4 ms·

Nate Silver's guide to "The River"

20 points by nsoonhui 2y ago

exogeny 2y ago
[flagged]
- ownlife 2y ago
  Are there any polling experts you recommend over him?
  - crazygringo 2y ago
    Seriously. If he's second-rate, then I really want to know who's first-rate.
- fullshark 2y ago
  What's gross about promoting a book? Isn't he just doing what everyone does?
- jshen 2y ago
  Which polling expert has a better record?
foreverobama 2y ago
[dead]
turnsout 2y ago
So basically Nate Silver is coming out as a Libertarian? Why the coded language?
slyall 2y ago
A better article: Bruce Springsteen’s “The River” Spoke to My Working-Class Dublin https://lithub.com/bruce-springsteens-the-river-spoke-to-my-working-class-dublin/ https://lithub.com/bruce-springsteens-the-river-spoke-to-my-...
advael 2y ago
Having a bit of a bad PR year? Come up with a New Kind Of Guy that you are and do some good old fashioned identity politics. Throw some archetypes at the wall and see what sticks. Make people think you're letting them in on some secret club that unites some of the people they've read about in the news. Keep it just vague enough that it's hard to definitively test whether someone fits or not. Barnum was right
- fullshark 2y ago
  Can you inform us ignorant people as to why about half the people in this thread seem to hate Nate Silver now?
  - jcranmer 2y ago
    Nate Silver's claim to fame was building a statistical electoral results model that correctly predicted a lot of the results in 2012. But since then, a lot of his commentary has shifted from technical details about building statistical models (such as working out which factors are more or less likely to drive changes in the results) towards the political punditry of "let me react to $POLITICIAN's latest speech," with the insight one might expect from such punditry.
    - MostlyStable 2y ago
      As a subscriber to his substack, I think that is a mischaracterization of his work that borders on lying.
      - jcranmer 2y ago
        I don't read his substack, so most of what I see of him is what gets passed on social media, which is definitely in this vein (even if it is perhaps a collection of the worst of Nate Silver). It's also worth noting that you making your comment on a thread about an article by Nate Silver on why people like him are great that makes almost no reference to statistical modelling and is instead heavy on some sociopolitical views are better than others, which is exactly the kind of writing that has caused many people to sour on him.
mvdtnz 2y ago
Love that I have to keep hearing from a guy who got lucky once.
mjamesaustin 2y ago
Gotta love him defining "River" people as loving competition and risk-taking when by and large their empires are built from capturing a market and then preventing competitors from entering it, preventing customers from leaving it, and then extracting as much money as possible from it. The part I see as accurate is the idea that "River" people just want to win. And for that to happen, they have to perpetuate a world with winners and losers, a system that just makes it easier for those on top to keep taking whatever they want.
- harimau777 2y ago
  He mentions "River people aren't actually taking risks" as one of the valid criticisms of the River viewpoint later in the article.
WheatMillington 2y ago
Nate Silver is so utterly intolerable. The guy got lucky once, and is now framed as an expert, and has the commensurate smugness that makes it completely impossible for me to listen to him for more than a couple of minutes at a time.
- vFunct 2y ago
  [dead]
- MostlyStable 2y ago
  "Got lucky once" is one of the craziest descriptions of multiple models across multiple domains that demonstrate consistent high rates of calibration across time. Yes his initial success in one election was likely at least slightly anomalous, and that's the thing that made him famous initially. But to pretend that he has not continued to have continued as a predictive modeller is just wild. While he is no longer with "fivethirtyeight", this is from when he was: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/checking-our-work/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/checking-our-work/
- jshen 2y ago
  Name one person with a better track record!
harimau777 2y ago
I can't speak to Nate's record as an analyst or whether the categories that he's setting up would stand up to academic review. However, the overall dynamics he's discussing line up well with my experiences. In particular his description of negative reactions to the type of reasoning he calls "decoupling" has been a major source of frustration for me when interacting with fellow progressives. I'm seeing a lot of commenters disliking this article overall and/or the author. Are there any alternative articles/books/resources you would recommend that discuss the reasoning styles aspect of author's argument?
- jonathanyc 2y ago
  I mean the problem is there won't be any books directly refuting Nate Silver's argument because it's essentially just "people who disagree with me are irrational." Right-of-center, "Wait But Why" by Tim Urban and "Rationality: A-Z" by Eliezer Yudkowsky (and LessWrong in general) are much better at talking about examining our own biases. LessWrong will be much better than the stuff Tim Urban wrote, which is still better than what Nate Silver is writing. LessWrong is arguably not even right-of-center. Left-of-center, David Graeber's "The Utopia of Rules" does a good job of pointing out a lot of our society's quiet assumptions. But I mean ultimately when you say that such-and-such a crowd has a problem with "decoupling," you're just talking about what it means to be human. I guarantee you anyone who claims they don't have a problem with "decoupling" is lying. It just takes a little bit of time and you'll find something which seems like a minor point of order to you which makes them fly off the rails. My own biased and unhinged take is that the decline of religion in the West has given people total cognitive blindness to the idea that people might actually believe different things from you yet still be rational, i.e. that there are plenty of interesting and useful arguments that are valid but not sound.
- MostlyStable 2y ago
  At least for the very first part of your question, Nate himself has answered that question in the past: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/checking-our-work/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/checking-our-work/ (Note, he no longer is affiliated with fivethirtyeight, but at the time this article was published he was, and he retains the rights to the politics models that are being tested, and potentially some of the sports models as well, although I'm less sure of that)
jonathanyc 2y ago
"The River" is just a weird rebranding of the same gray tribe/rationalist (Slate Star Codex) high-rung vs. low-rung/golem (Tim Urban of "Wait But Why") stuff. The late David Graeber put it better than I can: > Normally, they will—like the robber barons of the turn of the last century—insist that they are acting in the name of efficiency, or “rationality.” But in fact this language always turns out to be intentionally vague, even nonsensical. The term “rationality” is an excellent case in point here. A “rational” person is someone who is able to make basic logical connections and assess reality in a non-delusional fashion. In other words, someone who isn’t crazy. Anyone who claims to base their politics on rationality—and this is true on the left as well as on the right—is claiming that anyone who disagrees with them might as well be insane, which is about as arrogant a position as one could possibly take. When you zoom into almost any controversial political opinion, you will find that peoples' arguments are valid but not sound. That is to say that their arguments logically follow from their assumptions, but that you don't share their assumptions. If someone has different assumptions from you, sometimes you're not stupid and they're not stupid. You just have different assumptions. But it certainly feels better to assume that they just messed up their argumentation and are being irrational.

