IGX

powerlifter54 wrote:A much better set of men, GW and Mitt Romney plaid the cabal game of Repubs not responding to lies and it didn't work out so well. That tactic is forever changed from Trump's example.

Not only the last Republican President & 2012 nominee, but when Congress allowed Obama to ride roughshod over their Constitutional authority (Iran Nuclear "Treaty," Sanctuary Cities, and blanket amnesty for "Dreamers," among others)...

...many Americans concluded that the problem was NOT the Republicans' lack of polish, erudition, and sophisticated reasoning, it was their lack of courage & will. Voters wanted someone with the balls to fight and not quit. That was Trump.

*****

That's also why there is so much love for Trey Gowdy in the Congress.

Below, he rips the media for burying Benghazi .

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0olzCDN2tg[/youtube]

Pinky wrote:

powerlifter54 wrote:When someone makes claims based on "science", check their math. A lot of the intelligentsia look like complete fools after last night.

This is especially true of Sam Wang, Ryan Grim and the other dumbasses who were arguing that Clinton had a 99% chance of winning, and accusing anyone who suggested polling results contain error of trying to put their thumb on the scale. While any forecasted election probability should be taken with at least a grain of salt, pretending that you can add up a bunch of polls and be 99% sure of the outcome is just stupid.

wang's methodology is on his site. that is, unlike silver, for example, he shows his work. it is openly debated by statisticians. he relies on others' polls, which seems to me where things went pear-shaped.

how is wang's math "stupid"--be specific about his statistical flaws, pls.

dead man walking wrote: how is wang's math "stupid"--be specific about his statistical flaws, pls.

Wang makes very strong and unfounded assumptions about the lack systematic bias, the correlation of errors in the polls, and the independence of results between states. He foolishly sells the simplicity of his approach and the absence of modeling as a feature. In reality, simple approaches often involve stronger assumptions than "fancy" models because reality is not simple.

His 99% number would not be possible with a model that didn't take an unreasonably simple view of reality.

dead man walking wrote:

Pinky wrote:

powerlifter54 wrote:When someone makes claims based on "science", check their math. A lot of the intelligentsia look like complete fools after last night.

This is especially true of Sam Wang, Ryan Grim and the other dumbasses who were arguing that Clinton had a 99% chance of winning, and accusing anyone who suggested polling results contain error of trying to put their thumb on the scale. While any forecasted election probability should be taken with at least a grain of salt, pretending that you can add up a bunch of polls and be 99% sure of the outcome is just stupid.

wang's methodology is on his site. that is, unlike silver, for example, he shows his work. it is openly debated by statisticians. he relies on others' polls, which seems to me where things went pear-shaped.

how is wang's math "stupid"--be specific about his statistical flaws, pls.

Number 1. They were way way off. That matters. A lot. It is why they get paid.
Number 2. Sampling model. They continuously used turnout models and party weighting based on Obama turnout, and have never changed their home phone in every house assumption.
Number 3. They had no mechanism in place, despite the fact they knew there were issues with age, race, and sex of samplers on the response of the voter, to work through bias.
Number 4. They made no effort to seek out voters who were not previously likely voters.
Number 5. They were blinded by their own bias towards Clinton, and even in the clarity of the last two weeks and potential to look like goobers, they didn't change.

Statistics is all about methods of gathering the data and sorting out or adding the valuable outliers. They failed spectacularly. See number 1.

IMHO, the rise of social media and the commonality of cell phones has changed the polling game. Even in person polling, like exit polls, were way way off. I am a stats and math guy. This is not going to get better without a lot of money and effort. Larry Sabado at UVA changed his name to Department of Politics. He said yesterday it has become more Art than Science.

The Pollsters sucked at both.

See number 1.

sam wang is not a pollster. he is an aggregator of others' polls. he was right in '12' 14.

he is a professor of neuroscience, and is not paid for doing his hobby, he is not motivated by financial interest.

wang's ultimate snapshot was way off. he says he will eat a bug as a form of penance.

clinton did win the popular vote, so i don't know that the polls were "way" off.

the voters got it right. the electoral college fucked up.

