4 ms·

Call me a skeptic, but it's certainly odd all the errors always lean to one side. Maybe this has to do with the leftward trend of the mainstream press. > What

by dionian 5mo ago

Call me a skeptic, but it's certainly odd all the errors always lean to one side. Maybe this has to do with the leftward trend of the mainstream press. > What happened in 2024 isn’t something I’d have scripted, though. Basically, their new election model was literally broken, continuing to show Joe Biden virtually tied with Trump even after his disastrous debate. (Evidently because Morris’s design for it had been overcomplicated. These models are hard to design, by the way.)

tkzed49 5mo ago
Why would a left-leaning press engineer errors predicting the victory of the left? Wouldn't this lull supporters of the Democrats into a false sense of security and enable Republican wins?
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- guywithahat 5mo ago
  I think it's more of a systemic issue than top-down manipulation. Like, as a hypothetical, they're disregarding some people as being extremist when in reality they have reasonable, representative views. This produces biased results, and people who agree with the results share them because it supports their world view. The shares and new revenue reinforce the companies decision to produce biased reports, and the effect is politicians read these popular reports thinking they're accurate and make policy decisions around them, when in reality they're just a political wish-list.
LanceH 5mo ago
It seems calling a state purple is just using a synonym for red.
Octoth0rpe 5mo ago
> Maybe this has to do with the leftward trend of the mainstream press. What mainstream press outlet has moved leftwards? I can't think of any, and I certainly am interested in knowing which those might be. Inversely, cbs, the ny times, and the washington post have all shifted rather noticeably rightward in the last 10 years.
- CGMthrowaway 5mo ago
  >cbs, the ny times, and the washington post have all shifted rather noticeably rightward As the Overton window or activist left moves further left on issues like identity politics, crime and free speech (1619 Project era at NYT, staff revolts etc), steady coverage can appear "righter" by comparison without actually changing
  - rc_kas 5mo ago
    Remember when Net Nuetrality was the priority of hackernews and slashdot and basically all people in tech. Now it's a "leftist policy". We live in crazy times. Overton window has definitely shifted to the right. Beign a normal person who values science is now considered "leftist". Its nuts.
    - Terr_ 5mo ago
      There's also a bloc that's been working to try to retroactively redefine what "Net Neutrality" means. Instead of the usual stuff like "consumers have rights" or "ISP monopolies are bad" or "utilities should just provide the product and not spy and manipulate", they want it to mean something closer to "no online community can moderate itself." And that's the charitable version. The worse version involves rank hypocrisy and selective enforcement, where large social "networks" must be "neutral" to literal nazis, while somehow it's also OK to permaban for insulting Dear Leader.
    - JuniperMesos 5mo ago
      The set of people who are "basically all people in tech" has changed a lot since then for a variety of reasons; it's not surprising that any given political issue from a decade ago might not have the same resonance today.
  - Octoth0rpe 5mo ago
    Where is the steady coverage? Again, I see coverage moving rightward at every major publication (including the ny times)
jdlshore 5mo ago
Are you sure you aren’t experiencing selection bias? The article only mentions one modeling error (the one you quoted), so “all the errors” must be the ones you’ve noticed elsewhere.
convolvatron 5mo ago
its this really what we're left with, people sharing their skepticism? without any dint of rationale, just stories about how these obviously bad people did all this stuff that everyone knows. I'm not going to defend Silver's predictions, but what was really refreshing about his work was some lovely diagrams, and real intent behind exposing his methodology. it was never 'trust me I'm the expert', but 'wow, this is hard and these are the problems and this is how I tried to deal with them'
jandrese 5mo ago
> leftward trend of the mainstream press Oh yeah, venerable institutions like the Washington Post, New York Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, and the like? Or maybe you mean the TV news organizations owned by Sinclair Broadcasting, Nexstar, or Hearst? Or maybe cable news organizations like CNN or Fox News? The narrative of the "liberal media" is so out of date it makes you look out of touch. The mainstream media is captured by billionaire interests and has been so for years now.
burnte 5mo ago
> Maybe this has to do with the leftward trend of the mainstream press. What? Media in the USA has staggered to the right over the past ten years. The only reason it was called liberal before that was because one party used facts and data and the other preferred to rig the system against the common people. While Stephen Colbert made the joke "Reality has a well known liberal bias" it's joke only in that the conservative viewpoint today seems focused on imaginary problems and denying the existence of real ones.
- joshstrange 5mo ago
  > Stephen Colbert made the joke "Reality has a well known liberal bias" Video (queued up): https://youtu.be/IJ-a2KeyCAY?t=270 https://youtu.be/IJ-a2KeyCAY?t=270 It's always pretty depressing to go back and watch this or old Colbert Report episodes and realize how parts are incredibly "evergreen", sometimes you don't even need to change out the names.
rvba 5mo ago
Maybe there were no errors and a certain techbro helped with the counting machines so right wing could win?

