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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
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.
Because it blatantly contradicted every other piece of evidence about the state of the race in a way that was wildly implausible.
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.
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.
You don't owe anyone an explanation. However, if you claim that something is rigged, that is a completely meaninglessness thing to say without evidence and you should be ridiculed for having no epistemic standards.
'Fraud or incompetence'. So you actually don't admit that you had any particular reason to believe this was rigged rather than wrong? It wasn't 'beyond obvious' that it was rigged? Don't retreat to a more defensible position once pressed a little on your initial claim. That's what intellectually dishonest people and cowards do.
I understand your OP now. At first I thought you were mocking the idea of deferring to experts at all. But now it seems like you're just claiming when YOU look at expert opinions youre doing your own research, but when OTHERS (who don't agree with you) do they are worshipping bought and paid for experts.
I'm confident you completely discount the left leaning folk who believed other polls just as much as the Selzer one, but please prove me wrong if that's not true
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link