 29 2016 03:52 Piledriver wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2016 03:50 Plansix wrote:On October 29 2016 03:44 LegalLord wrote:
They probably just found more emails in some other issue they were investigating that had some relation to Hillary's server. Maybe some of the missing emails were in there. Or they are parts of email chains they have already reviewed or seen, but at different points. It might not have anything new at all, but it is to much for them to go through quickly. As an aside, if there are emails undisclosed/deleted by Hillary's team and discovered as a part of Russian hacks, is the FBI obligated to investigate them?
Of course. How useful they would be as evidence is another question.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On October 29 2016 03:49 Barrin wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2016 03:44 oneofthem wrote:On October 29 2016 03:18 The_Templar wrote:On October 29 2016 03:14 ticklishmusic wrote:
headlines: THE FBI HAS FOUND NEW EMAILS AND MUST REVIEW THEM AS PART OF ITS INVESTIGATION
what probably happened: some analyst had a stack of emails to review printed out and left them in the print room. some guy was cleaning out the print room and noticed that they were left there, so they gotta read them now. There is no way on earth that something like that would be announced. why not? announcement was for reopening of investigations, because some new material came up. You mean you think the FBI would release the fact that it left unread emails in the print room (assuming that were the case)?
if they reopen investigation because of something like that, they'd still have to announce the reopening of investigation.
point is the cause of reopening is not the chief reason they announced the reopening of the case. it's just basic protocol to announce an important move like reopening this case.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On October 29 2016 03:51 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2016 03:50 Piledriver wrote:
I'm just sad that the Democrats nominated Clinton. Anyone else, especially Biden or Bernie would have just carried this election in a landslide. I find it pretty ironic that the biggest argument in favor of nominating Hillary was that she is so ungodly electable that it would be folly to choose someone else.
the party elites have a better idea of her ability and qualifications. electorate is just uninformed and easily swayed by various misinformation.
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On October 29 2016 03:36 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2016 02:37 IgnE wrote:On October 29 2016 02:04 Velr wrote:On October 29 2016 00:01 WhiteDog wrote:
It is stupid anyway : if you are born in the US and had your education in the US, then you can rightfully talk about your american heritage, even if you're not white, or even if you have no biological link to any american forefathers. Actually, if this would hold up, and the usa wasn't extremly europeanheritage dominated, it would be so damn beautifull. a nationless nation without culture. a self-negation. united only by a commitment to pluralism, liberal values, and common borders. Culture is reproduced through education, not through biology.
a homogenizing education system without roots? i thought velr was basically saying that the US would be beautiful if it were more multicultural, less eurocentric. what is your idea of a simultaneously homogenizing and multicultural education system that forges an American culture?
is it even right to talk about an education system independent of the means of production and reproduction of a consumer culture, the only properly American culture that unites this country? and what are the implications of a rootless consumer culture that is neither eurocentric nor heterogeneous?
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If Comey didn't have the guts over the summer, he still doesn't now. By which I mean, whatever he concludes won't actually change anything.
But I think if the Dems have one more Trump story in the hopper, now would be the time.
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On October 29 2016 03:56 oneofthem wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2016 03:51 LegalLord wrote:On October 29 2016 03:50 Piledriver wrote:
I'm just sad that the Democrats nominated Clinton. Anyone else, especially Biden or Bernie would have just carried this election in a landslide. I find it pretty ironic that the biggest argument in favor of nominating Hillary was that she is so ungodly electable that it would be folly to choose someone else. the party elites have a better idea of her ability and qualifications. electorate is just uninformed and easily swayed by various misinformation.
While that is true, one of the major reasons that people voted Hillary over Bernie, as indicated by the polls, is that the Democrats have to win and that Bernie is too much of a risk while Hillary is ridiculously electable and we have to choose her. In hindsight that looks like a really stupid argument.
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i dont think the PEC does anything crazy. i remember getting a little confused about their RGY schema, but its just 1, 2, 3 SD's or something like that. mostly goes to show that averaging polls is a pretty solid methodology. who knew, more data the better.
anyways before things blow up about a offhand comment i made:
comey is obligated to notify the house about any developments. its more that likely these are probably a random batch of emails that they probably had access to, but somehow overlooked in the process. im just using a particularly glib example of how that might have happened.
addendum: most likely this was oversight by both parties or literally random extra emails form somewhere else rather than negligence or obstruction. so really kind of a wet fart.
looks like the story is quickly being walked back to "oh there were some emails kind of related to clinton and comey is obligated to tell the house". chaffetz thought it was xmas and there was a big ass box under the tree for him. turns out it was mostly packing peanuts.
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On October 29 2016 04:00 ticklishmusic wrote:
i dont think the PEC does anything crazy. i remember getting a little confused about their RGY schema, but its just 1, 2, 3 SD's or something like that. mostly goes to show that averaging polls is a pretty solid methodology. who knew, more data the better.
I don't think they're doing anything crazy, they're just overly simplistic and probably less accurate than a model like 538's. They hide behind "the unfiltered numbers don't lie" as an excuse but that just isn't the case because polls are not exactly unbiased or without assumptions.
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United States43953 Posts
On October 29 2016 03:59 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2016 03:56 oneofthem wrote:On October 29 2016 03:51 LegalLord wrote:On October 29 2016 03:50 Piledriver wrote:
I'm just sad that the Democrats nominated Clinton. Anyone else, especially Biden or Bernie would have just carried this election in a landslide. I find it pretty ironic that the biggest argument in favor of nominating Hillary was that she is so ungodly electable that it would be folly to choose someone else. the party elites have a better idea of her ability and qualifications. electorate is just uninformed and easily swayed by various misinformation. While that is true, one of the major reasons that people voted Hillary over Bernie, as indicated by the polls, is that the Democrats have to win and that Bernie is too much of a risk while Hillary is ridiculously electable and we have to choose her. In hindsight that looks like a really stupid argument.
Only if we assume the problem with Hillary was intrinsic to Hillary and not related to the effectiveness of the Republican smear campaign. If we assume equal effort would go into undermining Bernie then it becomes a different argument.
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On October 29 2016 03:59 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2016 03:56 oneofthem wrote:On October 29 2016 03:51 LegalLord wrote:On October 29 2016 03:50 Piledriver wrote:
I'm just sad that the Democrats nominated Clinton. Anyone else, especially Biden or Bernie would have just carried this election in a landslide. I find it pretty ironic that the biggest argument in favor of nominating Hillary was that she is so ungodly electable that it would be folly to choose someone else. the party elites have a better idea of her ability and qualifications. electorate is just uninformed and easily swayed by various misinformation. While that is true, one of the major reasons that people voted Hillary over Bernie, as indicated by the polls, is that the Democrats have to win and that Bernie is too much of a risk while Hillary is ridiculously electable and we have to choose her. In hindsight that looks like a really stupid argument.
Yes, and the counter argument was "anyone will look bad with a 20 year smear operation" to which my reply was then just fucking dodge it. It would be rather hard to gin up the same level of rage against bernie with only 5 months. But nooo. Instead we were left with the worst of all worlds. I think Bernie would have had a rougher time with a few things, but overall was definitely the better candidate purely for not having unfavorables in the 60s
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On October 29 2016 03:59 Barrin wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2016 03:55 oneofthem wrote:On October 29 2016 03:49 Barrin wrote:On October 29 2016 03:44 oneofthem wrote:On October 29 2016 03:18 The_Templar wrote:On October 29 2016 03:14 ticklishmusic wrote:
headlines: THE FBI HAS FOUND NEW EMAILS AND MUST REVIEW THEM AS PART OF ITS INVESTIGATION
what probably happened: some analyst had a stack of emails to review printed out and left them in the print room. some guy was cleaning out the print room and noticed that they were left there, so they gotta read them now. There is no way on earth that something like that would be announced. why not? announcement was for reopening of investigations, because some new material came up. You mean you think the FBI would release the fact that it left unread emails in the print room (assuming that were the case)? if they reopen investigation because of something like that, they'd still have to announce the reopening of investigation. point is the cause of reopening is not the chief reason they announced the reopening of the case. it's just basic protocol to announce an important move like reopening this case. The potential fact that they had left unread emails sitting in the print room is fairly clearly what Templar was specifically referring to, not whether or not they would announce new emails at all. I suggest re-reading this comment chain if you're still not understanding me.
templar is obviously trying to color the announcement as some sort of indication of seriousness of the investigation.
if he's not doing that, then he would just be wrong on the facts, because comey did explain how the new material came about.
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On October 29 2016 04:03 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2016 03:59 LegalLord wrote:On October 29 2016 03:56 oneofthem wrote:On October 29 2016 03:51 LegalLord wrote:On October 29 2016 03:50 Piledriver wrote:
I'm just sad that the Democrats nominated Clinton. Anyone else, especially Biden or Bernie would have just carried this election in a landslide. I find it pretty ironic that the biggest argument in favor of nominating Hillary was that she is so ungodly electable that it would be folly to choose someone else. the party elites have a better idea of her ability and qualifications. electorate is just uninformed and easily swayed by various misinformation. While that is true, one of the major reasons that people voted Hillary over Bernie, as indicated by the polls, is that the Democrats have to win and that Bernie is too much of a risk while Hillary is ridiculously electable and we have to choose her. In hindsight that looks like a really stupid argument. Only if we assume the problem with Hillary was intrinsic to Hillary and not related to the effectiveness of the Republican smear campaign. If we assume equal effort would go into undermining Bernie then it becomes a different argument.