Pinky wrote:

dead man walking wrote: how is wang's math "stupid"--be specific about his statistical flaws, pls.

Wang makes very strong and unfounded assumptions about the lack systematic bias, the correlation of errors in the polls, and the independence of results between states. He foolishly sells the simplicity of his approach and the absence of modeling as a feature. In reality, simple approaches often involve stronger assumptions than "fancy" models because reality is not simple.

His 99% number would not be possible with a model that didn't take an unreasonably simple view of reality.

he was correct in the past, though, wasn't he?

here is what he wrote about things:

In addition to the enormous polling error, I did not correctly estimate the size of the correlated error – by a factor of five. As I wrote before, that five-fold difference accounted for the difference between the 99% probability here and the lower probabilities at other sites. We all estimated the Clinton win at being probable, but I was most extreme. It goes to show that even if the estimation problem is reduced to one parameter, it’s still essential to do a good job with that one parameter. Polls failed, and I amplified that failure.

as i mentioned in my previous post, he will eat a bug to pay for his "foolishness." of course, he's chinese, and they eat crazy shit all the time.

dead man walking wrote:
the voters got it right. the electoral college fucked up.

That pesky Constitution!

johno wrote:

dead man walking wrote:
the voters got it right. the electoral college fucked up.

That pesky Constitution!

He's not complaining about the extra senators living in a small state gives him though.

dead man walking wrote:

Pinky wrote:

dead man walking wrote: how is wang's math "stupid"--be specific about his statistical flaws, pls.

Wang makes very strong and unfounded assumptions about the lack systematic bias, the correlation of errors in the polls, and the independence of results between states. He foolishly sells the simplicity of his approach and the absence of modeling as a feature. In reality, simple approaches often involve stronger assumptions than "fancy" models because reality is not simple.

His 99% number would not be possible with a model that didn't take an unreasonably simple view of reality.

he was correct in the past, though, wasn't he?

Being right during a couple of past elections does not mean his approach was reasonable. Sometimes people are right on accident.

Furthermore, it's important to keep in mind that is real error was not that he thought Clinton would probably win. It was his absurd belief in the lack of uncertainty in poll aggregation.

here is what he wrote about things:

In addition to the enormous polling error, I did not correctly estimate the size of the correlated error – by a factor of five.
As I wrote before, that five-fold difference accounted for the difference between the 99% probability here and the lower probabilities at other sites. We all estimated the Clinton win at being probable, but I was most extreme. It goes to show that even if the estimation problem is reduced to one parameter, it’s still essential to do a good job with that one parameter. Polls failed, and I amplified that failure.

as i mentioned in my previous post, he will eat a bug to pay for his "foolishness." of course, he's chinese, and they eat crazy shit all the time.

He amplified the failure in the poll by making the strong, unfounded assumptions I mentioned before. The fact that he still thinks a problem like this could be reduced to one parameter suggests that he hasn't learned anything.

In fairness to Wang, this is simply a hobby of his. It's a hobby that's resulted in his saying very stupid things in public, but it's not really his fault that his hobby led to other people promoting him as a "data hero".

Weren't many of the Hillary/Donald polls within the margin of error, such that they really weren't "wrong"?
Neither were they "right."

here's a list of polls from monday and tuesday.

for most--but not all--it appears clinton's lead in the poll was about 0.5%-1% greater than margin of error. a few polls did have trump ahead.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls ... -5952.html

So, serious question.

I know some of you voted for Trump because you believed he would drain the swamp. Some of you don't care and just wanted a Republican in office.

What do you think of his advisory committee so far?

