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Politics aside. What does it say about his judgement to continue investing in something that is statistically on track to fail. Not only that, but its also a to

by vinhboy 10y ago

Politics aside. What does it say about his judgement to continue investing in something that is statistically on track to fail. Not only that, but its also a toxic brand to attach yourself to. Or do we just put this in the "expensive new hobby" section and leave it at that. ---- Update: I want to hijack my own comment to ponder something. As someone with no money and no influence, I find it hard to think about how to use money to buy influence as part of a grand plan, like many of the comments here are suggesting. As a layman, I think in simple terms like discrimination, racism, sexism, etc... and my belief in fighting against all those things. Am I short-sighted? Is there some greater human social structure that I am not aware of that can only be achieved by making such calculated investments? Despite all the immediately negative rhetoric.

fixxer 10y ago
I'm not betting on a Trump presidency, but I'm fascinated at what the electorate is going to look like in the general. We've been basing so much of the polling on projections over 2012/2008 turnout. I would not be surprised if the final margin is within 2 points.
- vinhboy 10y ago
  I would be more surprised if the margins are huge. I have come to expect team politics to give us close margins. I would be surprised, in either a very happy or very sad way, if instead the margins are big.
  - fixxer 10y ago
    True; I wonder what impact a 9 point poll-implied spread turning into 1-2 points in the ballot booth could have on future political activities by "alt right" candidates. It feels like many are treating this as a "beat Trump and save the world" situation without realizing that the underlying movement isn't likely going away. If Trump brings in a large enough group of non-voters, that will have long lasting impacts (people that start voting tend to keep voting).
    - int_19h 10y ago
      It can still be "save the world" situation even when understanding this. Long-term, it would be nice to have a SCOTUS that would be more of a check on someone like Trump, and less of a rubberstamp.
      - fixxer 10y ago
        I'd be happy with a SCOTUS that checks the executive branch in general. We're already in full-on rubber stamp mode and have been for 16 years, if not longer.
        int_19h 10y ago
        I wouldn't call the current court a rubber stamp. There have been some very unfortunate decisions, sure, but there were also quite a few decisions that prevented either the states or the feds from running wild. The real problem with being a true check is partisanship on the court. By now, it seems to be essentially accepted that there are "liberal judges" and "conservative judges", and that they will rule accordingly. I cringe every time I hear that, because SCOTUS, like any other court, is supposed to rule on what the law is, not on what it should be; and one's political affiliation should not affect the former. In practice, of course, it does matter these days, and it is a really bad thing, especially in an institution that is 1) so small, and 2) not providing any mechanism to hold them responsible.
- Tsugumo 10y ago
  Super Tuesday voter turnout in 2008: 8,228,763 for Democrats, 5,025,685 for Republicans. 2016: 5,557,243 Democrats, 8,307,884 Republicans If I was a betting man, I'd put my money on Trump. I think it will be close. That said, I also believe electoral fraud could decide the election.
  - threeseed 10y ago
    That doesn't make much sense. Super Tuesday primaries included all likely Republican voters. But Trump only has the support of about 40% of them and nothing he has done to date indicates that number is changing. And there is no evidence that electoral fraud is likely to decide the election. In fact it's looking like efforts to prevent it e.g. in Indiana are far more likely to influence the election.
    - Tsugumo 10y ago
      The record-breaking Republican turnout was due to Trump, and I think it is reasonable to believe that the vast majority of Republicans will vote Trump over Hillary, or 3rd party. At the same time, many independents and Bernie supporters will vote Trump as well. In my mind, Trump is the Republican Obama, and will benefit from many first-time voters, and a large turnout in general. It does not seem to me that Hillary has the same draw. I don't mean to argue with you, only to clarify.
      - threeseed 10y ago
        You're confused again. Trump had record breaking PRIMARY turnout. All polls taken so far have him only getting about 40% of Republicans. And there is no evidence what so ever that he is drawing in independents or Bernie supporters at any significant rate. He is down by on average 7 points nationally for a reason.
        rconti 10y ago
        Correction: 75% of Republicans, 40% overall. He seems to have a fairly hard ceiling. His support among Republicans is shockingly low, but likely to rebound a bit to keep it from being a total blowout.
throwaway101416 10y ago
I think it's very difficult to find truly unbiased statistics on this. Every current well-known analyst has been repeatedly egregiously wrong on the matter throughout this election cycle.
- rconti 10y ago
  On matters of opinion, ABSOLUTELY. On matters of polling, absolutely false. Even Brexit was predicted by the polls, it just didn't happen until a week before the vote. (It's worth noting, of course, the same could happen here. And that's probably what Thiel is counting on).