20 points by nsoonhui 2y ago

exogeny 2y ago

[flagged]

ownlife 2y ago
Are there any polling experts you recommend over him?
- crazygringo 2y ago
  Seriously. If he's second-rate, then I really want to know who's first-rate.
fullshark 2y ago
What's gross about promoting a book? Isn't he just doing what everyone does?
jshen 2y ago
Which polling expert has a better record?

foreverobama 2y ago

[dead]

turnsout 2y ago

So basically Nate Silver is coming out as a Libertarian? Why the coded language?

slyall 2y ago

A better article: Bruce Springsteen’s “The River” Spoke to My Working-Class Dublin https://lithub.com/bruce-springsteens-the-river-spoke-to-my-working-class-dublin/ https://lithub.com/bruce-springsteens-the-river-spoke-to-my-...

advael 2y ago

Having a bit of a bad PR year? Come up with a New Kind Of Guy that you are and do some good old fashioned identity politics. Throw some archetypes at the wall and see what sticks. Make people think you're letting them in on some secret club that unites some of the people they've read about in the news. Keep it just vague enough that it's hard to definitively test whether someone fits or not. Barnum was right

fullshark 2y ago
Can you inform us ignorant people as to why about half the people in this thread seem to hate Nate Silver now?
- jcranmer 2y ago
  Nate Silver's claim to fame was building a statistical electoral results model that correctly predicted a lot of the results in 2012. But since then, a lot of his commentary has shifted from technical details about building statistical models (such as working out which factors are more or less likely to drive changes in the results) towards the political punditry of "let me react to $POLITICIAN's latest speech," with the insight one might expect from such punditry.
  - MostlyStable 2y ago
    As a subscriber to his substack, I think that is a mischaracterization of his work that borders on lying.
    - jcranmer 2y ago
      I don't read his substack, so most of what I see of him is what gets passed on social media, which is definitely in this vein (even if it is perhaps a collection of the worst of Nate Silver). It's also worth noting that you making your comment on a thread about an article by Nate Silver on why people like him are great that makes almost no reference to statistical modelling and is instead heavy on some sociopolitical views are better than others, which is exactly the kind of writing that has caused many people to sour on him.

mvdtnz 2y ago

Love that I have to keep hearing from a guy who got lucky once.

mjamesaustin 2y ago

Gotta love him defining "River" people as loving competition and risk-taking when by and large their empires are built from capturing a market and then preventing competitors from entering it, preventing customers from leaving it, and then extracting as much money as possible from it. The part I see as accurate is the idea that "River" people just want to win. And for that to happen, they have to perpetuate a world with winners and losers, a system that just makes it easier for those on top to keep taking whatever they want.

harimau777 2y ago
He mentions "River people aren't actually taking risks" as one of the valid criticisms of the River viewpoint later in the article.

