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[Reelya]

Every election makes the data model a little more robust, since you can take 70+ years of raw polling data, and adjust your model so it retroactively models each previous election as well as possible. If it was too pro-Democrat then they've already adjusted for that and run the simulations for 2016 which give more accurate polling results. Any systematic bias is already accounted for, and could possibly even be too pro-Trump at this stage, if 2016 turns out to be an outlier.

The 2016 election was really knife-edge though, where it counts. I'm reading that it came down to 77,000 votes in three swing states: that was the entire margin between having Clinton or Trump. Something like the Comey press release in the week before the election could easily have swung that small a number. It was close a.f.

[Lord Shonus]

The 2016 polls weren't all that far off. The result was entirely within the polling dataset, if in an unusual way. What was critically wrong was the poll analysis.

[hector13]

Oh hey, another Trumper is coming up with weird shit around truths. This time is was Giuliani saying “truth isn’t truth” in an interview regarding Trump talking to the Mueller investigation.

[smjjames]

Every election makes the data model a little more robust, since you can take 70+ years of raw polling data, and adjust your model so it retroactively models each previous election as well as possible. If it was too pro-Democrat then they've already adjusted for that and run the simulations for 2016 which give more accurate polling results. Any systematic bias is already accounted for, and could possibly even be too pro-Trump at this stage, if 2016 turns out to be an outlier.

The 2016 election was really knife-edge though, where it counts. I'm reading that it came down to 77,000 votes in three swing states: that was the entire margin between having Clinton or Trump. Something like the Comey press release in the week before the election could easily have swung that small a number. It was close a.f.

Not by popular vote, no, it wasn't knife edge, but that doesn't mean shit when it comes to electoral votes. Still, looking back at wikipedia, it really was knife edge in some places, Michigan for example had a 10k vote difference, Pennsylvania had about 44k

The 2016 polls weren't all that far off. The result was entirely within the polling dataset, if in an unusual way. What was critically wrong was the poll analysis.

True, it's just that they're repeating the same kind of attitude the Dems made on the Presidential polls (which pretty much got 99% of the attention on the whole 'AAARRR! POLLS ARE WRONG!!!; thing). Democrats actually made gains in the House and Senate, not big gains, but still gains.

[Trekkin]

Oh hey, another Trumper is coming up with weird shit around truths. This time is was Giuliani saying “truth isn’t truth” in an interview regarding Trump talking to the Mueller investigation.

That is literally Giuliani's role in this administration: to convince Trump's base to side with Trump over the rest of the country when and if something finally emerges that proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump is a fraud and/or traitor. That may never happen, but between Trump's conviction that this is an FBI blackmail operation and the vast array of shady things he's known to have done in the course of his career, one can see how they'd operate under the assumption that something will emerge that throws his core narrative into disarray.

In that context, Giuliani is a perfect choice in part because he's a blithering idiot; every shambolic account of the Trump administration he rambles through is just a shade more ridiculous than the last so as many of the base as possible accepts it rather than make the painful admission they've been conned by a cabal of morons. Every new meme lets the bar slip a bit lower. It's not dissimilar to how some criminal organizations secure the loyalty of their low-level members through progressively more heinous crimes: if they walk away from the murder, it means the assault was all for nothing, and so on.

So it's not, in a literal sense, "truth isn't truth." It's "Either truth isn't truth, or the liberals were right about you." It will be something weirder next week. All so that if the truth and Trump should ever diverge so sharply and so critically that to believe in reality is to demand his imprisonment, they can proudly choose not to.

[ChairmanPoo]

Oh hey, another Trumper is coming up with weird shit around truths. This time is was Giuliani saying “truth isn’t truth” in an interview regarding Trump talking to the Mueller investigation.

Double plus ungood

[Starver]

True, it's just that they're repeating the same kind of attitude the Dems made on the Presidential polls (which pretty much got 99% of the attention on the whole 'AAARRR! POLLS ARE WRONG!!!; thing). Democrats actually made gains in the House and Senate, not big gains, but still gains.

The common thing I've seen is the trotting out the "80+% chance of Hillary" against the result, as if it were intended to be 80+% of the votes/EVs predicted for her (possibly a mistake made by some people before the day, too) rather the chances of the race tipping that way¹ in the close race.

I wouldn't want to disabuse them of that opinion, though, if it helps correct the earlier errors.


¹ Give or take the 'billions of illegal votes by dead immigrants being cast simulateously in multiple states'.

[Frumple]

Oh hey, another Trumper is coming up with weird shit around truths. This time is was Giuliani saying “truth isn’t truth” in an interview regarding Trump talking to the Mueller investigation.

Man, I'd heard about it yesterday or somethin', but actually heard the statement a few minutes ago. Guy sounded legitimately unhinged when he said that. Like damn.

[smjjames]

He has since tried to clarify what he meant. "My statement was not meant as a pontification on moral theology but one referring to the situation where two people make precisely contradictory statements, the classic 'he said,she said' puzzle. Sometimes further inquiry can reveal the truth other times it doesn't,"

'Pontification on moral theology'? The heck is he going on about?

True, it's just that they're repeating the same kind of attitude the Dems made on the Presidential polls (which pretty much got 99% of the attention on the whole 'AAARRR! POLLS ARE WRONG!!!; thing). Democrats actually made gains in the House and Senate, not big gains, but still gains.

The common thing I've seen is the trotting out the "80+% chance of Hillary" against the result, as if it were intended to be 80+% of the votes/EVs predicted for her (possibly a mistake made by some people before the day, too) rather the chances of the race tipping that way¹ in the close race.

I wouldn't want to disabuse them of that opinion, though, if it helps correct the earlier errors.


¹ Give or take the 'billions of illegal votes by dead immigrants being cast simulateously in multiple states'.

I can easily see Trump having a 'WTF?!?!? DOES! NOT! COMPUTE!!!!!' meltdown when things don't go his way.

[Kagus]

'Pontification on moral theology'? The heck is he going on about?

Probably trying to equate "Truth is not truth!" with Plato's cave and the Matrix, as a commentary on what reality and truth can truly claim to be and therefore what ethical values we can assign to them.

But don't ask me, I'm buzzed on mead. And not the wisdom-fresh-from-the-teat Heiðrún mead either.

[JoshuaFH]

Can't wait for the "Free will doesn't exist, therefore I can't be legally culpable of anything!" argument.

[Kagus]

Can't wait for the "Free will doesn't exist, therefore I can't be legally culpable of anything!" argument.

"You think what I'm doing is blasphemous? Heh...

Blame God."

[Frumple]

Throwing out buzzwords in asspull attempt #N+1, looks like. Tis the formulation of someone who doesn't have much exposure to ethics (and is probably under the effect of cognitive deterioration to some degree) trying to sound fancy as they defend nonsense.

[Kagus]

Tis the formulation of someone who doesn't have much exposure to ethics (and is probably under the effect of cognitive deterioration to some degree) trying to sound fancy as they defend nonsense.

To be fair, that also describes anyone who studies ethics.

[scriver]

Can't wait for the "Free will doesn't exist, therefore I can't be legally culpable of anything!" argument.

Well I sang and I laughed, I howled and I wept
I panted like a pup
I blew a hole in Mrs. Richard Holmes
And her husband stupidly stood up
As he screamed, "You are an evil man"
And I paused a while to wonder
If I have no free will then how can I
Be morally culpable, I wonder
I shot Richard Holmes in the stomach
Gingerly he sat down
And he whispered verily "No offense"
And then lay upon the ground
"None taken", I replied to him
To which he gave a little cough
And with blazing wings I neatly aimed
Blew his head completely off