Indecision 2024

[lpm]

Oh dear. Perhaps I'm no good at teaching GCSE level maths? How about if I translate it into the standard "picking balls from a bag" question?

There is a bag with 100 balls of different colours. 20 of the hundred balls are red.

Question 1: You draw one ball from the bag. What is the probability it is red?

The bag is then taken away and 20 of the 100 balls are removed at random.

Question 2: How many red balls do you expect are now in the bag?

Question 3: You draw one ball from the bag. What is the expected probability it is red?

I'm afraid you have put 20 as your answer for question 2. And 25% for question 3. The correct answers are 16 and 20%.

You have failed GCSE maths. Your teacher suggests you do Food Studies at A-level. The world of astronomy is set back by centuries.

[dyqik]

Doing it proper independent probabilities rather than the joint probabilities I used and without my initial approximations that excluded both candidates having a health crisis. We'll assume that a health crisis results in either candidate withdrawing entirely, and so neither benefits.

Independent probabilities of a Biden or Trump health crises - 28%

This is chosen to give the joint probabilities I gave as a strawman.

Joint probabilities:
No health crises: 51.84%
Biden health crisis only - Trump benefits: 20.16%
Trump health crisis only: 20.16%
Both have a health crisis: 7.84%

In this, Trump benefits from a Biden health crisis 20% of the time

You then excluded the last two scenarios, so we need to normalize to 51.84+20.16 = 72% of cases where Trump doesn't have a health crisis. That turns the 20.16% chance of Trump benefiting into a 28% chance of Trump benefiting.

[dyqik]

Oh dear. Perhaps I'm no good at teaching GCSE level maths? How about if I translate it into the standard "picking balls from a bag" question?

There is a bag with 100 balls of different colours. 20 of the hundred balls are red.

It's more that you are no good at parsing a list of three mutually exclusive options. You did not "remove balls at random".

In my strawman, there are 100 balls, 20 are red, 20 are blue, and 60 are white.*

You remove the blue balls. Now what is the probability of getting a red ball?

*We can make 8 black if you like

[geejaytee]

By the way, lpm, dyqik was talking about odds and not probability when he wrote "1:4" and "1:3". (Odds of a:b reflect probabilities of a/(a+b) and b/(a+b))

I'm not sure you're not deliberately misreading for effect.

[lpm]

By the way, lpm, dyqik was talking about odds and not probability when he wrote "1:4" and "1:3". (Odds of a:b reflect probabilities of a/(a+b) and b/(a+b))

I'm not sure you're not deliberately misreading for effect.

Err, no, dyqik is expressly giving Trump a 25% shot, even though Biden only has a 20% risk. Explain that if you can.

[lpm]

I'll try to make it even easier.

There are 100 balls.

20 are orange, representing the Orange Criminal having a crisis.

You then get a marker pen and draw black crosses on 20 of the hundred balls at random. A black cross represents Biden having a crisis.

You pick a ball from a bag. 20% chance it will be orange. 20% chance it will have a black cross. Isn't this obvious to everyone?

dyqik then removes all 20 orange balls. There are 80 left in the bag.

You pick a ball from a bag. There is an expected 20% it will have a black cross. Obviously.

Of the 80 balls in the bag, you expect there to be 16 with black crosses. The other 4 with black crosses were removed because they happened to be on orange balls.

dyqik somehow believes you don't remove any balls with black crosses. His confused implication is that a Biden health crisis can only occur when Trump does not have a health crisis. His language is consistently muddled, as a result of his maths error.

[dyqik]

I'll try to make it even easier.

There are 100 balls.

20 are orange, representing the Orange Criminal having a crisis.

You then get a marker pen and draw black crosses on 20 of the hundred balls at random. A black cross represents Biden having a crisis.

You pick a ball from a bag. 20% chance it will be orange. 20% chance it will have a black cross. Isn't this obvious to everyone?

dyqik then removes all 20 orange balls. There are 80 left in the bag.

You pick a ball from a bag. There is an expected 20% it will have a black cross. Obviously.

Of the 80 balls in the bag, you expect there to be 16 with black crosses. The other 4 with black crosses were removed because they happened to be on orange balls.

dyqik somehow believes you don't remove any balls with black crosses. His confused implication is that a Biden health crisis can only occur when Trump does not have a health crisis. His language is consistently muddled, as a result of his maths error.

You mean 28 orange balls, and 28 crosses, if you want the chances of Trump benefiting from a Biden health crisis to be 20%, as I implied in my strawman (this is implicit in the way I wrote the three options down with probabilities adding to 100%).

The fundamental error you are making is that you've failed to understand that three options that add up to 100% do not represent two independent binary events, but the probabilities of three outcomes.

[lpm]

Mate, you're the one that put in the strawman figures!

You said 60% chance nothing much happens in next year. Your words. Now you are changing this to 51.84%? Just to hide your embarrassment at your simple maths error? WTF?

[dyqik]

Mate, you're the one that put in the strawman figures!

You said 60% chance nothing much happens in next year. Your words. Now you are changing this to 51.84%? Just to hide your embarrassment at your simple maths error? WTF?

It was a deliberate approximation, as I explained.

That's only if we want to exclude Trump and Biden both having health crises. If we want to make the probability of Trump not winning due to a health crisis 20% whether or not Biden has a health crisis, we just need to give Trump and Biden different independent probabilities of having a health crisis.

You're perfectly capable of doing that maths.

[lpm]

You are just digging yourself deeper and deeper into your embarrassment.

