site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   9334 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 14, 2024

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The prediction markets, if anything, seem to be underselling Trump's chances right now.

I'd check out RealClearPolitics, which does a good job of aggregating all the polls. Trump is ahead in 6 of 7 swing states right now. Based on current polling averages, Trump wins 302 electoral votes. More importantly, polls are moving in his favor each day:

https://www.realclearpolling.com/elections/president/2024/battleground-states

Another data point. At this point in the campaign 8 years ago, Hilary was up by over 6.7 points nationally. Biden was up by 10 points. So we'd expect the polls to undersell Republican support on average. If the 2024 campaign follows the same trajectory as previous ones, Trump wins the popular vote by 3% and an electoral college landslide.

So, absent other information, I'd put Trump's odds at 70-80%. But I also know that I'm lacking information and fallible. I trust that the prediction markets are likely to be a truer reflection of the current state of the race than my opinions. There's actually a decent amount of liquidity in this particular market, with over $1 billion gambled, and a small bid ask spread of just 0.1%.

While I fully agree with your general point and thrust of argument, particularly in overall polling differences compared to previous elections, the current leads in key states are still well within normal margins of error. We are in various cases talking about leads of 0.X% when a margin of error can be wide.

While I fully agree that based on historical patterns this would be a shoe in, there is a point that this assumes no changes in how polls were conducted between election cycles to try and improve their accuracy. There are many interests- commercial, strategic, and political-competitor- that have incentives to try and improve polling accuracy, and so it's not good to assume the same errors will continue to be repeated in the same way.

New equivalent errors may be introduced, and there are even conspiratorial takes on why polls may be wrong (such as presenting polls claiming a much closer race to support the effectiveness of future cheating by reducing the amount of cheating needed to plausibly 'narrowly' win), but these would have to be made and I don't think you or most other people are making them.

The prediction markets, if anything, seem to be underselling Trump's chances right now.

As much as I think the "Trump campaign is in disarray! They were not prepared for Kamala! Coconut-couchfucker-joy!" offensive was fake, I'll keep repeating "it's not over until it's over". Someone else also pointed out back then that relying on pollsters' past bias might be risky, because you never know when they might decide to correct for it.

Oh yeah, I'm with you. And we also can't escape the fact that many swing states have serious flaws in their election security.

A lot can still happen. I would expect a maximally damaging and fake news story to drop against Trump in the next few days. (50% chance). But on the plus side, Biden seems to hate Kamala so some of the levers that the current administration can pull (like sabre-rattling with Iran) won't get pulled.

But on the plus side, Biden seems to hate Kamala

Source?

You make it sound as if pollster bias is just a simple matter of them deciding not to correct for them, rather than them trying repeatedly to correct for it but reality being surprising in various ways.

Hofstadler's Law of polling mean there is always a shy Tory effect, even when you correct for Hofstadler's Law.

Yes, and you seem to be implying there's something strange about that?

If the bias is consistently in the same direction, I find it unlikely that they are actually trying to correct it. I'd have to look up the post I'm citing, but I think they were talking about Sweden where their right-populist party was underestimated during one election, overestimated in the next one, and finally estimated correctly in the one after that. This is what you'd expect to see if they were trying.

Nate Silver has written about how the Red Wave that never manifested was in fact never well supported by the polling data and instead was a result of just such an overcorrection so there is at least some evidence in that direction.

Trump has had two Presidential elections so far. Even with no bias, you'd expect the error to be the same sign 50% of the time.

The dark and cynical but not quite CapitalRoom level of cynicism is that the pollsters have to keep the polls showing the possibility of a Harris victory to give the Democrats cover when they "find" enough ballots to put her over the top.

I do have to say it's concerning that this election runs through several of our nation's most corrupt cities: Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and Atlanta.

I won't make specific claims but it's the height of naivete to think these cities can run an election correctly.

What city exists that Republicans actually trust?

Until we get annexation of metropolitan areas it's just going to be like this.

There is also the possibility that the underlying cause for the bias could have abated. Support for Trump can have normalised in poll answering demographics for instance.

I still find it likely that some underestimation is going on but I wouldn't be surprised if the poll aggregate is largely accurate or even overestimating Trump.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats