538 podcast: Shook Nate Shookver in Shookworld

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Old Kentucky Shark: May 25, 2012; If you think you're gonna get sympathy from the shark, well then, you won't.

I think the actual takeaway for pollsters will be that modern polling is pretty decent at discerning the voting preferences of a set of people, but not particularly good at discerning which ones will actually turn out to vote. The place the pollsters blew it was on their likely voter screens, not their polling.

# ? Nov 9, 2016 06:00

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# ? Jun 9, 2024 00:17

Fortaleza: Feb 21, 2008

This is the best outcome because:

538's prediction was closer even though they included garbage polls for more clicks
nobody's learned a damned thing so we get to do it again
Hillary's still gonna win
Sam Wang gonna eat a bug lmao

# ? Nov 9, 2016 06:10

Fortaleza: Feb 21, 2008

Mods please rename the last poster that said "Shook Nate" in this thread to SAM WANG EAT THE BUG

thanks and god bless

# ? Nov 9, 2016 06:16

Pomplamoose: Jun 28, 2008

Fortaleza posted:

This is the best outcome because:

Hillary's still gonna win

How?

# ? Nov 9, 2016 06:17

Cockblocktopus: Apr 18, 2009; Since the beginning of time, man has yearned to destroy the sun.

I don't think I've posted in this thread before but holy gently caress Nate's going to be unbearable for the next four years or longer.

# ? Nov 9, 2016 06:17

theflyingexecutive: Apr 22, 2007

Fortaleza posted:

This is the best outcome because:

538's prediction was closer even though they included garbage polls for more clicks

nobody's learned a damned thing so we get to do it again

Hillary's still gonna win

Sam Wang gonna eat a bug lmao

Except you know senate is lost

# ? Nov 9, 2016 06:19

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
sexually

Sebadoh Gigante posted:

[/list]

How?

If she wins PA and MI, it's 271 EVs. Trump has a tiny (2500 vote) lead in PA, and a less than 15000 vote lead in Mi (with 25% of precincts still left to report).

# ? Nov 9, 2016 06:23

poppingseagull: Apr 12, 2004

Cockblocktopus posted:

I don't think I've posted in this thread before but holy gently caress Nate's going to be unbearable for the next four years or longer.

Ironically, right or wrong, no one will trust polls for at least the next decade. Or maybe they will since we just proved people are by and large loving idiots.

# ? Nov 9, 2016 06:23

Fortaleza: Feb 21, 2008

Sebadoh Gigante posted:

How?

By WI, NH, PA, NV and MI completing their vote tallies. Don't get me wrong though, it's going to be much closer than it should be.

theflyingexecutive posted:

Except you know senate is lost

It was looking hopeful for a while but I blame incumbency more than anything, poo poo's real. Can't say I'm looking forward to absolutely nothing happening the next four years but I get the feeling that's what we're gonna get.

# ? Nov 9, 2016 06:24

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
sexually

Fortaleza posted:

It was looking hopeful for a while but I blame incumbency more than anything, poo poo's real. Can't say I'm looking forward to absolutely nothing happening the next four years but I get the feeling that's what we're gonna get.

Considering the alternative, I have to say: go, gridlock, go!

# ? Nov 9, 2016 06:29

Oil!: Nov 5, 2008; Der's e'rl in dem der hills!; Ham Wrangler

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/730251094614528000

How did he know this in May?

# ? Nov 9, 2016 06:32

Cockblocktopus: Apr 18, 2009; Since the beginning of time, man has yearned to destroy the sun.

poppingseagull posted:

Ironically, right or wrong, no one will trust polls for at least the next decade. Or maybe they will since we just proved people are by and large loving idiots.

Maybe they'll drop the poll chat altogether and we'll just get an hour of Harry Enten talking about diet soda and calling Nate Silver "Nathaniel" at every turn.

# ? Nov 9, 2016 06:32

Fortaleza: Feb 21, 2008

I was kinda hoping for a 50-50 split in the Senate so that Tim Kaine gets to, ya know, actually do something.

# ? Nov 9, 2016 06:38

Paul Zuvella: Dec 7, 2011

Oil! posted:

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/730251094614528000

How did he know this in May?

We're the shook ones.

# ? Nov 9, 2016 06:40

Zohar: Jul 14, 2013; Good kitty

Fortaleza posted:

By WI, NH, PA, NV and MI completing their vote tallies. Don't get me wrong though, it's going to be much closer than it should be.

lol

# ? Nov 9, 2016 06:42

Cockblocktopus: Apr 18, 2009; Since the beginning of time, man has yearned to destroy the sun.

Fortaleza posted:

I was kinda hoping for a 50-50 split in the Senate so that Tim Kaine gets to, ya know, actually do something.

I mean he's going to be a Senator for two more years then probably win re-election in an off-year election :shrug:

Plays his cards right and he could be the 2020 nominee.

# ? Nov 9, 2016 06:44

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
sexually

Does this keep 538.com alive for another year (or more)?

