He had Trump at 28% chance to win, so while credible he is not 100% accurate. Let’s say Trump actually had a 50% chance of winning last time, which is not outlandish seeing that he won the electoral college by a significant margin, so NS was off by ~22+%.
Now he says Trump is 87% likely to lose. Take off 22% and it’s 65%. After costs, taxes, operational slip-ups, your time etc, and you have an expected loss at 60-65% odds.
Also, if Trump wins and you are a Biden supporter, you lose twice. That would be bad hedonics. On the other hand if you prefer Trump this could be a form of hedging.
Not only that there is time to the election during which a lot can happen. “A week is a long time in politics”, So even if you are right at the moment, you are exposed to events leading up to the election, which could make you wrong.
For the record I think Biden has about 70% chance to win, so if you take this bet you will probably win. Still a bad bet though IMHO.
Source: I have made a large fraction of all possible investing mistakes. In betting markets I am ahead, having only ever bet on one horse race, in which my horse came in first.
Let’s say Trump actually had a 50% chance of winning last time
What do you mean by this? That human behaviour is non-deterministic? Or that, given the publicly available information at the time, the best guess was 50 percent? If the latter, it’s easy to get a better credence after the event happened. Look at Nate’s track record. An event that he gives an x percent chance happens pretty damn close to x percent of the time. You could’ve just as easily said he underestimates the winners when he got it “right” (i.e. he said > 50 percent chance), and therefore Biden has an even higher chance of winning.
I mean that given he won, the actual odds of him winning were actually better than 10%.
I cannot prove this externally but - before the election in 2016 I said to several people, who remember this, that it would be somewhere between a narrow Clinton win and a strong Trump win. So it was not outlandish to think Trump could win. The main reason I had was what is now known as the “shy Trump voter” effect. People did not want to get cancelled for admitting that they were a ‘fascist’.
> Look at Nate’s track record
If Trump wins this one, as looks fairly likely at the moment, NS will be 3⁄5 for Presidential elections, no better than chance.
My main beef with the argument from credibility is a) NS does not have a long strong track record in this field of presidential elections, b) Credible is different than totally accurate. I pointed out if he was wrong by a few tens of percents, like last time, his view is not strong evidence that there is a winning bet here.
Funnily enough NS reduced his P(Biden) to about 50% on election day (or maybe the day before).
Depends on where you bet. If you are in the right country you can make a lot of money if Biden is 70% to win. I emphasized predictit because I believe most people on lesswrong are in the USA.
He had Trump at 28% chance to win, so while credible he is not 100% accurate. Let’s say Trump actually had a 50% chance of winning last time, which is not outlandish seeing that he won the electoral college by a significant margin, so NS was off by ~22+%.
Now he says Trump is 87% likely to lose. Take off 22% and it’s 65%. After costs, taxes, operational slip-ups, your time etc, and you have an expected loss at 60-65% odds.
Also, if Trump wins and you are a Biden supporter, you lose twice. That would be bad hedonics. On the other hand if you prefer Trump this could be a form of hedging.
Not only that there is time to the election during which a lot can happen. “A week is a long time in politics”, So even if you are right at the moment, you are exposed to events leading up to the election, which could make you wrong.
For the record I think Biden has about 70% chance to win, so if you take this bet you will probably win. Still a bad bet though IMHO.
Source: I have made a large fraction of all possible investing mistakes. In betting markets I am ahead, having only ever bet on one horse race, in which my horse came in first.
What do you mean by this? That human behaviour is non-deterministic? Or that, given the publicly available information at the time, the best guess was 50 percent? If the latter, it’s easy to get a better credence after the event happened. Look at Nate’s track record. An event that he gives an x percent chance happens pretty damn close to x percent of the time. You could’ve just as easily said he underestimates the winners when he got it “right” (i.e. he said > 50 percent chance), and therefore Biden has an even higher chance of winning.
> What do you mean by this?
I mean that given he won, the actual odds of him winning were actually better than 10%.
I cannot prove this externally but - before the election in 2016 I said to several people, who remember this, that it would be somewhere between a narrow Clinton win and a strong Trump win. So it was not outlandish to think Trump could win. The main reason I had was what is now known as the “shy Trump voter” effect. People did not want to get cancelled for admitting that they were a ‘fascist’.
> Look at Nate’s track record
If Trump wins this one, as looks fairly likely at the moment, NS will be 3⁄5 for Presidential elections, no better than chance.
My main beef with the argument from credibility is a) NS does not have a long strong track record in this field of presidential elections, b) Credible is different than totally accurate. I pointed out if he was wrong by a few tens of percents, like last time, his view is not strong evidence that there is a winning bet here.
Funnily enough NS reduced his P(Biden) to about 50% on election day (or maybe the day before).
Depends on where you bet. If you are in the right country you can make a lot of money if Biden is 70% to win. I emphasized predictit because I believe most people on lesswrong are in the USA.