CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
No bio...
User ID: 333
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
3hr ago
Yeah, the 'Russian Asset' came direct from Hillary during the 2019 DNC primaries.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
4hr ago
By comparison, I still remember when Trump's nickname for Rubio was "Little Marco."
Yeah, that one's going to stick around to the end of his career.
I found some commentary on /r/moderatepolitics where she's criticised for being pro-Russian (so of course a Russian agent) and pro-Assad (because apparently she visited Syria and had an opportunistic meeting with Assad; after which she was a 'skeptic' of Assad using chemical weapons on his own people). There was some speculation on reddit that the senate wouldn't confirm her DNI appointment for the above reasons. She apparently also backed conversion therapy when she was younger. I haven't fact checked or done a deep dive on any of this. I'm just providing a hook for people to start their own research.
I'm actually a big fan of Tulsi after seeing her several times on Rogan (Transcript). She is against the MIC, the deep state (unelected bureaucrats) and forever wars. I was disappointed that she didn't get SecDef and worried that she would be sidelined, but my confidence was restored with the DNI selection. She's unironically what I would like to see as a female president.
I don't know how 2028 primaries will turn out, but I'd expect Rubio, Vance and Gabbard to compete. Vance and Gabbard seemed to get along very well on the campaign trail (Vance being an (ex)marine and Gabbard being Reserve Army).
Edit: Adding some links. Atlantic article doing some character assassination here.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
7hr ago
I'm sorry for your loss.
My Grandfather passed very recently. He lived a long life into his 90's. He just caught a chest infection one day and deteriorated quite quickly in hospital. He eventually just asked the doctors to stop treating him and switch to palliative care. After 3 days he passed away. He wasn't responsive once they switched to palliative care, being in something of a delirium.
My father did not take his passing well. This is partially because it's his last parent going and also because he himself is in hospital for chronic health conditions and couldn't attend the funeral. It was a bit of an existential crisis in the sense that myself and my siblings have realised that our father likely doesn't have many years left in him either.
For myself, I'm glad Grandfather passed relatively quickly without a long drawn out death from something like dementia. He had his faculties up to the end (with just some physical frailties) and was still driving himself around. He lived a good, long life and left behind a successful and loving family. I'd be lucky to follow his example.
I'm reluctant to post this last part because I don't expect anyone to take this seriously. I'm agnostic, but I sensed when my Grandfather passed. I was in a hyperfocused state doomscrolling at the time. I'm normally completely shut off from most of my emotions when I'm doing this, but I sensed a presence so I stopped what I was doing. I made a prayer for my Grandfather to commend him to God. I felt a warmth like a loving hug and knew he was saying goodbye and that he was fine. Then it was gone. Minutes later I got a text that Grandfather had passed 10 minutes ago. So that was a thing.
Like yourself there's a good chance I'll be deleting this one later on.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
3d ago
You're not alone. :(
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
4d ago
I'm sorry this happened. You did nothing wrong.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
6d ago
That I could wake up in the morning with enough states undeclared (by two of the three organizations used to resolve Polymarket) to plausibly swing the result is horrific optics.
Completely agree with you. This was my greatest fear, should not be possible at all. With more resources and organisation it should not be possible. I wish at the very least that the FEC sent 'flying squads' to the swing states to act as a QRF for any of these bullshit anomalies. As soon as any of this shit pops up on a radar, that counting office gets 20 Feds dropping in to stand over them. There needs to be consequences for even looking like you're trying something funky.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
6d ago
a) Trump will try to nominate his horse for SCOTUS (not literally, but nominating a poorly qualified candidate who is personally tied to him the way Bush did with Harriet Miers)?
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
7d ago
Don't be ashamed if the therapy knocks you around for the day. People often underrate the emotional impact of opening up boxes like that.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
7d ago
Do you think some Indian or East Asian techbros are racist against whites, or its just a general progressive-tech anti-White bias? I'm curious about this because I used to have a baseline that these groups who had emigrated to the west were generally positive about Whites, but recent commentary in Indian twitterspace has made me doubt that.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
7d ago
I really really despise people who try to exaggerate data by starting an axis at anything other than zero.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
7d ago
My wife specifically referred to "The loudest people" in her groups making themselves feel more important and representative than they actually are.
I doubt the harridan element would screech so loud if they were certain the consensus they were trying to build already existed. This concept extends out to Twitter space.
It's Better to be Lucky than Good
I’m not a practiced Bayesian, and to be honest this is as much as a victory lap as it is a reflection on my priors. Oh lets, be honest. This is mostly a victory lap.
My major election posts in the lead up:
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I noted Joe Rogan had solidified his status as a Kingmaker after the Trump interview. This seems to have been born out by Trump’s quick acknowledgment of Rogan’s endorsement and the large shout out by Dana White in Trump’s Victory speech. Even before the interview, I noted Trump going on Rogan was a Big Deal. I realized I was right about the impact when NBC of all things made multiple references to the ‘Joe Rogan Army’ during their election coverage when noting the young male turnout.