# ? Nov 9, 2016 06:48

Paul Zuvella: Dec 7, 2011

Considering he was the only person to even consider the fact that there was a possible massive polling error, yes.

# ? Nov 9, 2016 06:56

C. Everett Koop: Aug 18, 2008

FMguru posted:

Does this keep 538.com alive for another year (or more)?

No.

1: ESPN's bleeding subscribers and needs to find any way to slash money. 538 and it's large staff costs a pretty penny and has very limited value outside of a presidential race. There was going to be heads rolling after this election no matter the outcome, it was just a matter of who and how many.

2: As much as Nate hedged his bets and jammed on the brakes as much as humanly possible, he still missed Trump in the primary, he still missed GodKing Trump in the election, he still missed states left and right (mostly right). When you've set the bar as high as he did, any falloff from that is going to be magnified.

3: Nate and the rest of the pollsters missing as badly as they did means the faith in them is severely reduced, if not gone. Nate can try and spin everything and claim it's bad data or bad polling or that he's trying to capture a tempest in a teapot, but it's his job to get the vote right and he missed. He can hope that he gets a pass since everyone whiffed, but it's not like the weatherman deal where you just have to bat reasonably well and not make any major mistakes and no one remembers the following week. Nate's paid to make money for Disney/ABC/ESPN, to do so he has to provide accurate information about the election, and he failed to do that.

There'll be a little bit of postmortem for 538 as there'll be plenty of articles to write about the election, but when the majority of them are "welp we hosed up," it's hard to justify keeping them around when their purpose and value are now severely reduced. Come 2017 there'll be either a severe reduction of staff and re-purposing of the site, or 538 will be shutdown outright. There's no purpose in keeping around a disgraced poll analyst. The staff will go on and do whatever, either for other sites or academia depending on how high their profile was. Nate probably disappears from public view for a while and either writes books or tries to solve some other issue with data, or he walks into Times Square and puts a gun in his mouth.

But 538 is dead and so is Nate Silver as a political pundit.

# ? Nov 9, 2016 07:03

Zo: Feb 22, 2005; LIKE A FOX

Fortaleza posted:

By WI, NH, PA, NV and MI completing their vote tallies. Don't get me wrong though, it's going to be much closer than it should be.

It was looking hopeful for a while but I blame incumbency more than anything, poo poo's real. Can't say I'm looking forward to absolutely nothing happening the next four years but I get the feeling that's what we're gonna get.

Is this the shrinking cornbob meme i keeping hearing about?

# ? Nov 9, 2016 07:04

Fangz: Jul 5, 2007; Oh I see! This must be the Bad Opinion Zone!

Nate's disgraced in the eyes of idiots like you, maybe, but correctly calling out uncertainty is still important. PEC and Cohn have some deep explaining to do, and 538 might be downsized, but he should be fine.

If not polling, general data journalism will have an audience as we chronicle the full Trumponomics clusterfuck over the next few years.

# ? Nov 9, 2016 07:20

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
sexually

Fangz posted:

Nate's disgraced in the eyes of idiots like you, maybe, but correctly calling out uncertainty is still important. PEC and Cohn have some deep explaining to do, and 538 might be downsized, but he should be fine.

Yeah, Nate certainly comes out of this better than the all other pollsters who were arguing whether Clinton had a 98% or 99% chance of winning.

# ? Nov 9, 2016 07:23

Supercar Gautier: Jun 10, 2006

Sam Wang already got a bye for whiffing the 2004 result; no one's going to give him the time of day ever again.

# ? Nov 9, 2016 07:45

Oil!: Nov 5, 2008; Der's e'rl in dem der hills!; Ham Wrangler

I think 538 will live on, but possibly somewhere else. ESPN is trying to cut costs, but it is a part of the Disney empire, which means that they could be moved and downsized into the ABC political crew. By having the most uncertainty and most "accurate" forecast, they have a higher chance of survival than the people that had 90-95+% certainty at other orgs that didn't have their own names on it.

# ? Nov 9, 2016 07:52

ErIog: Jul 11, 2001

Oil! posted:

I think 538 will live on, but possibly somewhere else. ESPN is trying to cut costs, but it is a part of the Disney empire, which means that they could be moved and downsized into the ABC political crew. By having the most uncertainty and most "accurate" forecast, they have a higher chance of survival than the people that had 90-95+% certainty at other orgs that didn't have their own names on it.

The Ringer should buy them and fold them into Keepin' it 1600. Let's complete the cycle.

# ? Nov 9, 2016 07:53

Nocturtle: Mar 17, 2007

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/796228402554503168

The adjusted polls had a massive ~4% systematic bias in favour of Clinton across multiple states. Nate's assumption of +/-5% estimated uncertainty in national poll results was actually pretty reasonable, even if it badly smeared out his electoral college distribution. I'm a big dummy.

Nate was "correct" in that he understood that modern polls are garbage, and consistently propagated this assumption through his model. This was a massive systematic failure across the entire industry.

# ? Nov 9, 2016 08:58