site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  16d ago (text post)   26869 thread views

U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread

With apologies to our many friends and posters outside the United States... it's time for another one of these! Culture war thread rules apply, and you are permitted to openly advocate for or against an issue or candidate on the ballot (if you clearly identify which ballot, and can do so without knocking down any strawmen along the way). "Small-scale" questions and answers are also permitted if you refrain from shitposting or being otherwise insulting to others here. Please keep the spirit of the law--this is a discussion forum!--carefully in mind.

If you're a U.S. citizen with voting rights, your polling place can reportedly be located here.

If you're still researching issues, Ballotpedia is usually reasonably helpful.

Any other reasonably neutral election resources you'd like me to add to this notification, I'm happy to add.

15
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Regarding the Selzer poll, I had the following exchange:

It’s hard not to view this as just the latest in a long string of people lighting their credibility on fire for a tiny chance of stopping bad orange man. It seems to run contrary to every other piece of evidence: polls, registration, early voting, “vibes.”

A Trump blowout still seems like the most likely scenario to me. There is just too much going in Trump’s favor relative to the very close 2020 election.

We've only got a few days to wait so we'll see. But how willing are you to consider that rather than your ideological opponents willfully blinding themselves, it is perhaps you?

It looks like once again my judgment was infallible and the left was completely and utterly deluded. The entire online left was collectively deluded by the Selzer poll. "She's the gold standard!" It was beyond obvious the poll was rigged.

I ask myself constantly if it is I with the willful blinders. But no, when reality gets a vote in the past 8 years it's always the left who was deluded. The great Selzer debate is just a microcosm. They worship "muh experts" who are bought and paid for, or who are simply lying to support their ideology, and then refused to be moved by facts or logic. I guarantee this will trigger no self-reflection. They will insist they were right to trust the "gold standard" Selzer against all logic.

It's possible Selzer just botched it accidentally, and it wouldn't be the first time to have a weird outlier. But... it wouldn't be the first time to have a weird outlier, so it's at least not a strong look for the people certain it had to be correct.

Selzer looks to be living the Jesse Smollett media arc.

  1. Be a minor notable

  2. Trade integrity for brief media celebration

  3. Collapse

They could just have had a somewhat flawed process that happened to align with the final consensus last time. These things are such tiny sample sizes.

But no, when reality gets a vote in the past 8 years it's always the left who was deluded.

2022 midterms beg to disagree.

There is the theory that Ronna McDaniel and other GOP bureaucrats were purposefully sandbagging Trumpy candidates, starving them of campaign funds and promotion. Now that the Trump takeover of the GOP is complete with Lara Trump as chair, there is no longer internal sabotage.

This is by far a less convincing argument than some of those candidates just being loony.

All politicians are loony when put under any scrutiny what so ever. Even my favorites are kind of loony, but in a way that's endearing to me. All that matters is the information war that shapes public perception of them.

The surprise factor works to trump's advantage...the stuff not captured by polls by possibly picked up by savvy prediction market traders or investors of DJT stock. However, the cockiness by the left was nowhere near where it was in 2016.

In what way was it 'beyond obvious'?

I don't claim that the poll was particularly good/accurate, but I find it funny how easily people are willing to label a called shot on a probability 'obviously wrong' as soon the result doesn't agree with the slightly higher probability assigned.

If anyone's right, it's those who look at the record of the pollsters they follow and decide who to believe based on how many cumulative shots they've called correctly.

In what way was it 'beyond obvious'?

Because it blatantly contradicted every other piece of evidence about the state of the race in a way that was wildly implausible.

I find it funny how easily people are willing to label a called shot on a probability 'obviously wrong' as soon the result doesn't agree with the slightly higher probability assigned.

I spent the past few days on X relentlessly making fun of anyone who believed the Selzer poll. And then bet some money on PredictIt for good measure.

If anyone's right, it's those who look at the record of the pollsters they follow and decide who to believe based on how many cumulative shots they've called correctly.

As predicted, zero self-reflection. I could explain to you where this logic goes wrong, but it's better if you figure it out yourself.

What other pieces of evidence are you citing? Other polls perhaps? Hmm....

Could you explain it? Or are you going to say another vague nothing about experts that beggars belief with nothing to back it up?

Other polls, early voting number, the cross tabs on other polls suggesting Kamala was in trouble with black and Latino men. Past polling missed suggested the aggregate underestimated Trump. Statements by polling experts like Nate Cohn who said that nothing changed in the methodology.

And then of course, vibes. Talk to a lot of Trump-curious individuals.

Ah okay, so you believe experts and polls when they agree with your priors. Got it.

You’re not trying to convince me, and you’re not trying to convince the non-existent readers of this thread, so the sad conclusion is that you are only trying to convince yourself that you weren’t made to look like a fool by some old lady in Iowa who Nate Bronze said was “the gold standard” because she predicted Obama 100 years ago.

Are you taking issue with my conclusion? You mock people who believe in experts, you clearly state that going off a pollsters record is an error, then you turn around and claim to believe evidence from different pollsters. Based off what?

Was I supposed to conclude something other than that you believe your priors? If so, I'm not sure what it would be since you didn't provide any reasoning for believing some pollsters and not others.

Going to keep calling me a fool or do you want to make a claim with any amount of logic or intellect behind it?

Actually, I'll remind you that you claimed the poll was rigged, not just wrong. Care to back that up at all or is that just no-evidence vibes?

I looked at many different types of evidences, combined them when my priors, and drew the correct conclusion. That is the not the same as “I blinded trusted the one expert who told me what I wanted to hear.”

The Selzer poll did bother me initially. But after looking at all of the available evidence, it clearly was such an extreme outlier that fraud or incompetence was a more likely explanation than that it was carrying any information. I was so convinced by my deep dive that I made some heavy Trump bets on Monday/Tuesday and walked away with tens of thousands of dollars.

I was right. I probably wouldn’t have made those bets if it weren’t for the Selzer poll, because I hadn’t looked at all of the evidence.

I don’t owe you a detailed writeup of every piece of evidence I considered. However, I do think anyone who seriously believed the Selzer poll was a fool who did not seriously think through the result, or was bad at thinking it through. But again, I don’t owe you an explanation.

More comments

At this point, it seems Selzer will be off by 15 points. Wow.

For what it's worth, I'm thinking through where I went wrong.

I didn't think it was real either. Iowa D+3 would have meant a Democratic sweep of historic proportions uncaptured by any other pollsters. But experience has taught me to avoid a mental states which invite punishment for hubris: the night isn't over quite yet.

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