And also this, what is the main goal of a Republican government? Establishing a Christian theocracy and padding the pockets of the wealthy? (sorry, that's a low blow, but honestly my impression of things) Or what? Trumps 100 day plan looked a lot more like something Bernie Sanders would write, but I don't think he's going to withstand the pressure from all the Washington Insiders and it will be Bush II part two. I'm hoping his ego kicks in at some point. Otherwise, well, I think things are going to go pretty badly for the a large number of the people who elected him.

But, mainly, I'm kind of morbidly curious as to how all of this is going to shake out.

syaigh wrote:
And also this, what is the main goal of a Republican government? Establishing a Christian theocracy and padding the pockets of the wealthy? (sorry, that's a low blow, but honestly my impression of things) Or what?

Yes. Trump is a well-known New York theocrat who is finally going to give some money to the wealthy, who've suffered under Obama.

syaigh wrote:So, serious question.

I know some of you voted for Trump because you believed he would drain the swamp. Some of you don't care and just wanted a Republican in office.

What do you think of his advisory committee so far?

And also this, what is the main goal of a Republican government? Establishing a Christian theocracy and padding the pockets of the wealthy? (sorry, that's a low blow, but honestly my impression of things) Or what? Trumps 100 day plan looked a lot more like something Bernie Sanders would write, but I don't think he's going to withstand the pressure from all the Washington Insiders and it will be Bush II part two. I'm hoping his ego kicks in at some point. Otherwise, well, I think things are going to go pretty badly for the a large number of the people who elected him.

But, mainly, I'm kind of morbidly curious as to how all of this is going to shake out.

As to the advisory group:

Peter Thiel is quite possibly the most intelligent person in the world. He will lead transition because it will be obvious he should within minutes of them sitting down.

As to you Q about "Republican Government":

This is the central question of this cycle. And one both sides have to ask with equal urgency. In general, we have been living in The Age of Neoliberalism. And the neoliberals have co-opted and used the two parties to further their aims: acquisition of wealth via commissioned asset transfers from the middle class of the West (and Japan) to the rest of the world (immigration); the equalization in wages across the world (globalization) and the creation of a World Empire with a US military, Int'l banking centered in the UK and a European/EU political class.

The Republican Party has been a tool of the neoliberals since just before WWII when England, the Eastern Seaboard WASPs and pro-war Jews conspired to destroy the America First nativist and isolationist faction. After that, and after the war, these same groups (absent UK) and now aided by the CIA worked to purge the Republican Party of anyone not on board with neoliberalism in its new guise as "conservatism": see Bill Buckley and NRO as a model. Instead of the isolationism and nativism the Republicans offered a faux patriotism, the 2nd Amendment, a faux christianity and tax cuts. There was no intention of ever outlawing abortion or protecting the 2A. And any gains on those fronts were made against the wishes of the gop establishment. In fact, the NRA and pro life groups were themselves co opted soon after being founded. The goal was interventionism abroad and massive immigration transferring wealth from the middle class and depressing wages.

These trends played out theough the W Bush economic and foreign policy collapse. Then came Obama who is not a neoliberal, but pursued many of the goals for different reasons (he wants to recreate SA and ZIM here).

Obviously, these policies caused massive suffering and loss of quality of life for the middle and working classes. And peoole wanted change. The Republican voters chose Trump because he offered a clearly non neoliberal politics in the reincarnation of America First: nativism and isolationism. And with his victory, the Republican Party and "conservatism" is dead. We will have at the very least nativism and isolationism because the coalition which supports it is large enough to win nationally and locally.

So, long story short, "conservatism" the animating force of the republican party was a scam. It was a front for the neoliberal project and used a faux christianity and faux patriotism to further globalism.

The same story played out with the Democratic Party. There pro abortion, anti-christianity, minority rights and gay marriage and trannys were the cover for neoliberal globaism (Clintonism).

TerryB wrote:

syaigh wrote:
And also this, what is the main goal of a Republican government? Establishing a Christian theocracy and padding the pockets of the wealthy? (sorry, that's a low blow, but honestly my impression of things) Or what?