WheatMillington 2y ago

Nate Silver is so utterly intolerable. The guy got lucky once, and is now framed as an expert, and has the commensurate smugness that makes it completely impossible for me to listen to him for more than a couple of minutes at a time.

vFunct 2y ago
[dead]
MostlyStable 2y ago
"Got lucky once" is one of the craziest descriptions of multiple models across multiple domains that demonstrate consistent high rates of calibration across time. Yes his initial success in one election was likely at least slightly anomalous, and that's the thing that made him famous initially. But to pretend that he has not continued to have continued as a predictive modeller is just wild. While he is no longer with "fivethirtyeight", this is from when he was: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/checking-our-work/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/checking-our-work/
jshen 2y ago
Name one person with a better track record!

harimau777 2y ago

I can't speak to Nate's record as an analyst or whether the categories that he's setting up would stand up to academic review. However, the overall dynamics he's discussing line up well with my experiences. In particular his description of negative reactions to the type of reasoning he calls "decoupling" has been a major source of frustration for me when interacting with fellow progressives. I'm seeing a lot of commenters disliking this article overall and/or the author. Are there any alternative articles/books/resources you would recommend that discuss the reasoning styles aspect of author's argument?

jonathanyc 2y ago
I mean the problem is there won't be any books directly refuting Nate Silver's argument because it's essentially just "people who disagree with me are irrational." Right-of-center, "Wait But Why" by Tim Urban and "Rationality: A-Z" by Eliezer Yudkowsky (and LessWrong in general) are much better at talking about examining our own biases. LessWrong will be much better than the stuff Tim Urban wrote, which is still better than what Nate Silver is writing. LessWrong is arguably not even right-of-center. Left-of-center, David Graeber's "The Utopia of Rules" does a good job of pointing out a lot of our society's quiet assumptions. But I mean ultimately when you say that such-and-such a crowd has a problem with "decoupling," you're just talking about what it means to be human. I guarantee you anyone who claims they don't have a problem with "decoupling" is lying. It just takes a little bit of time and you'll find something which seems like a minor point of order to you which makes them fly off the rails. My own biased and unhinged take is that the decline of religion in the West has given people total cognitive blindness to the idea that people might actually believe different things from you yet still be rational, i.e. that there are plenty of interesting and useful arguments that are valid but not sound.
MostlyStable 2y ago
At least for the very first part of your question, Nate himself has answered that question in the past: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/checking-our-work/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/checking-our-work/ (Note, he no longer is affiliated with fivethirtyeight, but at the time this article was published he was, and he retains the rights to the politics models that are being tested, and potentially some of the sports models as well, although I'm less sure of that)

jonathanyc 2y ago

"The River" is just a weird rebranding of the same gray tribe/rationalist (Slate Star Codex) high-rung vs. low-rung/golem (Tim Urban of "Wait But Why") stuff. The late David Graeber put it better than I can: > Normally, they will—like the robber barons of the turn of the last century—insist that they are acting in the name of efficiency, or “rationality.” But in fact this language always turns out to be intentionally vague, even nonsensical. The term “rationality” is an excellent case in point here. A “rational” person is someone who is able to make basic logical connections and assess reality in a non-delusional fashion. In other words, someone who isn’t crazy. Anyone who claims to base their politics on rationality—and this is true on the left as well as on the right—is claiming that anyone who disagrees with them might as well be insane, which is about as arrogant a position as one could possibly take. When you zoom into almost any controversial political opinion, you will find that peoples' arguments are valid but not sound. That is to say that their arguments logically follow from their assumptions, but that you don't share their assumptions. If someone has different assumptions from you, sometimes you're not stupid and they're not stupid. You just have different assumptions. But it certainly feels better to assume that they just messed up their argumentation and are being irrational.