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After going on Rogan, the McDonalds photo op, and Kamala’s failure to resonate in her campaign, I made a Trump win prediction at 55-60% certainty 10 days before the election.
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I quickly noted the Selzer poll was likely bullshit.
Things I got wrong:
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I underestimated the impact of the Garbage fiasco. I thought it was just more random flotsam in the election and would probably be quickly forgotten. To be fair I didn’t know Trump’s team would use meme magic to force the MSM to cover Trump speaking from a garbage truck. The nail in the coffin was when he honked the horn (rare footage)
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I didn’t post about this, but I did upvote Blackpill posts about Democrat election fraud. I really did expect 3am mystery trucks, election officials putting up paper over the windows and keeping monitors outside, gas/water leaks and restarting the count after monitors had gone home etc etc at about 65-70% certainty. That didn’t eventuate thankfully.
Takeaways:
I’m not an American citizen/resident so I’m not immersed in the election. I am ‘very online’. I rate my election prediction performance as ‘not bad’ for this one, but I put that down to my information diet curation. My major aggregator was actually here at the Motte (with some other centrist non-MSM sources) and I would then go down rabbit holes myself for further research. I leveraged the screening and arguments of this forum to better inform myself, so I consider myself pretty lucky to be here.
One last point is that I’m upgrading my view of betting markets to consider them a credible source. They won’t be my only source, but I’m now taking them seriously. Polymarket got this one right.
Someone said MI, WI and PA need to be won to allow Harris a path to victory at the moment. WI and PA are about 1% ahead for Trump right now with about 50% of those two states counted.
Edit: WI, MI and PA currently ahead for Trump in the count. Shitposters are memeing 'Trump built the Red Wall'.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
8d ago
Trump's ahead in WI (and PA for a few seconds at around 43% counted) right now. Less opportunities to rig things now covid's over. Polymarket spiking past 85%. This is looking like a solid win.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
9d ago
This makes sense to me. I think I saw somewhere that early voting skewed female, which makes me think men just spontaneously turn up to the polls on the day. You'd want to give them a nudge at the last minute, like the night before.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
9d ago
Brazilian Churrascaria, preferably in Brazil. Vegans need not apply.
Alternatively, Argentinian Steakhouse (in Buenos Aires) and get a steak (of your choice) and local red wine.
I haven't had better meat eating experiences, and I've been around the world.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
9d ago
Agreed, but the BBC was reporting there were 'no known links to Islam', presumably after police had searched the guy's house and found the ricin and Al Qaeda manual. At the same time, police had said they weren't currently treating it as a terrorist incident.
There was a huge loss in trust of the government to accurately report what they knew about the attack when they knew it. The latest excuse seems to be that reporting information about motives early 'might impact the legal case against the attacker', with no same standard being held to the Prime Minister quickly painting rioters as 'Far Right Extremists' with a sweeping broad brush prior to their trials.
In an attempt to mitigate ethnic tension in the short term via narrative control, the UK government has lost long term credibility in their reporting of future incidents.
Anyone that wants more information on this topic should check out the /r/unitedkingdom subreddit and search for 'southport stabbings'. Huge culture-war flareup over the last few days with some accounts seemingly doing damage control for the govt's early narrative.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
9d ago
I don't have an issue with only promising to certify 'fair' elections in hindsight, because that is Trump's current attitude too.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
9d ago
I am starting to theorize that Prediction markets will have a bit of a bias inherent to them on certain issues, given that the participants are generally pro-capitalist and like/trust markets.
I think there is too, although I haven't spent as much time looking at this bias as others. Smells like an opportunity.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
11d ago
Nate Silver on the Selzer Poll:
Releasing this poll took an incredible amount of guts because — let me state this as carefully as I can — if you had to play the odds, this time Selzer will probably be wrong.
I'm not believing late in the game polls that show large swings out of nowhere. There's been a few influencers that have wisely said 'don't believe anything you see in the news in the last few days before the election.'
Edit: Nate didn't have much good to say about the Emerson poll either.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
11d ago
I appreciate these sort of roundups and what you're doing. Cheers.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
11d ago
I had allergy issues and went to an ENT (after basically asking a GP directly for a referral and giving them enough dot points about my situation that they rubber stamped my request). The ENT I saw put me onto this stuff and said that he (personally) uses it regularly for sinusitis. I didn't use it long enough to know if the active ingredient can create a tolerance.
I'm not a doctor at all, just a clumsy googling amateur interested in his own health (like many here).
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
13d ago
General JD/Rogan comment:
When he heard Trump was shot he took his kids home from mini-golf, loaded his guns and stood sentry at his house. Fuck yeah.
She worked for her father's anti-gay organisation when she was younger.
She's since retracted her anti-gay stance.
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