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> because authorities time and time again have misled them. I personally feel like most of the problem is exploitation. When the news has some piece, "New res

> because authorities time and time again have misled them. I personally feel like most of the problem is exploitation. When the news has some piece, "New research blah blah blah," you and I and most of our peers know that "new research" is unlikely to stand up to the test of time. Yet it's breathlessly reported by one station, and derided as nonsense on another station. When the weather report predicts no rain, and it rains, you and I and most of our peers know that the prediction wasn't wrong, that we're just talking about likelihoods. When polls predicted a 99% chance of Hillary Clinton winning, you and I and most of our peers know that the polls weren't wrong. Sometimes chance comes out that way. Plus, reporting those polls probably impacted the outcome. The news, and politicians, and talking heads, want our outrage because that's engaging. So they exploit us, by misrepresenting research, science, polls... Which erodes trust in authorities. And yes, sometimes authorities did horrific things. Like the Tuskegee Experiment. Or silencing Li Wenliang. Or MK-Ultra. Gulf of Tonkin. Red Flags.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
spywaregorilla 5y ago
I feel obliged to point out that reputable poles predicted Clinton's chances at significantly lower than 99%.
- bduerst 5y ago
  Also there was undo foreign influence on the election that didn't become evident until afterwards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20...
- gilleain 5y ago
  Not to distract from your point ... this page : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_polling_for_United_States_presidential_elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_polling_for_United_... suggests the value was always between 40-50% ... however I assume you meant "reputable polls", not Polish people :)
  - lelandfe 5y ago
    > the value was always between 40-50% Those are the raw data from polls (an estimate of the popular vote), not the predictions from them ("who will win" - which is what the original commenter refers to). Fivethirtyeight had Clinton at 88% less than a month out from election day: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/#odds https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/...
    - quesera 5y ago
      > Fivethirtyeight had Clinton at 88% less than a month out I.e. a couple weeks before James Comey announced a reopening of the investigation into the email issue? I agree that 538 was likely over-interpreting their data, but I think this is a bad example because the "facts" on the ground changed significantly in the time period.
      - spywaregorilla 5y ago
        I generally put a very high stake of credibility in fivethirty eight. They ended on 71%.
      - lelandfe 5y ago
        > I agree that 538 was likely over-interpreting their data I did not say this. I'm illustrating the original poster's comment about these forecasts being guesses of likelihood. Of course Nate Silver and co. did not have Comey reopening the case as a factor in their models; that is not an indictment of the model itself. Yet I'm sure all of us knew folks who had opinions riding on the 85%+ forecasts, and then losing faith in the predictions as they wildly changed over the course of weeks.
        quesera 5y ago
        I missed your point in the original. As you say, "88% chance of winning" is not "expected to receive 88% of the vote". The 538 model attempted to weigh the reliability (recency, reputation, magic pixie dust) of polling data and project a range of outcomes. And even with a "perfect" model, it can take a while to absorb exogenous events like the Comey surprise. The causes of 538's prediction error might be unknowable. Or, to be fair, if it was even an error! Would we expect probability to approach 100% in the moments before polling opens? Maybe in some fields, but 538 did not attempt this. IIRC they ended at ~70/30 Clinton. A single roll of a die (1d6) will frequently come up 1 or 2.
0xy 5y ago
>you and I and most of our peers know that the polls weren't wrong They were wrong though, multiple key polls in battleground states were far outside their margin of error, indicating methodology failures or bias. As an example, the national ABC/WaPo poll on November 3-6, 2016 claimed a +4% Clinton result, with a 2% margin of error. [1] That's an indictment of their methodology, and it's an indictment of Nate Silver who weights them as an "A+" pollster. I also don't think anyone needs to misrepresent research and science, since huge swathes of it are fraudulent anyway. From the reproducibility crisis to outright fraud and lies, trusted institutions have been desecrating their reputation for years. The CDC now enjoys a trust rating around 50%, because of incompetence and lies. News media is worse, because they lie more than they tell the truth. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/07/post-abc-tracking-poll-clinton-47-trump-43-on-election-eve/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/07/po...
- InitialLastName 5y ago
  >As an example, the national ABC/WaPo poll on November 3-6, 2016 claimed a +4% Clinton result, with a 2% margin of error The end result was roughly Clinton: 48%, Trump: 46%, which is right at the margin, not "far outside".
- slg 5y ago
  That poll has it 47% to 43% Clinton when the actual results were 48.2% to 46.1% Clinton. The only real discrepancy is they overestimated the vote totals for 3rd party candidates. The numbers they had when excluding 3rd parties was 49% to 46% Clinton. Do some blending of those two and they basically nailed it. Is this really the poll you want to call out as fundamentally flawed?
- belltaco 5y ago
  >As an example, the national ABC/WaPo poll on November 3-6, 2016 claimed a +4% Clinton result, with a 2% margin of error. [1] That's an indictment of their methodology, and it's an indictment of Nate Silver who weights them as an "A+" pollster. Your link says 2.5% margin of error and not statistically significant. What am I missing? Ironically the comment appears to be misinformation. >Clinton’s edge in the Post-ABC poll does not reach statistical significance given the poll’s 2.5 percentage-point margin in sampling error around each candidate’s support
ALittleLight 5y ago