  - threeseed 10y ago
    Exactly there is a big myth going around that polls never predicted Brexit when in fact they absolutely did. People just didn't want to believe them. Polls are objective not subjective.
    - kybernetikos 10y ago
      Can you provide some links about the Brexit polls? I was following the betting markets and the prediction markets and they were dramatically wrong, even the day of the vote.
      - rconti 10y ago
        http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/25/upshot/why-the-surprise-over-brexit-dont-blame-the-polls.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/25/upshot/why-the-surprise-ov... http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36648769 http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36648769
    - notatoad 10y ago
      >Polls are objective not subjective. I get what you're trying to say, and most polling seems to be pretty objective, but you can absolutely do subjective polling. You just have to target the right demo and you can make any poll say anything you want.
blhack 10y ago
Trump isn't nearly as far behind as you may think: http://graphics.latimes.com/usc-presidential-poll-dashboard/ http://graphics.latimes.com/usc-presidential-poll-dashboard/ Yes, this poll is an outlier because their methodology is very different than most other polls. Yes, Nate Silver has a very different outlook on the election, but Nate Silver was also not very reliable during the primary season (although that is, by his admission, because primaries don't have very good polling). If I had to make a[n extremely uneducated guess], it's because most polling is done over the phone, and I don't think "people who answer their phone when they don't recognize the number" is a very good random sampling of voters in the US. I don't think this race is nearly as over as most people seem to believe, which is why, if you want to beat Trump, it is REALLY IMPORTANT (all caps!) that you get out and vote!
- argonaut 10y ago
  You've just selected the national poll that is the most favorable to Trump. An average over polls >> any individual poll. Note that I am not saying that poll should be thrown out. But picking one poll in isolation is almost useless.
  - blhack 10y ago
    Looking at this specific poll in isolation is fine as long as you understand that you are looking at it in isolation. I say so because of its polling methodology, which is unique. If you're a politics/polling nerd, this poll is interesting. If you're not, then yes, you are probably better off either just reading 538, or looking at the RCP polling average. https://news.usc.edu/109339/why-the-usc-dornsifel-a-times-presidential-poll-is-unlike-other-polls/ https://news.usc.edu/109339/why-the-usc-dornsifel-a-times-pr...
    - threeseed 10y ago
      Most politics/polling nerds look at aggregations of polls. Not sure where you get this idea that they are interested in a poll like USC which is such an outlier.
nostrademons 10y ago
Pretty much all of Thiel's investing thesis is to invest in things that are statistically on track to fail, but whose payoff if they succeed is greater than most people imagine. PayPal, Facebook - both of these were terrible ideas when they came out (along with a number of other ones that did, in fact, fail). His idea is that people consistently mis-price risk, and so investing in a portfolio where everyone else thinks it's a terrible idea but you have reason to believe it's a better idea than others suspect will give outsize returns. (Note: it doesn't actually have to be a good idea, it just has to be better than everyone else thinks it is.) Supporting Trump fits perfectly into this: if he loses, he gets egg on his face (which most people will forget fairly soon) and may lose out on a little startup dealflow, but if he wins, he becomes the sole connection between the Presidential Administration and Silicon Valley. That's worth a lot more than $12.5M.
- dlss 10y ago
  > That's worth a lot more than $12.5M. Agreed. (Though FWIW $1.25M is the amount he invested)
  - nostrademons 10y ago
    I'm assuming 1/10 probability of Trump winning. Most poll aggregators are going 1/6; I actually suspect we'll see a bigger Clinton blowout than expected, but that's just MHO.
    - threeseed 10y ago
      From the numbers so far coming out from early voting you should add +2 to the poll margin. The Clinton ground game is looking like being more formidable than the famed Obama one. And with RNC bailing on Trump and moving money to down ballot races expect to see there being a massive discrepancy in late minute advertising and GOTV operations.
    - oska 10y ago
      The Princeton Election Consortium currently has Clinton's win probability as: random drift 95%, Bayesian 98%. [1] [1] http://election.princeton.edu/ http://election.princeton.edu/
metaphorm 10y ago
yep. this is Thiel just playing with toys because he has left the reality tunnel the rest of us are living in. he's off in his own world now imagining ways to amuse himself.
- marketanarchist 10y ago
  Not an argument, try again.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
whybroke 10y ago
Because the greatest threat to a hegemony of the wealthy is democracy. And a candidacy that threatens opponents with prison, encourages voter intimidation, enlists foreign powers for cyberwarfare, intimates that any result will be rigged, distroys the norms critical to government functioning and a dozen other things, is the best investment someone who hates public control of policy could make win or loose.

