Conservative Media!

Let's not pretend that conservative media doesn't have a large voice in American politics.

So what if Silver had, correctly, predicted a highly likely Republican victory in the Presidential election? Would it still have been the left and moderate media that took him seriously? Or did both sides just believe what they wanted to hear?

Silver did land his job with the NYT long before his probabilities on 2012 started coming together.

The right didn't take Silver seriously because he shattered their delusions with facts, math and science. Many of the new breed of conservative have a real hatred for facts, math and science, therefore anyone who values them over "gut" and "instinct" is not a person to be taken seriously.

Nate Silver knew President Obama had a 90% chance of re-election because of complex metrics, detailed analysis of polling and crunching reams of data. Dick Morris predicted a Romney landslide because that's what he wanted to happen, therefore he thought it would happen.

Who was right?

The GOP needs to look at the repudiation America handed the religious right last night. Obama winning, Mourdock, Akin, West, Brown and Walsh all losing, four pro same-sex marriage laws passing...the tide is turning. Blaming women and minorities for having the gall to vote is not going to stop it. Getting those women and minorities to vote for you might.

The fact that the people prefer them over the innumerable left-wing fear factories in existence does not in any way nullify the existence of the innumerable left-wing fear factories.

Put another way, the few smart kids in the room doesn't diminish the numbers of left-wing drones packed in there with 'em.

is both the definition of "mainstream" and the cause of "mass" in "mainstream mass media".

Heh, one echo chamber discussing another.

See, in this hypothetical, I think that there would likely have been some people who said, "I hope this isn't the case" or who might try to pick apart this aspect or that of his actual math prior to the actual results.

But I would like to think that the mainstream media and even the actual left-wing media would not ignore or demonize someone who had (up till then) showed at least on some level basic competence and accuracy in what he was doing.

If the facts were parallel to this case, I don't think you actually have to perform the complicated analysis that Silver did to see 20+ polls all favoring Romney and come to the conclusion "This is a bad sign for Obama."

Whether that bad sign translates to a 70 percent likelihood of a Romney victory versus a 90 percent likelihood of a Romney victory is something that does take statistical sophistication to determine.

But pretending that in the face of such polling that there was instead virtually a 100 percent likelihood of an Obama victory, and an Obama landslide, that is just something I don't see the mainstream media or the left-wing media that I'm familiar with (places like Salon or Daily Kos or the Huffington Post) doing.

True, but he had done a similar analysis for 2008. It would be a different thing if he had no track record or if he was using an actually goofy method of determining these probabilities. As far as I know, no one with a statistics background who can speak intelligently about his methods has critiqued his methods on those grounds.

It's all been, "His methods are telling us things we don't want to hear. Therefore we will criticize him for working for the liberal NYT, for being effeminate, for being in cahoots with the Obama campaign or whatever else."

That is such bullshit. There have been several studies that clearly show that consumers of right leaning media outlets like the ones mentioned here are misinformed and wrong on several news topics and events. This last election was only the latest instance of it.

The only news channel I consider to be left wing is MSNBC. When I see some news from them that seems to support democrats, I always look for a another news source to corroborate it because I know MSNBC has an agenda.

Rachel Maddow on 11/07/2012:

Ohio really did go to the president last night.

And he really did win.
And he really was born in Hawaii.
And he really is -legitimately- President of the United States.
Again.

And the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not make-up a fake unemployment rate last month.
And the Congressional Research Service really can find no evidence
That cutting taxes on rich people grows the economy.

And the polls were not skewed to over-sample Democrats.
And Nate Silver was not making up fake projections about the election
To make conservatives feel bad.
He was doing math.

And climate change is real.
And rape really does cause pregnancy sometimes.
And evolution is a thing.
And Benghazi was an attack on us.
It was not a scandal by us.

And no one is taking away anyone's guns.
And taxes haven't gone up.
And the deficit is dropping, actually.
And Saddam Hussein didn't have weapons of mass destruction.

And the moon landing was real.
And FEMA isn't building concentration camps.
And UN election observers aren't taking over Texas.
And moderate reforms of the regulations on the insurance industry
And the financial services industry
Are not the same thing as communism.

