2024 US Presidential Elections Megathread

[HVC]

Hey, you're the one always rallying against America, the GOP and Trump in particular. These are 100 of thousands of people who saw Trump and decided not to vote. You see simple innocent disinterest, I see apathy to the level of stupidity *especially* when the trigger to vote is that their favourite singer told them they should vote. To each their own.

Good for them for voting for the democrats, but it could easily have gone to the other way if Taylor had endorsed the other side.

You must have been perfect in your youth.  I am very happy for you.

Always gotta go personal. Ironies of ironies I'm looking down on these kids when I'm stupid enough not to learn from my own mistakes. You're not worth talking to. Back on ignore.

[Barrister]

Hey, you're the one always rallying against America, the GOP and Trump in particular. These are 100 of thousands of people who saw Trump and decided not to vote. You see simple innocent disinterest, I see apathy to the level of stupidity *especially* when the trigger to vote is that their favourite singer told them they should vote. To each their own.

Good for them for voting for the democrats, but it could easily have gone to the other way if Taylor had endorsed the other side.

You must have been perfect in your youth.  I am very happy for you.

WTF dude.

[Admiral Yi]

Is there anywhere she isn't popular?

There was a period of time when people vocalized opposition because of the Taylor v. Beyonce thing.  It seems to have died off.

[Admiral Yi]

I think this is spot on.  It's been my belief for a while that one of the keys to being open-minded to good ideas to be close-minded to bad ones (of course, the trick is having a good judgment about which is which).  In this case, it's not a matter of good or bad, but matter of relevant or not.  There is a limited amount of attention to go around, so you have to prioritize.

I agree that some information is irrelevant.  However it seems to me you're prejudging information about Taylor Swift as irrelevant without assessing it first.

To give one example, I heard a Taylor discussion on NPR the other day where the guest talked about her ability to maintain intimacy and connection and rapport while singing to 80,000 people on a Jumbotron.  I think that's an interesting skill and I would like to know how to duplicate it.  I've also heard discussions of ticket pricing and market concentration.  I think her fucking an extroverted tight end for the Super Bowl champions is an interesting case study in the intersection of the purely private, marketing, and public relations.

Now to take your side I think People Magazine is entirely irrelevant.  I don't care who is cheating on whom.  I don't care who has gained five pounds.  So if you were to restate your thesis as a probabilistic assessment and not an end point, zero one conclusion I would agree with you.  I've assessed the chances of reading an article in People that interests me as statistically zero, so I don't bother.  I've assessed the chances of picking up relevant information from a Taylor Swift story as higher than zero.  You could theoretically read every single Taylor Swift article ever written, watch every single youtube clip, and come to the conclusion that it's all worthless.  But to come to that conclusion without examination, perhaps based on a rule such as pop music aimed at sixteen year old white girls from the suburbs is silly and pointless, is not rational.  It's the codification of a bias.

[crazy canuck]

Hey, you're the one always rallying against America, the GOP and Trump in particular. These are 100 of thousands of people who saw Trump and decided not to vote. You see simple innocent disinterest, I see apathy to the level of stupidity *especially* when the trigger to vote is that their favourite singer told them they should vote. To each their own.

Good for them for voting for the democrats, but it could easily have gone to the other way if Taylor had endorsed the other side.

You must have been perfect in your youth.  I am very happy for you.

Always gotta go personal. Ironies of ironies I'm looking down on these kids when I'm stupid enough not to learn from my own mistakes. You're not worth talking to. Back on ignore.

The personal attack would have been saying you were the stupid one for calling hundreds of thousands of young people stupid. 

[crazy canuck]

Hey, you're the one always rallying against America, the GOP and Trump in particular. These are 100 of thousands of people who saw Trump and decided not to vote. You see simple innocent disinterest, I see apathy to the level of stupidity *especially* when the trigger to vote is that their favourite singer told them they should vote. To each their own.

Good for them for voting for the democrats, but it could easily have gone to the other way if Taylor had endorsed the other side.

You must have been perfect in your youth.  I am very happy for you.

WTF dude.

?

Do you also think that hundreds of thousands of young people are stupid simply because they have become politicized by this event?

[grumbler]

Do you also think that hundreds of thousands of young people are stupid simply because they have become politicized by this event?

Hundreds of thousands of young people have not become become politicized by this event, based on the info we have to date.  Hundreds of thousands of young people have decided that they will vote for whomever Taylor Swift tells them to vote for.  Not necessarily "stupid" but certainly very far from wise.

[DGuller]

I think this is spot on.  It's been my belief for a while that one of the keys to being open-minded to good ideas to be close-minded to bad ones (of course, the trick is having a good judgment about which is which).  In this case, it's not a matter of good or bad, but matter of relevant or not.  There is a limited amount of attention to go around, so you have to prioritize.

I agree that some information is irrelevant.  However it seems to me you're prejudging information about Taylor Swift as irrelevant without assessing it first.