by vinhboy 10y ago

fixxer 10y ago

I'm not betting on a Trump presidency, but I'm fascinated at what the electorate is going to look like in the general. We've been basing so much of the polling on projections over 2012/2008 turnout. I would not be surprised if the final margin is within 2 points.

vinhboy 10y ago
I would be more surprised if the margins are huge. I have come to expect team politics to give us close margins. I would be surprised, in either a very happy or very sad way, if instead the margins are big.
- fixxer 10y ago
  True; I wonder what impact a 9 point poll-implied spread turning into 1-2 points in the ballot booth could have on future political activities by "alt right" candidates. It feels like many are treating this as a "beat Trump and save the world" situation without realizing that the underlying movement isn't likely going away. If Trump brings in a large enough group of non-voters, that will have long lasting impacts (people that start voting tend to keep voting).
  - int_19h 10y ago
    It can still be "save the world" situation even when understanding this. Long-term, it would be nice to have a SCOTUS that would be more of a check on someone like Trump, and less of a rubberstamp.
    - fixxer 10y ago
      I'd be happy with a SCOTUS that checks the executive branch in general. We're already in full-on rubber stamp mode and have been for 16 years, if not longer.
      - int_19h 10y ago
        I wouldn't call the current court a rubber stamp. There have been some very unfortunate decisions, sure, but there were also quite a few decisions that prevented either the states or the feds from running wild. The real problem with being a true check is partisanship on the court. By now, it seems to be essentially accepted that there are "liberal judges" and "conservative judges", and that they will rule accordingly. I cringe every time I hear that, because SCOTUS, like any other court, is supposed to rule on what the law is, not on what it should be; and one's political affiliation should not affect the former. In practice, of course, it does matter these days, and it is a really bad thing, especially in an institution that is 1) so small, and 2) not providing any mechanism to hold them responsible.
Tsugumo 10y ago
Super Tuesday voter turnout in 2008: 8,228,763 for Democrats, 5,025,685 for Republicans. 2016: 5,557,243 Democrats, 8,307,884 Republicans If I was a betting man, I'd put my money on Trump. I think it will be close. That said, I also believe electoral fraud could decide the election.
- threeseed 10y ago
  That doesn't make much sense. Super Tuesday primaries included all likely Republican voters. But Trump only has the support of about 40% of them and nothing he has done to date indicates that number is changing. And there is no evidence that electoral fraud is likely to decide the election. In fact it's looking like efforts to prevent it e.g. in Indiana are far more likely to influence the election.
  - Tsugumo 10y ago
    The record-breaking Republican turnout was due to Trump, and I think it is reasonable to believe that the vast majority of Republicans will vote Trump over Hillary, or 3rd party. At the same time, many independents and Bernie supporters will vote Trump as well. In my mind, Trump is the Republican Obama, and will benefit from many first-time voters, and a large turnout in general. It does not seem to me that Hillary has the same draw. I don't mean to argue with you, only to clarify.
    - threeseed 10y ago
      You're confused again. Trump had record breaking PRIMARY turnout. All polls taken so far have him only getting about 40% of Republicans. And there is no evidence what so ever that he is drawing in independents or Bernie supporters at any significant rate. He is down by on average 7 points nationally for a reason.
      - rconti 10y ago
        Correction: 75% of Republicans, 40% overall. He seems to have a fairly hard ceiling. His support among Republicans is shockingly low, but likely to rebound a bit to keep it from being a total blowout.

throwaway101416 10y ago

I think it's very difficult to find truly unbiased statistics on this. Every current well-known analyst has been repeatedly egregiously wrong on the matter throughout this election cycle.

