5 ms·
I see a ton of people making what I'd consider a pretty false assumption that the probability of any scientific american reader is pro trump is zero. The link
by bargl 6y ago
I see a ton of people making what I'd consider a pretty false assumption that the probability of any scientific american reader is pro trump is zero.
The link below is a pretty awesome, counter intuitive use case of Bayes Therom that I saw which made me question statements like this. What the actual makeup of Scientific American's reader base is is probably lower than 50% but it isn't 0% either. That's a lot of wriggler room for me to be technically assertion that yeah, they probably didn't lose half of their reader base. But is it possible they lost 1/3, 1/5, 1/10? Those all affect the bottom line of a company like this in much different ways. I'd assume that the leaders made an educated decision, and weighed their pros/cons.
Also, just because you voted for Trump doesn't mean you'd unsubscribe to SA just because they endorsed the other candidate. What I'd like to read is some analysis that SA did on their readership base to determine how many people they'd lose based on this decision and then the results of their experiment. I mean what better way for a scientific journal to make a decision like this than to also follow their hypothesis up with some analysis.
I have nothing meaningful to contribute to whether or not they should/shouldn't have endorsed Biden, so I'll just say, it is not a zero consequence decision.
https://paulvanderlaken.com/2020/01/21/bayes-theorem-probability-intuitive-3blue1brown/ https://paulvanderlaken.com/2020/01/21/bayes-theorem-probabi...
- EForEndeavour 6y agoThere's also the fact that making this unprecedented political endorsement forces the SciAm name into the forefront of online discourse, quite possibly prompting a wave of traffic and maybe even subscriptions from people who viscerally agree with the SciAm article. Pragmatically speaking, this article is insta-viral free advertising at the cost of Trump-supporting subscribers.
- rbanffy 6y ago> What I'd like to read is some analysis that SA did on their readership base to determine how many people they'd lose based on this decision and then the results of their experiment. Even if it causes a drop in subscriptions, it's a long vs short term result analysis. If Trump is reelected and civilization collapses because of it, the number of subscribers will be a relatively minor problem...
- ghthor 6y agoHow high on legal weed do you have to be to believe that Trump being re-elected is going to cause civilization to collapse?
- rbanffy 6y agoHyperbole was, probably, not the best language to use, but you need to agree that his election fueled racial anger, he has lent support to conspiracy theories and openly racist groups, that his policies have a destabilizing effect on global trade, that his science denial has had nefarious health consequences, substantially damaged US's position on international negotiations and that his economic policies are largely ineffective, with soaring public debt and an unclear message about job security. The US is being right now accused of terrible human rights violations in the ICE centers and he just accused his opponent of being a paedophile. I understand voting Republican, but voting for him is hard to justify.
- ghthor 6y agoI dont "need" to agree with you on anything, and I dont agree with you on much at all.