> FiveThirtyEight's political forecasts absolutely provide a desirable service—who doesn't want to know who will an upcoming election? > But is it good for peo

> FiveThirtyEight's political forecasts absolutely provide a desirable service—who doesn't want to know who will an upcoming election? > But is it good for people to know who is more likely to win an election? Are these predictions beneficial to society or democracy? Two points: 1. The model DO NOT tell you who will win the upcoming election. 2. It is absolutely beneficial to society and democracy, having a poll-free & rigorous-analysis-free democratic society means an environment where even the most apolitical citizen can be bamboozled into thinking that an election was "stolen" simply based on their close associates and news sources. Polling and aggregation, when executed with a modicum of accountability, prevents a devolution into a Soviet-style culture of paranoia particularly among the elites. It has tremendous value, that value will be backfilled by rumour and innuendo and that is very bad for society.