by dionian 5mo ago

tkzed49 5mo ago

Why would a left-leaning press engineer errors predicting the victory of the left? Wouldn't this lull supporters of the Democrats into a false sense of security and enable Republican wins?

deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
guywithahat 5mo ago
I think it's more of a systemic issue than top-down manipulation. Like, as a hypothetical, they're disregarding some people as being extremist when in reality they have reasonable, representative views. This produces biased results, and people who agree with the results share them because it supports their world view. The shares and new revenue reinforce the companies decision to produce biased reports, and the effect is politicians read these popular reports thinking they're accurate and make policy decisions around them, when in reality they're just a political wish-list.

LanceH 5mo ago

It seems calling a state purple is just using a synonym for red.

Octoth0rpe 5mo ago

> Maybe this has to do with the leftward trend of the mainstream press. What mainstream press outlet has moved leftwards? I can't think of any, and I certainly am interested in knowing which those might be. Inversely, cbs, the ny times, and the washington post have all shifted rather noticeably rightward in the last 10 years.

CGMthrowaway 5mo ago
>cbs, the ny times, and the washington post have all shifted rather noticeably rightward As the Overton window or activist left moves further left on issues like identity politics, crime and free speech (1619 Project era at NYT, staff revolts etc), steady coverage can appear "righter" by comparison without actually changing
- rc_kas 5mo ago
  Remember when Net Nuetrality was the priority of hackernews and slashdot and basically all people in tech. Now it's a "leftist policy". We live in crazy times. Overton window has definitely shifted to the right. Beign a normal person who values science is now considered "leftist". Its nuts.
  - Terr_ 5mo ago
    There's also a bloc that's been working to try to retroactively redefine what "Net Neutrality" means. Instead of the usual stuff like "consumers have rights" or "ISP monopolies are bad" or "utilities should just provide the product and not spy and manipulate", they want it to mean something closer to "no online community can moderate itself." And that's the charitable version. The worse version involves rank hypocrisy and selective enforcement, where large social "networks" must be "neutral" to literal nazis, while somehow it's also OK to permaban for insulting Dear Leader.
  - JuniperMesos 5mo ago
    The set of people who are "basically all people in tech" has changed a lot since then for a variety of reasons; it's not surprising that any given political issue from a decade ago might not have the same resonance today.
- Octoth0rpe 5mo ago
  Where is the steady coverage? Again, I see coverage moving rightward at every major publication (including the ny times)

jdlshore 5mo ago

Are you sure you aren’t experiencing selection bias? The article only mentions one modeling error (the one you quoted), so “all the errors” must be the ones you’ve noticed elsewhere.

convolvatron 5mo ago

its this really what we're left with, people sharing their skepticism? without any dint of rationale, just stories about how these obviously bad people did all this stuff that everyone knows. I'm not going to defend Silver's predictions, but what was really refreshing about his work was some lovely diagrams, and real intent behind exposing his methodology. it was never 'trust me I'm the expert', but 'wow, this is hard and these are the problems and this is how I tried to deal with them'

jandrese 5mo ago

> leftward trend of the mainstream press Oh yeah, venerable institutions like the Washington Post, New York Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, and the like? Or maybe you mean the TV news organizations owned by Sinclair Broadcasting, Nexstar, or Hearst? Or maybe cable news organizations like CNN or Fox News? The narrative of the "liberal media" is so out of date it makes you look out of touch. The mainstream media is captured by billionaire interests and has been so for years now.

burnte 5mo ago

> Maybe this has to do with the leftward trend of the mainstream press. What? Media in the USA has staggered to the right over the past ten years. The only reason it was called liberal before that was because one party used facts and data and the other preferred to rig the system against the common people. While Stephen Colbert made the joke "Reality has a well known liberal bias" it's joke only in that the conservative viewpoint today seems focused on imaginary problems and denying the existence of real ones.

joshstrange 5mo ago
> Stephen Colbert made the joke "Reality has a well known liberal bias" Video (queued up): https://youtu.be/IJ-a2KeyCAY?t=270 https://youtu.be/IJ-a2KeyCAY?t=270 It's always pretty depressing to go back and watch this or old Colbert Report episodes and realize how parts are incredibly "evergreen", sometimes you don't even need to change out the names.

rvba 5mo ago

Maybe there were no errors and a certain techbro helped with the counting machines so right wing could win?