Yes. Trump is a well-known New York theocrat who is finally going to give some money to the wealthy, who've suffered under Obama.

That was pretty good proto.

Taleb pointed out months back that the volatility in the polls themsleves (not aggregate) mandated a 50/50 prediction. No one listened.

In the links I provided and the ones wang claimed gave the best analysis of his method clearly state that prior to the Kerry loss he wrongly estimated the undecideds woukd break for underdog as they had in the past, he was wrong. Based on this, next time he had them break similar to Bush/Kerry, and was right. Likewise, he assumed 2012 turnout and voting patterns, and was wrong. This is his method. This is not good. This is not science.

People like this are scary. And give them a degree from a Princeton and you get them doing crazy shit based on unwarranted belief in their abilities.

And early voting is fraudulent bullshit. Absent that, hillary had one of the worst performances ever.

bennyonesix wrote: The Republican Party has been a tool of the neoliberals since just before WWII when England, the Eastern Seaboard WASPs and pro-war Jews conspired to destroy the America First nativist and isolationist faction.

fuckin' right. we never should have fought hitler. he was europe's problem not ours. it has been downhill since. charles lindbergh was the man.

dead man walking wrote:

bennyonesix wrote: The Republican Party has been a tool of the neoliberals since just before WWII when England, the Eastern Seaboard WASPs and pro-war Jews conspired to destroy the America First nativist and isolationist faction.

fuckin' right. we never should have fought hitler. he was europe's problem not ours. it has been downhill since. charles lindbergh was the man.

Truth. England has screwed us over foreign policy wise every damn time. Every time.

bennyonesix wrote:Taleb pointed out months back that the volatility in the polls themsleves (not aggregate) mandated a 50/50 prediction. No one listened.

That's because his underlying logic was ridiculous. Taleb is kind of like Neil Degrasse Tyson where he gets in over his head on subjects he's not familiar with.

538 had Trump winning ~1 in 3 elections if you ran it three times. People were all over them for it.

Grandpa's Spells wrote:

bennyonesix wrote:Taleb pointed out months back that the volatility in the polls themsleves (not aggregate) mandated a 50/50 prediction. No one listened.

That's because his underlying logic was ridiculous. Taleb is kind of like Neil Degrasse Tyson where he gets in over his head on subjects he's not familiar with.

538 had Trump winning ~1 in 3 elections if you ran it three times. People were all over them for it.

Who told you that? No one has argued against him. The way to evaluate the skill of a forecaster is to determine how much arbitrage was possible over the course of the forecast. The final prediction is not the point. In a binary system, and over a period of time in which volatility is extreme, the proper forecast is 50/50. This is not up for debate. Please note, this is not analysis of betting markets and making book.

Grandpa's Spells wrote:

bennyonesix wrote:Taleb pointed out months back that the volatility in the polls themsleves (not aggregate) mandated a 50/50 prediction. No one listened.

That's because his underlying logic was ridiculous. Taleb is kind of like Neil Degrasse Tyson where he gets in over his head on subjects he's not familiar with.

538 had Trump winning ~1 in 3 elections if you ran it three times. People were all over them for it.

Yes. People were all over Silver because they thought he betrayed the cause and made the election ca closer than jt was. He was the least wrong. But he was still wrong. And Taleb was right. What you wrote does not address taleb's point at all.

bennyonesix wrote:I refuse to read this thread. But Trump will win. The majority approach was rejected by GOP because it woukd work. White disaffected voters are still largest minority. Trump will beat Romney and get many more ind and Dem crossovers. Brothers aren't motivated and Hillary will underperform BO in every demo but blue haired cat ladies. Turnout will be huge and disaffected voters will go almost entirely to Trump.

OH, FL, PA, VA, NH, NC and at least one of MI, WI,MIN.

That is right now. Wait until the preference cascade kicks in.

Suck it shitlibs.

Ahem