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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30730 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023

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If there are no sites predicting an R win or even a close win when someone R leaning googles, they may be less likely to care about voting. Seems like a no-brainer to use your control over the media to make this happen by any means necessary.

This is pretty uncertain. Just as plausibly it could discourage Democratic voters by making them complacent.

Maybe, that's true. Unsure if there have been any psychological studies on this effect, would be interesting to know for sure. However, clearly elite dems subscribe to my prediction, otherwise why buy 538 and libbify it?

Insofar as there may be some discrepancy in the treatment of Republican pollsters, I think the more plausible explanation is some kind of motivated reasoning against/semi-conscious suspicion of right-wing organisations on the part of the 538 team rather than some attempt to fix forecasts. You see the converse happen on RCP sometimes.

why buy 538 and libbify it?

This is just silly. ABC bought 538 to change forecasts by 0.1% and therefore somehow deliver elections to Democrats? No-one thinks that conspiratorially in real life.

I do, seems like common sense. Why do you think they wouldn't take an action that helps them? The action not instantly guaranteeing them a win doesn't mean its not worth taking. It's one action among many

It's hardly common sense; the business of business is business, and it's seems a reasonable assumption to suppose that, in the absence of convincing evidence to the contrary, ABC's use of 538 is ultimately driven by business incentives.

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