4 ms·
To be fair to 538, their final prediction was that Trump had a 1 in 3 chance to win. This is what 1 in 3 looks like.
by henrikschroder 10y ago
To be fair to 538, their final prediction was that Trump had a 1 in 3 chance to win.
This is what 1 in 3 looks like.
- waqf 10y agoTo be unfair to 538, I can just predict any US election as "1 in 2" and I guess you'll defend my record every time.
- neaanopri 10y agoThis is the fundamental problem with assigning probabilities to events that will only happen once. It doesn't make any sense!
- throw_away_777 10y agoSometimes there are no definitive answers. The world we live in is not deterministic, at least with our current knowledge of the world.
- ssharp 10y agoTo again be fair to 538, they are pretty clear that their model is based on polling data, at least in their "polls only" model, which I think they put more emphasis on than their "polls plus" model. Maybe next cycle, they'll do more work on that plus model to account for more factors or maybe this truly was an outlier election, which happens every so often.
- throw_away_777 10y agoThis is also what 1 in 6 looks like, or what 1 in 10 looks like, or what 1 in 100 looks like. You can't definitively judge probabilistic predictions based on just 1 event.
- kefka 10y ago> You can't definitively judge probabilistic predictions based on just 1 event. Well, unfortunately, we have 4 years to think about it. My wife and I are already looking at immigrating. I'm actively sending resumes to other places. If I can't fix it, then I'll leave it to those that want it this way. (I guess this is what it felt like when the regular Germans had Hitler voted into power?)
- throw_away_777 10y agoDemocracy means having to go with the majority. And Trump isn't Hitler, that is just ridiculous.
- kefka 10y agoYou're right. This hatred is about Muslims, immigrants, deportation forces, bad trade deals, "stop-and-frisk" and rights reductions, and anti-liberalism. Change Muslims for Jews, and well...
- elsurudo 10y agoNot that I'm claiming Trump _is_ Hitler, but the point is he's a wildcard – nobody seems to know what he _actually_ stands for. He says one thing to one crowd, and then the next day, spews the exact opposite to a different crowd. This is also interesting: https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughTrumpSpam/comments/4teoxl/a_final_response_to_the_tell_me_why_trump_is_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughTrumpSpam/comments/4teoxl/a_f...
- Scarblac 10y agoNote that Hitler never won a majority in an election.
- Iv 10y agoA majority, yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_March_1933 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_March... Not an absolute majority though, but neither did Trump.