My own trust in authorities is eroded by more recent and basic things than your list of horrific things. For example, Afghanistan - decades of war, thousands of American lives, trillions of dollars - all for no clear purpose and whatever we did accomplish there seems to have been reversed in a weekend. The Taliban are still in charge of the country and there was never any accountability for the policy and military failures. Trump is another example. I often feel like I've walked out of a theater after seeing a convoluted movie. I'm left asking things like "So, was Trump a Russian agent?" If our intelligence services thought he was, then their plan was just to run him down in the press for several years? If they didn't then the mainstream media was misrepresenting them for years? Most major things fall into this category of "I can't believe our government could possibly be this bad." Climate change - we need green energy but also haven't approved a new nuclear reactor in decades. Infrastructure - it costs infinity billion dollars to build a train, and a new public restroom will take most of a decade. Economy - we're just going to create trillions and trillions of dollars at ever increasing rates and that will be fine somehow. Pandemic - almost too much to talk about stuff going wrong. I could go on and on but the main thing is that the people in charge, the government and the media, seem incompetent to a degree that beggars belief. Why should I trust these people?
- dboreham 5y ago
  Note that leaving known agents in place is a recognized approach. e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Blunt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Blunt
  - ALittleLight 5y ago
    I don't think the approach is applicable if the agent is in position to do serious harm.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    Not even the ballsiest, most scheming intelligence officer would let a known agent have the nuclear suitcase, though.
  - adamrezich 5y ago
mannerheim 5y ago
I don't think any polls themselves gave odds, but I would say any aggregator that gave 99% odds was definitely wrong. Nate Silver gave about 70% odds, as did prediction markets - that is much more reasonable.
causi 5y ago
you and I and most of our peers know that the polls weren't wrong I mean, sure, if you don't think pollsters have any responsibility for due diligence. The polls were an accurate representation of what people were willing to admit to planning and doing, but a lot of people weren't willing to say they were voting for Trump. Popular culture and media spent months telling those people they were isolated deplorables who had no chance, but in the voting booth nobody can shame you. Asking people over the phone whether they were going to vote for Trump was like asking them if they liked being spanked in bed.
- jonnycomputer 5y ago
  One thing to think about here is that US electoral system practically counts different peoples votes differently. A voter in Georgia mattered a lot more than a voter in California or Wyoming. Small polling errors in either state are inconsequential, but hugely consequential in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, etc. Lots of polls are national polls, not state polls too. As it happens, the average of national polls predicted the vote totals overall very well. But that doesn't matter. Because it still came down to a few thousands of voters in a handful of states.
justinpombrio 5y ago
> When polls predicted a 99% chance of Hillary Clinton winning, you and I and most of our peers know that the polls weren't wrong. A bit of a tangent, but polls don't make predictions, people make predictions based on the polling data. Some people predicted Hillary with 99% chance, and 538 predicted Hillary with 66% chance. When dealing with probabilities it's not as simple as "wrong" or "not", but if people were betting then those that bet 99% would have lost a lot of money, and 538 only a little. As a result I trust 538 a lot more now; that's the nice thing about people making specific predictions, you can over time learn who to trust. Anyhow this tangent ultimately agrees with your point, as you and I know that if a talking head makes a "99%" prediction, it's got at best an 80% chance of actually happening.
- jonnycomputer 5y ago
  And if 538 were consistently wrong, say wrong 80% of the time, then ~538's prediction gets you right 80% of the time. Win!
  - thetallstick 5y ago
    Doesn't this only works if an election has two possible outcomes? Revotes and voids are possible as well in most cases. In 2022 these things somehow feel like they're much more likely than before...
    - jonnycomputer 5y ago
      Sure. Though in many cases these types of events are pretty low probability events.
- bcrosby95 5y ago
  And lots of people still said 538 got it wrong. No, it didn't. Or about how Omicron defies statistics. No, it doesn't. People just don't fucking understand statistics.
  - chmod600 5y ago
datavirtue 5y ago
Right now the press is fuelling a frenzy over Russian troops, trumpeting "eminent war!!" daily. It is rediculius, completely unfounded, incendiary, false, and just plain dumb...but clicks matter.
- mr_overalls 5y ago
  Russia has has something 130,000 troops positioned just outside Ukraine's borders and in Belarus. They have tanks, missile systems, amphibious landing ships, medical units, established supply lines, etc. They actually invaded Ukraine in 2014 and took Crimea. I mean, the possibility of an invasion is not exactly far-fetched.
- irthomasthomas 5y ago
  Did you not get this memo? https://www.state.gov/briefings/department-press-briefing-february-3-2022/ https://www.state.gov/briefings/department-press-briefing-fe...
thaumasiotes 5y ago
> When polls predicted a 99% chance of Hillary Clinton winning, you and I and most of our peers know that the polls weren't wrong. Sometimes chance comes out that way. Andrew Gelman just wrote about the difference between aleatoric and epistemic uncertainty: https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2022/02/03/epistemic-and-aleatoric-uncertainty/ https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2022/02/03/epistemic-... And it sounds like you're confusing them here. "Sometimes chance comes out that way" is something that applies to aleatoric probabilities. But major elections are not uncertain in an aleatoric sense; they are uncertain in an epistemic sense, and the polls were correct to worry about why they were wrong.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

