this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023
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Politics
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I did not trust 538 before. I think a few major US election voter turnouts suffered because too many people thought the 538 results meant that their candidate was a sure thing.
Based on the article, it looks like this change would make that a lot worse, since the main point of contention between Silver and the new guy seems to be that the new guy's models are a lot more certain of the results too early. So candidates are going to look like the sure thing far more now most likely.
That's not good. Specifically, I believe Trump beat Clinton because of 538.
That's not really accurate. The polls were going back and forth for over a month leading up to the election, and the FBI announce they were re-opening the case into Clinton's emails 3 days before voting day. The polls just didn't have the time to reflect that change.
Was it 538, or just the utter idiocy of the average American? Just because the polls say he has a 33% chance of winning, doesn't mean stay home, it means the opposite.
Thems worse odds than Russian roulette.
Weird take.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-fivethirtyeight-gave-trump-a-better-chance-than-almost-anyone-else/
538 was one of the few groups saying that Trump had a decent chance. They were widely mocked for it. Anybody who believed 538 should have been motivated to get out the vote for Clinton.
And they turned out to be right.
How is that "Trump beat Clinton because of 538"?
Maybe I misremembered 538 for another popular poll at the time.
I think releasing polls to the public is a bad thing for this reason. We ban releasing boat totals before the polls close for this exact same reason.
That's a problem that could emerge with any system used to predict the outcome of any election.
If you make a prediction, you're arguably telling people not to vote.
I think it was the elitist confidence that the media including 538 applied to 538.
So confidently predicting an outcome is the problem?
538 is just data-backed fortune-telling.