On election night, Fox News called Arizona very early. This surprised pretty much everyone. The Fox News team had improved their election model in 2020, and was confident their call was correct, even if unconventional.
Conservatives love to complain about the media.
But there's an inside baseball media that reveals how destructive the conservative media criticism environment can be to the conservative movement.
Enter, Fox News:
On election night, Fox News called Arizona very early. This surprised pretty much everyone. The Fox News team had improved their election model in 2020, and was confident their call was correct, even if unconventional.
Who stole the election changed over time. Fox News. Some rando in Atlanta. Poll workers. China.
There was less true uncertainty about who would win at 11:20 PM on election night than in any election ever, because sooooo many votes had been cast early.
Analysts in finance get paid lots of money for that kind of call!
1) Fox News recruited high-quality analytic talent into the conservative movement
2) That talent delivered, providing accurate results faster than competitors
3) Those results didn't fit "The Narrative" that the Trumpist echo chamber wanted
4) Fired
But our media critics really need to pay attention to stuff like this. It's open hostility on even *irrelevant* truth claims.
It didn't matter what Fox called! The results weren't influenced by that!
But in the media-and-commentary-addicted mind of politics-overdosed Trump supporters.... it really mattered what The Media said.
.... but we don't really fund "data stuff." We're more interested in commentary. Do you want to repackage this as some op-eds?
Not quite. They got rid of two people responsible for *reporting* that decision. But the guy who actually *made* the decision - Arnon Mishkin - is still there, afaik. Decision Desk is still sacrosanct, apparently.
— Ezra Glinter (@EzraG) January 22, 2021
More from Lyman Stone 石來民
Ulysses S. Grant would like a WORD
Or Teddy Roosevelt. Or Dwight Eisenhower. Or Andrew Jackson. Or Abraham Lincoln. Or George Washington. Or Zachary Taylor. Or any of numerous presidents who were honest-to-goodness battle-hardened warriors.
James Monroe fought the Hessians at Trenton and nearly died of wounds sustained there, then wintered in Valley Forge, then fought until Monmouth, then repeatedly tried to raise new regiments for the war until he went bankrupt doing it.
James Monroe, of the Era of Good Feelings, longest serving president of all time.... was in the boats crossing the icy Delaware.
Andrew Jackson was in a duel. He was shot in the chest right by his heart.
But he didn't go down. He stood there and, while bleeding out, steadily took aim and killed the dude who shot him.
Stone cold.
Hogan Gidley: Trump is "the most masculine person to ever hold the White House as the president of the United States" https://t.co/fcoYWyaEhz
— Eliza Relman (@eliza_relman) January 11, 2021
Or Teddy Roosevelt. Or Dwight Eisenhower. Or Andrew Jackson. Or Abraham Lincoln. Or George Washington. Or Zachary Taylor. Or any of numerous presidents who were honest-to-goodness battle-hardened warriors.
James Monroe fought the Hessians at Trenton and nearly died of wounds sustained there, then wintered in Valley Forge, then fought until Monmouth, then repeatedly tried to raise new regiments for the war until he went bankrupt doing it.
James Monroe, of the Era of Good Feelings, longest serving president of all time.... was in the boats crossing the icy Delaware.
Andrew Jackson was in a duel. He was shot in the chest right by his heart.
But he didn't go down. He stood there and, while bleeding out, steadily took aim and killed the dude who shot him.
Stone cold.
So a few days back I was tweeting about SSRIs. The big question with these drugs is: why do controlled trials routinely show such small effects when practitioners and patients report life-changingly-large effects?
So first off, at this point the evidence is pretty clear that SSRIs and other anti-anxiety/anti-depression drugs truly don't do very much. Their average effects are beneath clinical significance, as I tweeted about here:
Basically, the problem these drugs face is that while they actually see relatively LARGE effects.... but that placebos in those trials ALSO see large effects (and most untreated depression improves within a year anyways).
So basically you have this problem where:
1. The condition tends to improve on its own in a majority of cases
2. Placebo effects for the condition are unusually large
Which means the large crude effects of SSRIs get swamped.
So that raises two new questions.
1. (Not my focus here) Are we treating these conditions appropriately given their untreated prognosis is usually (though certainly not always!!) "goes away in a few months"?
2. Why are placebo effects so unusually large?
So first off, at this point the evidence is pretty clear that SSRIs and other anti-anxiety/anti-depression drugs truly don't do very much. Their average effects are beneath clinical significance, as I tweeted about here:
What's the best recent empirical assessment of SSRI/SNRI effectiveness which deals with heterogeneity and long-term effects in a plausible way?
— Lyman Stone \u77f3\u4f86\u6c11 (@lymanstoneky) December 4, 2020
Basically, the problem these drugs face is that while they actually see relatively LARGE effects.... but that placebos in those trials ALSO see large effects (and most untreated depression improves within a year anyways).
So basically you have this problem where:
1. The condition tends to improve on its own in a majority of cases
2. Placebo effects for the condition are unusually large
Which means the large crude effects of SSRIs get swamped.
So that raises two new questions.
1. (Not my focus here) Are we treating these conditions appropriately given their untreated prognosis is usually (though certainly not always!!) "goes away in a few months"?
2. Why are placebo effects so unusually large?
More from Politics
Ruben Verastigui is (allegedly) a horrifying pedo monster and has been on the digital teams for the @SenateGOP, National @GOP and the Trump campaign. I didn't want to talk about him, but I think it's important.
The allegations against RV are among the most horrifying I have read. It involves possessing and sharing images of rape of infants and plans to take action in the real world of that nature. I don't really recommend reading the details, but they are here.