spywaregorilla 5y ago

I feel obliged to point out that reputable poles predicted Clinton's chances at significantly lower than 99%.

bduerst 5y ago
Also there was undo foreign influence on the election that didn't become evident until afterwards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20...
gilleain 5y ago
Not to distract from your point ... this page : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_polling_for_United_States_presidential_elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_polling_for_United_... suggests the value was always between 40-50% ... however I assume you meant "reputable polls", not Polish people :)
- lelandfe 5y ago
  > the value was always between 40-50% Those are the raw data from polls (an estimate of the popular vote), not the predictions from them ("who will win" - which is what the original commenter refers to). Fivethirtyeight had Clinton at 88% less than a month out from election day: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/#odds https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/...
  - quesera 5y ago
    > Fivethirtyeight had Clinton at 88% less than a month out I.e. a couple weeks before James Comey announced a reopening of the investigation into the email issue? I agree that 538 was likely over-interpreting their data, but I think this is a bad example because the "facts" on the ground changed significantly in the time period.
    - spywaregorilla 5y ago
      I generally put a very high stake of credibility in fivethirty eight. They ended on 71%.
    - lelandfe 5y ago
      > I agree that 538 was likely over-interpreting their data I did not say this. I'm illustrating the original poster's comment about these forecasts being guesses of likelihood. Of course Nate Silver and co. did not have Comey reopening the case as a factor in their models; that is not an indictment of the model itself. Yet I'm sure all of us knew folks who had opinions riding on the 85%+ forecasts, and then losing faith in the predictions as they wildly changed over the course of weeks.
      - quesera 5y ago
        I missed your point in the original. As you say, "88% chance of winning" is not "expected to receive 88% of the vote". The 538 model attempted to weigh the reliability (recency, reputation, magic pixie dust) of polling data and project a range of outcomes. And even with a "perfect" model, it can take a while to absorb exogenous events like the Comey surprise. The causes of 538's prediction error might be unknowable. Or, to be fair, if it was even an error! Would we expect probability to approach 100% in the moments before polling opens? Maybe in some fields, but 538 did not attempt this. IIRC they ended at ~70/30 Clinton. A single roll of a die (1d6) will frequently come up 1 or 2.