Though the smear campaign effect is definitely real, it's definitely a stretch to say that it has no relevance to the kind of candidate Hillary actually is.
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On October 29 2016 03:56 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2016 03:36 WhiteDog wrote:On October 29 2016 02:37 IgnE wrote:On October 29 2016 02:04 Velr wrote:On October 29 2016 00:01 WhiteDog wrote:
It is stupid anyway : if you are born in the US and had your education in the US, then you can rightfully talk about your american heritage, even if you're not white, or even if you have no biological link to any american forefathers. Actually, if this would hold up, and the usa wasn't extremly europeanheritage dominated, it would be so damn beautifull. a nationless nation without culture. a self-negation. united only by a commitment to pluralism, liberal values, and common borders. Culture is reproduced through education, not through biology. a homogenizing education system without roots? i thought velr was basically saying that the US would be beautiful if it were more multicultural, less eurocentric. what is your idea of a simultaneously homogenizing and multicultural education system that forged an American culture? is it even right to talk about an education system independent of the means of production and reproduction of a consumer culture, the only properly American culture that unites this country. and what are the implications of a rootless consumer culture that is neither eurocentric nor heterogeneous?
I don't really understand Velr point, but what I'm saying is that someone can have an european culture, while not of european descent.
Also, an education system can be both heterogeneous and convey a certain set of common values - it is the case in all the countries of the world actually. The valorization of heterogeneity above everything is the valorization of the communities against individual freedom.
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On October 29 2016 03:59 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2016 03:56 oneofthem wrote:On October 29 2016 03:51 LegalLord wrote:On October 29 2016 03:50 Piledriver wrote:
I'm just sad that the Democrats nominated Clinton. Anyone else, especially Biden or Bernie would have just carried this election in a landslide. I find it pretty ironic that the biggest argument in favor of nominating Hillary was that she is so ungodly electable that it would be folly to choose someone else. the party elites have a better idea of her ability and qualifications. electorate is just uninformed and easily swayed by various misinformation. While that is true, one of the major reasons that people voted Hillary over Bernie, as indicated by the polls, is that the Democrats have to win and that Bernie is too much of a risk while Hillary is ridiculously electable and we have to choose her. In hindsight that looks like a really stupid argument.
No, it looked like a stupid argument then too. Admittedly less stupid if you had to wait to get hammered over the head with what many of us believed ~a year ago.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On October 29 2016 04:07 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2016 03:59 LegalLord wrote:On October 29 2016 03:56 oneofthem wrote:On October 29 2016 03:51 LegalLord wrote:On October 29 2016 03:50 Piledriver wrote:
I'm just sad that the Democrats nominated Clinton. Anyone else, especially Biden or Bernie would have just carried this election in a landslide. I find it pretty ironic that the biggest argument in favor of nominating Hillary was that she is so ungodly electable that it would be folly to choose someone else. the party elites have a better idea of her ability and qualifications. electorate is just uninformed and easily swayed by various misinformation. While that is true, one of the major reasons that people voted Hillary over Bernie, as indicated by the polls, is that the Democrats have to win and that Bernie is too much of a risk while Hillary is ridiculously electable and we have to choose her. In hindsight that looks like a really stupid argument. No, it looked like a stupid argument then too. Admittedly less stupid if you had to wait to get hammered over the head with what many of us believed ~a year ago.
i believed hillary was fairly weak for the general election, but that she would be a far better president and have a set of far superior policies compare to bernie.
bernie has tremendous downside risk for both the country and democratic party politics.
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On October 29 2016 02:42 KwarK wrote:
Isn't the point of America that it is a commitment to American values, as defined in the constitution and upheld by American history, that defines what it is to be an American? Not the nation of your birth, the colour of your skin, the religion you practice or anything else.
Yes, but it is both a strength and a weakness. Because birthplace, ethnicity, religion, etc do not unite the nation, there has to be something that does, and those become the nation's symbols.
This is exactly why there is such a virulent reaction when people disrespect the flag, the national anthem, the Constitution, the military, etc. Those acts are basically striking at the core of Americanism.
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EPT