To give one example, I heard a Taylor discussion on NPR the other day where the guest talked about her ability to maintain intimacy and connection and rapport while singing to 80,000 people on a Jumbotron.  I think that's an interesting skill and I would like to know how to duplicate it.  I've also heard discussions of ticket pricing and market concentration.  I think her fucking an extroverted tight end for the Super Bowl champions is an interesting case study in the intersection of the purely private, marketing, and public relations.

Now to take your side I think People Magazine is entirely irrelevant.  I don't care who is cheating on whom.  I don't care who has gained five pounds.  So if you were to restate your thesis as a probabilistic assessment and not an end point, zero one conclusion I would agree with you.  I've assessed the chances of reading an article in People that interests me as statistically zero, so I don't bother.  I've assessed the chances of picking up relevant information from a Taylor Swift story as higher than zero.  You could theoretically read every single Taylor Swift article ever written, watch every single youtube clip, and come to the conclusion that it's all worthless.  But to come to that conclusion without examination, perhaps based on a rule such as pop music aimed at sixteen year old white girls from the suburbs is silly and pointless, is not rational.  It's the codification of a bias.

I'm a data scientist and a poker player, I think probabilistically about everything, even if I don't say so explicitly.  As a human you make judgment calls all the time and make mistakes all the time, the only thing you can do is try to make the optimal decision with the information you have (and choosing to obtain more information is also a decision with costs).  However, you still have to understand that making judgment calls is inevitable (not making it is a judgment call in its own right), and that you can only reduce the number of errors, never eliminate them.

[Admiral Yi]

Would you agree that the only sound basis for judgement is reason, logic, evidence, and data?  And that judgement needs to be constantly tested to make sure you are not leading yourself astray?

[viper37]

Is there anywhere she isn't popular?

Boca Chica

[viper37]

Republicans are having a meltdown.

[DGuller]

Would you agree that the only sound basis for judgement is reason, logic, evidence, and data?  And that judgement needs to be constantly tested to make sure you are not leading yourself astray?

I guess.  Where are you going with that?

[Admiral Yi]

I guess.  Where are you going with that?

I'm trying to bait you into describing your thought process for deciding if Taylor Swift's name was worth retaining or not.

[DGuller]

I guess.  Where are you going with that?

I'm trying to bait you into describing your thought process for deciding if Taylor Swift's name was worth retaining or not.

You can't always validate individual decisions, because some decision by their nature involve lack of interest in finding out more information, but you can sometimes validate the process. 

For example, let's say you're interviewing candidates for a job.  Sometimes, very often, you have to make a judgment call that a candidate is not a good fit.  How do you know whether you got that call right?  You don't, you have no idea how the candidate would've worked out.  You can validate the other kind of error, hiring someone you thought was great but turns out to be a stinker, but that doesn't really tell you much about the first kind of error.

However, occasionally you do get a sense, such as when somebody else in your company still hires them, or you find it out in some other way.  If it turns out that candidates that you reject turn out to be superstars often enough, then you have to question your process.

Does failing to know about someone who turned out to be a very famous person for 15 years make me question my process of filtering information?  Not really.  I have a feeling that when I'm on my deathbed, not finding out more about Taylor Swift earlier would not be at the top of my list of regrets.

[Sheilbh]

Among the theories circulating in RW media are that Kamala used secret microphone earrings during the debate (where was Michael Spicer on debate night?) or that the Democrats used a body double. The level of insanity is off the charts. People on RW media have been so completely brainwashed into believing that KH is a gibbering fool incapable of verbal communication other than cackling that they were genuinely shocked when they got to view her speaking live on an unaltered video feed, as opposed to manipulated clips.

Although see also the conspiracy theories about - I think Bush but maybe Romney - wearing a receiver during their debate. I remember lots of pictures of their suit gathering at the back with circles saying it was the shape of a radio/receiver and they had an earpiece.

Nonsense but not necessarily new nonsense.

Swifties, save us!

They are also turning their righteous wrath on IS after a thwarted terrorist attack cancelled a Swift concert in Vienna. So I'm expecting at some point a flood of incredible open source intelligence about IS

Personally my struggle is the other way - I wish I could be less aware of Musk and all manner of other things, but awareness still seeps at rates beyond what I'd prefer.

Yeah I tend to find basically everything interesting. So shallow not deep, not great at particularly focused reading on a topic of interest but very, very broad And of course buying a book on x topic and having it on my shelf is, I find, about 75% of having read it so...

Would you agree that the only sound basis for judgement is reason, logic, evidence, and data? 

Absolutely not. As the great Garret FitzGerald regularly asked as Taoiseach, "that's fine in practice, but will it work in theory?" (Ireland has never again elected someone with intellectual pretensions as Taoiseach...)

Evidence and data I agree with (I never really understand what people mean by reason, and as someone who works with European/civil law I'm actively hostile to logic ) - but they're just components and there's many ways of reading and interpreting them.

There's different layers of things that require different judgements and different hermeneutics.

And that judgement needs to be constantly tested to make sure you are not leading yourself astray?

But totally agree with this.