0xy 5y ago

>you and I and most of our peers know that the polls weren't wrong They were wrong though, multiple key polls in battleground states were far outside their margin of error, indicating methodology failures or bias. As an example, the national ABC/WaPo poll on November 3-6, 2016 claimed a +4% Clinton result, with a 2% margin of error. [1] That's an indictment of their methodology, and it's an indictment of Nate Silver who weights them as an "A+" pollster. I also don't think anyone needs to misrepresent research and science, since huge swathes of it are fraudulent anyway. From the reproducibility crisis to outright fraud and lies, trusted institutions have been desecrating their reputation for years. The CDC now enjoys a trust rating around 50%, because of incompetence and lies. News media is worse, because they lie more than they tell the truth. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/07/post-abc-tracking-poll-clinton-47-trump-43-on-election-eve/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/07/po...

InitialLastName 5y ago
>As an example, the national ABC/WaPo poll on November 3-6, 2016 claimed a +4% Clinton result, with a 2% margin of error The end result was roughly Clinton: 48%, Trump: 46%, which is right at the margin, not "far outside".
slg 5y ago
That poll has it 47% to 43% Clinton when the actual results were 48.2% to 46.1% Clinton. The only real discrepancy is they overestimated the vote totals for 3rd party candidates. The numbers they had when excluding 3rd parties was 49% to 46% Clinton. Do some blending of those two and they basically nailed it. Is this really the poll you want to call out as fundamentally flawed?
belltaco 5y ago
>As an example, the national ABC/WaPo poll on November 3-6, 2016 claimed a +4% Clinton result, with a 2% margin of error. [1] That's an indictment of their methodology, and it's an indictment of Nate Silver who weights them as an "A+" pollster. Your link says 2.5% margin of error and not statistically significant. What am I missing? Ironically the comment appears to be misinformation. >Clinton’s edge in the Post-ABC poll does not reach statistical significance given the poll’s 2.5 percentage-point margin in sampling error around each candidate’s support

ALittleLight 5y ago

My own trust in authorities is eroded by more recent and basic things than your list of horrific things. For example, Afghanistan - decades of war, thousands of American lives, trillions of dollars - all for no clear purpose and whatever we did accomplish there seems to have been reversed in a weekend. The Taliban are still in charge of the country and there was never any accountability for the policy and military failures. Trump is another example. I often feel like I've walked out of a theater after seeing a convoluted movie. I'm left asking things like "So, was Trump a Russian agent?" If our intelligence services thought he was, then their plan was just to run him down in the press for several years? If they didn't then the mainstream media was misrepresenting them for years? Most major things fall into this category of "I can't believe our government could possibly be this bad." Climate change - we need green energy but also haven't approved a new nuclear reactor in decades. Infrastructure - it costs infinity billion dollars to build a train, and a new public restroom will take most of a decade. Economy - we're just going to create trillions and trillions of dollars at ever increasing rates and that will be fine somehow. Pandemic - almost too much to talk about stuff going wrong. I could go on and on but the main thing is that the people in charge, the government and the media, seem incompetent to a degree that beggars belief. Why should I trust these people?