rconti 10y ago
On matters of opinion, ABSOLUTELY. On matters of polling, absolutely false. Even Brexit was predicted by the polls, it just didn't happen until a week before the vote. (It's worth noting, of course, the same could happen here. And that's probably what Thiel is counting on).
- threeseed 10y ago
  Exactly there is a big myth going around that polls never predicted Brexit when in fact they absolutely did. People just didn't want to believe them. Polls are objective not subjective.
  - kybernetikos 10y ago
    Can you provide some links about the Brexit polls? I was following the betting markets and the prediction markets and they were dramatically wrong, even the day of the vote.
    - rconti 10y ago
      http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/25/upshot/why-the-surprise-over-brexit-dont-blame-the-polls.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/25/upshot/why-the-surprise-ov... http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36648769 http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36648769
  - notatoad 10y ago
    >Polls are objective not subjective. I get what you're trying to say, and most polling seems to be pretty objective, but you can absolutely do subjective polling. You just have to target the right demo and you can make any poll say anything you want.

blhack 10y ago

Trump isn't nearly as far behind as you may think: http://graphics.latimes.com/usc-presidential-poll-dashboard/ http://graphics.latimes.com/usc-presidential-poll-dashboard/ Yes, this poll is an outlier because their methodology is very different than most other polls. Yes, Nate Silver has a very different outlook on the election, but Nate Silver was also not very reliable during the primary season (although that is, by his admission, because primaries don't have very good polling). If I had to make a[n extremely uneducated guess], it's because most polling is done over the phone, and I don't think "people who answer their phone when they don't recognize the number" is a very good random sampling of voters in the US. I don't think this race is nearly as over as most people seem to believe, which is why, if you want to beat Trump, it is REALLY IMPORTANT (all caps!) that you get out and vote!

argonaut 10y ago
You've just selected the national poll that is the most favorable to Trump. An average over polls >> any individual poll. Note that I am not saying that poll should be thrown out. But picking one poll in isolation is almost useless.
- blhack 10y ago
  Looking at this specific poll in isolation is fine as long as you understand that you are looking at it in isolation. I say so because of its polling methodology, which is unique. If you're a politics/polling nerd, this poll is interesting. If you're not, then yes, you are probably better off either just reading 538, or looking at the RCP polling average. https://news.usc.edu/109339/why-the-usc-dornsifel-a-times-presidential-poll-is-unlike-other-polls/ https://news.usc.edu/109339/why-the-usc-dornsifel-a-times-pr...
  - threeseed 10y ago
    Most politics/polling nerds look at aggregations of polls. Not sure where you get this idea that they are interested in a poll like USC which is such an outlier.

nostrademons 10y ago

Pretty much all of Thiel's investing thesis is to invest in things that are statistically on track to fail, but whose payoff if they succeed is greater than most people imagine. PayPal, Facebook - both of these were terrible ideas when they came out (along with a number of other ones that did, in fact, fail). His idea is that people consistently mis-price risk, and so investing in a portfolio where everyone else thinks it's a terrible idea but you have reason to believe it's a better idea than others suspect will give outsize returns. (Note: it doesn't actually have to be a good idea, it just has to be better than everyone else thinks it is.) Supporting Trump fits perfectly into this: if he loses, he gets egg on his face (which most people will forget fairly soon) and may lose out on a little startup dealflow, but if he wins, he becomes the sole connection between the Presidential Administration and Silicon Valley. That's worth a lot more than $12.5M.

dlss 10y ago
> That's worth a lot more than $12.5M. Agreed. (Though FWIW $1.25M is the amount he invested)
- nostrademons 10y ago
  I'm assuming 1/10 probability of Trump winning. Most poll aggregators are going 1/6; I actually suspect we'll see a bigger Clinton blowout than expected, but that's just MHO.
  - threeseed 10y ago
    From the numbers so far coming out from early voting you should add +2 to the poll margin. The Clinton ground game is looking like being more formidable than the famed Obama one. And with RNC bailing on Trump and moving money to down ballot races expect to see there being a massive discrepancy in late minute advertising and GOTV operations.
  - oska 10y ago
    The Princeton Election Consortium currently has Clinton's win probability as: random drift 95%, Bayesian 98%. [1] [1] http://election.princeton.edu/ http://election.princeton.edu/

metaphorm 10y ago

yep. this is Thiel just playing with toys because he has left the reality tunnel the rest of us are living in. he's off in his own world now imagining ways to amuse himself.

marketanarchist 10y ago
Not an argument, try again.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

whybroke 10y ago

Because the greatest threat to a hegemony of the wealthy is democracy. And a candidacy that threatens opponents with prison, encourages voter intimidation, enlists foreign powers for cyberwarfare, intimates that any result will be rigged, distroys the norms critical to government functioning and a dozen other things, is the best investment someone who hates public control of policy could make win or loose.