These allegations were first brought to light by @jaredlholt who has an excellent thread. He warns people that they may want to avoid the end of the thread because it includes shots of the specific allegations. I make the same warning.
RV was a main stage speaker at the 2013 March For Life.
RV did a headshot for Ronna McDaniel, GOP Chairwoman
The allegations against RV are among the most horrifying I have read. It involves possessing and sharing images of rape of infants and plans to take action in the real world of that nature. I don't really recommend reading the details, but they are here.
These allegations were first brought to light by @jaredlholt who has an excellent thread. He warns people that they may want to avoid the end of the thread because it includes shots of the specific allegations. I make the same warning.
NEW: D.C. Police arrested Ruben Verastigui -- a former "senior digital strategist" for the Senate Republican Conference -- on charges of distribution of child pornography resulting from a time span that allegedly included his time at the SRC. How I confirmed ID in thread (1/?) pic.twitter.com/AcZ7c2sBKb
— Jared Holt (@jaredlholt) February 6, 2021
RV was a main stage speaker at the 2013 March For Life.
RV did a headshot for Ronna McDaniel, GOP Chairwoman
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I just finished Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics, and wanted to say something about Joel Christiansen's review linked below. I am not sure what motivates the review (I speculate a bit below), but it gives a very misleading impression of the book. 1/x
The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x
Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x
The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x
It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x
As someone\u2019s who\u2019s read the book, this review strikes me as tremendously unfair. It mostly faults Adler for not writing the book the reviewer wishes he had! https://t.co/pqpt5Ziivj
— Teresa M. Bejan (@tmbejan) January 12, 2021
The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x
Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x
The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x
It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x
Trump is gonna let the Mueller investigation end all on it's own. It's obvious. All the hysteria of the past 2 weeks about his supposed impending firing of Mueller was a distraction. He was never going to fire Mueller and he's not going to
Mueller's officially end his investigation all on his own and he's gonna say he found no evidence of Trump campaign/Russian collusion during the 2016 election.
Democrats & DNC Media are going to LITERALLY have nothing coherent to say in response to that.
Mueller's team was 100% partisan.
That's why it's brilliant. NOBODY will be able to claim this team of partisan Democrats didn't go the EXTRA 20 MILES looking for ANY evidence they could find of Trump campaign/Russian collusion during the 2016 election
They looked high.
They looked low.
They looked underneath every rock, behind every tree, into every bush.
And they found...NOTHING.
Those saying Mueller will file obstruction charges against Trump: laughable.
What documents did Trump tell the Mueller team it couldn't have? What witnesses were withheld and never interviewed?
THERE WEREN'T ANY.
Mueller got full 100% cooperation as the record will show.
BREAKING: President Donald Trump has submitted his answers to questions from special counsel Robert Mueller
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) November 20, 2018
Mueller's officially end his investigation all on his own and he's gonna say he found no evidence of Trump campaign/Russian collusion during the 2016 election.
Democrats & DNC Media are going to LITERALLY have nothing coherent to say in response to that.
Mueller's team was 100% partisan.
That's why it's brilliant. NOBODY will be able to claim this team of partisan Democrats didn't go the EXTRA 20 MILES looking for ANY evidence they could find of Trump campaign/Russian collusion during the 2016 election
They looked high.
They looked low.
They looked underneath every rock, behind every tree, into every bush.
And they found...NOTHING.
Those saying Mueller will file obstruction charges against Trump: laughable.
What documents did Trump tell the Mueller team it couldn't have? What witnesses were withheld and never interviewed?
THERE WEREN'T ANY.
Mueller got full 100% cooperation as the record will show.
1/OK, data mystery time.
This New York Times feature shows China with a Gini Index of less than 30, which would make it more equal than Canada, France, or the Netherlands. https://t.co/g3Sv6DZTDE
That's weird. Income inequality in China is legendary.
Let's check this number.
2/The New York Times cites the World Bank's recent report, "Fair Progress? Economic Mobility across Generations Around the World".
The report is available here:
3/The World Bank report has a graph in which it appears to show the same value for China's Gini - under 0.3.
The graph cites the World Development Indicators as its source for the income inequality data.
4/The World Development Indicators are available at the World Bank's website.
Here's the Gini index: https://t.co/MvylQzpX6A
It looks as if the latest estimate for China's Gini is 42.2.
That estimate is from 2012.
5/A Gini of 42.2 would put China in the same neighborhood as the U.S., whose Gini was estimated at 41 in 2013.
I can't find the <30 number anywhere. The only other estimate in the tables for China is from 2008, when it was estimated at 42.8.
This New York Times feature shows China with a Gini Index of less than 30, which would make it more equal than Canada, France, or the Netherlands. https://t.co/g3Sv6DZTDE
That's weird. Income inequality in China is legendary.
Let's check this number.
2/The New York Times cites the World Bank's recent report, "Fair Progress? Economic Mobility across Generations Around the World".
The report is available here:
3/The World Bank report has a graph in which it appears to show the same value for China's Gini - under 0.3.
The graph cites the World Development Indicators as its source for the income inequality data.
4/The World Development Indicators are available at the World Bank's website.
Here's the Gini index: https://t.co/MvylQzpX6A
It looks as if the latest estimate for China's Gini is 42.2.
That estimate is from 2012.
5/A Gini of 42.2 would put China in the same neighborhood as the U.S., whose Gini was estimated at 41 in 2013.
I can't find the <30 number anywhere. The only other estimate in the tables for China is from 2008, when it was estimated at 42.8.
