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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Silver got it wrong, everybody got it wrong, the polls were wrong in 2016, but ever since there's been this contrarian strain of the discourse that wants to argue that the polls were right, or whatever. Look at some of the state polling, which was wildly wrong, in some of the swing states by 10 points or more. (Similar happened in a few of the Democratic primary states Bernie was not expected to win.) In fairness, I seem to remember Silver owning up to being partially-wrong and attempting to explain why. But it doesn't mean he was right.
I guess you can argue that polling is same-day or whatever, but if polling experts all say the same thing for six months and then at the end still don't predict the correct outcome, then what value is polling? What, Silver gave Trump 30% at the last possible moment, therefore he was "reasonable"? That's all unfalsifiable augury, because as long as there's any >0% odds of an outcome Silver """predicted""" it. It's not any different from what you dismiss as "vibes".
The polls were also wrong in 2012. In fact, the error was larger in 2012, it just didn't end up changing the result.
The point is not that the polls were right. The point is that if you want to know how people are going to vote in November of 2016, there's only so much you can determine by asking them in February of 2016. There's a limit to what polling can determine, to how accurate polls can be, and that accuracy will be better the day before the election rather than six months before. As to what the point of this kind of polling is - if you're reading it, it's for you. It fills newspapers and websites, which can then sell ads. The quality of such polls is not great - after all, you're getting it for free. There's good polling out there, but it's not being used to fill space between ads, people pay money for it so they can use it to guide campaign strategy, marketing decisions, etc.
Yes, it is in fact, very reasonable to say that there isn't enough evidence to commit to one side or another.
No offense, but if you don't understand statistics and probability, maybe you really shouldn't be reading Nate Silver. Statistics by it's own nature cannot give certain predictions of the future.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link