Listen.

Adapted from The Rachel Maddow Show 11/7

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/11/08/15009529-evolution-is-a-thing?lite

Hold up here bub, what you just wrote is the type of hyper-partisan bullshit that fuels many an infotainment outlet.

Think clearly for a moment, is it possible, could you ever consider, that maybe, you might be living in your own comfy little echo chamber?

At the very least, would you consider that those who disagree with you aren't necessarily misinformed?

Speaking of hyper-partisan. Is Rachel Maddow's schtick an echoing voice in your reality?

You can take relativism too far; and indeed one of the most common mistakes in applying sound basic principles of relativism is thinking that because there is always a chance that A is wrong, that counts as a chance that one specific belief B such that B implies non-A is right.

In other words, those that believed Romney would win in a landslide were wrong. Not: 'caught in another echo chamber similar in everything but its content to our own'. But wrong. So those who disagreed on this subject were indeed misinformed.

Their economic policies are just as medieval, misguided, and based on myth as their social policies.

For what it's worth, I took his predictions with a large grain of salt because I wasn't following him as closely as others were. Heck, I didn't think Obama had a chance to break 300 electoral votes and I wanted Obama to win. Had Silver been predicting a Romney victory, I would have probably still been taking his predictions with a grain of salt.

He didn't say those who disagreed with him. He specifically singled out those who consume right leaning media. That may or may not be the same group of people. He also mentioned studies. He'll have to source those, but we have some good evidence of late that statistical analysis can give you pretty accurate population data.

Hey another liberal vs. conservative thread, and here's Clyde again, above it all.

Indeed.

Yet this thread remains one echo chamber criticizing another.

Dismissing my perspective as self-righteous?

Huh, well I think that's a new one.

Well the very least he could do is consider those who disagree with him not necessarily misinformed.

Those who consumed only right-wing media had a very different impression of how the election was unfolding from those who consumed media from all facets of the spectrum. If I only listened to mainstream talk radio, watched Fox News and read conservative blogs, I would have been shocked at the ease with which President Obama was re-elected, because it ran contrary to everything I was told.

But I don't, so I wasn't.

And in the mean time Clyde is sitting in his echo chamber...doing pretty much the same thing?

Nor did he specify that those who disagree are misinformed. He identified people that consume right leaning media as misinformed, and it wasn't a matter of consideration, but a presentation of statistical data. In other words, we don't even know whether Alpha agrees with said people or not, simply that he has seen studies discrediting their knowledge base.

Give the quote another read.

In spite of one being demonstrably wrong, while the other is demonstrably right? In that case, you'll have to define what you mean with echo chamber, then. I thought you meant a group of people exposed only to one opinion, confirming that opinion because others agreed with it. Clearly, that is not the case when we have two opinions, and can see that one is true while the other is false.

Damn right!

Though I'll admit, there aren't a lot of echoes.

In his desperate attempt to appear even handed Clyde is now saying that facts and opinions can be used interchangeably and that is not correct. It is a FACT that for the last 20+ year very sound scientifically have consistently shown those who consume right wing media in America are the least informed people in the country. Even people who consume no media are better informed than folks who consume right wing media and the more right wing media you consume the less informed you become.

It's a fact which has been proven over and over and over again. Packard simply stated the FACT that studies have consistently shown this and then Clyde dundarded in trying to pretend facts are the same as opinions. This is the type of false equivalence which gives moderates a bad name; splitting the difference between right and wrong doesn't get you the right answer. Sure, I'd love to see more moderates but it has to be smart moderation which is based on FACTS. I.E. "all the science points this direction therefor I support a policy based upon the science" not the anti-science religious nutjob claims 1 and the scientists claim 2 so I'll go with 1.5.

Okay, let's keep it simple, this thread is a wonderful example of groupthink, or an echo chamber. The fact that the subject is criticizing another echo chamber is ironic, but the funny comes from the obliviousness of this dynamic.

Good grief, now I'm desperately seeking to appear even-handed?

Nah, you're just winding people up.