dboreham 5y ago
Note that leaving known agents in place is a recognized approach. e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Blunt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Blunt
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  I don't think the approach is applicable if the agent is in position to do serious harm.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  Not even the ballsiest, most scheming intelligence officer would let a known agent have the nuclear suitcase, though.
- adamrezich 5y ago

mannerheim 5y ago

I don't think any polls themselves gave odds, but I would say any aggregator that gave 99% odds was definitely wrong. Nate Silver gave about 70% odds, as did prediction markets - that is much more reasonable.

causi 5y ago

you and I and most of our peers know that the polls weren't wrong I mean, sure, if you don't think pollsters have any responsibility for due diligence. The polls were an accurate representation of what people were willing to admit to planning and doing, but a lot of people weren't willing to say they were voting for Trump. Popular culture and media spent months telling those people they were isolated deplorables who had no chance, but in the voting booth nobody can shame you. Asking people over the phone whether they were going to vote for Trump was like asking them if they liked being spanked in bed.

jonnycomputer 5y ago
One thing to think about here is that US electoral system practically counts different peoples votes differently. A voter in Georgia mattered a lot more than a voter in California or Wyoming. Small polling errors in either state are inconsequential, but hugely consequential in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, etc. Lots of polls are national polls, not state polls too. As it happens, the average of national polls predicted the vote totals overall very well. But that doesn't matter. Because it still came down to a few thousands of voters in a handful of states.

justinpombrio 5y ago

> When polls predicted a 99% chance of Hillary Clinton winning, you and I and most of our peers know that the polls weren't wrong. A bit of a tangent, but polls don't make predictions, people make predictions based on the polling data. Some people predicted Hillary with 99% chance, and 538 predicted Hillary with 66% chance. When dealing with probabilities it's not as simple as "wrong" or "not", but if people were betting then those that bet 99% would have lost a lot of money, and 538 only a little. As a result I trust 538 a lot more now; that's the nice thing about people making specific predictions, you can over time learn who to trust. Anyhow this tangent ultimately agrees with your point, as you and I know that if a talking head makes a "99%" prediction, it's got at best an 80% chance of actually happening.

jonnycomputer 5y ago
And if 538 were consistently wrong, say wrong 80% of the time, then ~538's prediction gets you right 80% of the time. Win!
- thetallstick 5y ago
  Doesn't this only works if an election has two possible outcomes? Revotes and voids are possible as well in most cases. In 2022 these things somehow feel like they're much more likely than before...
  - jonnycomputer 5y ago
    Sure. Though in many cases these types of events are pretty low probability events.
bcrosby95 5y ago
And lots of people still said 538 got it wrong. No, it didn't. Or about how Omicron defies statistics. No, it doesn't. People just don't fucking understand statistics.
- chmod600 5y ago

datavirtue 5y ago

Right now the press is fuelling a frenzy over Russian troops, trumpeting "eminent war!!" daily. It is rediculius, completely unfounded, incendiary, false, and just plain dumb...but clicks matter.

mr_overalls 5y ago
Russia has has something 130,000 troops positioned just outside Ukraine's borders and in Belarus. They have tanks, missile systems, amphibious landing ships, medical units, established supply lines, etc. They actually invaded Ukraine in 2014 and took Crimea. I mean, the possibility of an invasion is not exactly far-fetched.
irthomasthomas 5y ago
Did you not get this memo? https://www.state.gov/briefings/department-press-briefing-february-3-2022/ https://www.state.gov/briefings/department-press-briefing-fe...

thaumasiotes 5y ago

> When polls predicted a 99% chance of Hillary Clinton winning, you and I and most of our peers know that the polls weren't wrong. Sometimes chance comes out that way. Andrew Gelman just wrote about the difference between aleatoric and epistemic uncertainty: https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2022/02/03/epistemic-and-aleatoric-uncertainty/ https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2022/02/03/epistemic-... And it sounds like you're confusing them here. "Sometimes chance comes out that way" is something that applies to aleatoric probabilities. But major elections are not uncertain in an aleatoric sense; they are uncertain in an epistemic sense, and the polls were correct to worry about why they were wrong.