Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I'm not questioning the numbers that the model has produced, I'm questioning the whole point of the model.
eta: If one model says Trump is 65% likely to win, and another model says he's 30% likely to win, which one is right? It's impossible to say. If there's no way to tell whether the model is accurate, what's the point? (Other than to generate clicks, I mean.)
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I think your suspicion is correct. Silver is known for predicting things, so he's dancing for his rent money. He also has a new book out. But I don't think he's acting in bad faith or saying something he knows is dubious or unfounded, as this would harm his brand.
I heard him on a podcast recently defending his position, and he reiterated that he is a Harris supporter, so it doesn't seem biased, either.
His book, BTW, sounds interesting. He carves the warring factions in the political polarization as the "River" and the "Village." The River is characterized as entrepreneurial, risk-taking, and libertarian. The Village is more established, bureaucratic, comprised significantly of the professional managerial classes.
He sees friction between these two powerful groups as a big part of polarization. The River dislikes a European managed state model and the Village is leaning increasingly toward it.
I don't know if I'll bother reading it, as I think Peter Turchin's
End Times* already developed this framing with significant enough rigor that I wouldn't dispute it, but I did find Silver a very fun interview and really fucking smart.
FWIW, Trump appears to be in free fall. But this appearance matches the feel at the same time in 2016. When I, very much not Nate Silver, stated that Hillary was going to stomp Trump like Nixon had McGovern. I sense at the moment Trump cannot win. But I'm not predicting anything anymore, for good reason.
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* Turchin uses historical/data analysis to demonstrate how revolutions follow periods of "elite overproduction," where groups of warring "courts," one developed and stagnant and the other insurgent, fight for control of the state/economy. Silver seems to steal this idea and repackage it as the River vs the Village.