It was you who said

"20% chance Biden has health crisis". Now you are pretending you meant 28% chance of Biden having a health crisis.

I can translate the maths effortlessly into English words: "Biden's only real risk of losing comes from having a health crisis. If we say there's a 20% chance of him having a crisis, his chances of winning are 80% at worst. It might be a bit better than that, because his health crisis might coincide with a Trump health crisis, the two events cancelling out."

You wrote "20% chance Biden has health crisis" and you now need to carry on, in English, explaining why you think this means Biden ends up with only a 75% chance. I'll wait.

[dyqik]

You are just digging yourself deeper and deeper into your embarrassment.

It was you who said

"20% chance Biden has health crisis". Now you are pretending you meant 28% chance of Biden having a health crisis.

I can translate the maths effortlessly into English words: "Biden's only real risk of losing comes from having a health crisis. If we say there's a 20% chance of him having a crisis, his chances of winning are 80% at worst. It might be a bit better than that, because his health crisis might coincide with a Trump health crisis, the two events cancelling out."

You wrote "20% chance Biden has health crisis" and you now need to carry on, in English, explaining why you think this means Biden ends up with only a 75% chance. I'll wait.

Or you could take what I wrote, and assume that there's a correct interpretation that wasn't clearly worded rather than spending a huge amount of time insulting me and making yourself look argumentative rather than interested in a conversation.

E.g., if you'd asked for clarification, I probably would have thought about it more carefully, and worded it as:
"A 60% chance of neither Biden or Trump having a health crisis.
A 20% chance of a Biden health crisis that benefits Trump.
A 20% chance of Trump health crisis that hinders Trump."

Since Trump doesn't benefit if both he and Biden have health crisis, and the Democrat backup candidate likely does*, the independent probabilities to make these strawman joint probabilities is a 25% chance of a Biden health crisis and a 20% chance of a Trump health crisis, btw.

*The GOP having unpopular policies and no real likeable backup candidate makes this likely. DeSantis or similar will not get the MAGA turnout that Trump does.

[dyqik]

I originally bought this up because you were excluding the scenario where Trump had a health crisis, while worrying about Biden having one. The only point I was trying to make was that you should also look for positive events for Biden.

[lpm]

No. Here's the strawman probabilities you put in, then f.cked up the maths on:

Trump's health has nothing to do with the outcome so can be ignored.

60% chance Nothing much happens in next year - Biden wins
20% chance Trump has health crisis - Biden wins
20% chance Biden has health crisis - Trump has a chance

(Strawman probabilities added by me.)

Ignoring the second outcome turns a 20% (1:4) likelihood of Trump having a shot into a 25% (1:3) chance of Trump having a shot.

You wrote 20% chance Trump has health crisis - so obviously you put 20 orange balls in the bag.

You wrote 20% chance Biden has health crisis - so obviously you draw 20 black crosses.

The remaining balls don't matter because they represent non-events where the status quo doesn't change.

Now you are literally saying "of course I meant you would have 28 orange balls and 28 crosses, isn't that obvious". You took a very easy maths question, thought it was complicated, and screwed up. The whole purpose of this exercise has been to highlight that it is the chance of a Biden crisis that dominates the next year and two months, so it's his 20% risk that matters most. Damn right we need to be worrying about Biden, positive events for him don't help much because his odds are so good already.

If you want to amend your strawman probabilities to 28%, go right ahead. The outcome will change accordingly, the conclusions won't.

[dyqik]

No. Here's the strawman probabilities you put in, then f.cked up the maths on:

Trump's health has nothing to do with the outcome so can be ignored.

60% chance Nothing much happens in next year - Biden wins
20% chance Trump has health crisis - Biden wins
20% chance Biden has health crisis - Trump has a chance

(Strawman probabilities added by me.)

Ignoring the second outcome turns a 20% (1:4) likelihood of Trump having a shot into a 25% (1:3) chance of Trump having a shot.

You wrote 20% chance Trump has health crisis - so obviously you put 20 orange balls in the bag.

You wrote 20% chance Biden has health crisis - so obviously you draw 20 black crosses.

The remaining balls don't matter because they represent non-events where the status quo doesn't change.

Now you are literally saying "of course I meant you would have 28 orange balls and 28 crosses, isn't that obvious". You took a very easy maths question, thought it was complicated, and screwed up. The whole purpose of this exercise has been to highlight that it is the chance of a Biden crisis that dominates the next year and two months, so it's his 20% that matters most. Damn right we need to be worrying about Biden, positive events for him don't help much because his odds are so good already.

If you want to amend your strawman probabilities to 28%, go right ahead. The outcome will change accordingly, the conclusions won't.

Again, you could have asked for clarification, and discussed the wording of the listed scenarios. All you have to do is change the second scenario to "...- a Democrat wins" and it's consistent. No need to be insulting, not need to post long screeds. Think how much is your time you could have saved.

[dyqik]

No. Here's the strawman probabilities you put in, then f.cked up the maths on:

Trump's health has nothing to do with the outcome so can be ignored.

60% chance Nothing much happens in next year - Biden wins
20% chance Trump has health crisis - Biden wins
20% chance Biden has health crisis - Trump has a chance

(Strawman probabilities added by me.)

Ignoring the second outcome turns a 20% (1:4) likelihood of Trump having a shot into a 25% (1:3) chance of Trump having a shot.

You wrote 20% chance Trump has health crisis - so obviously you put 20 orange balls in the bag.

You wrote 20% chance Biden has health crisis - so obviously you draw 20 black crosses.

That's not all that my/your quoted post says. You also list the outcomes of health crises. Read the hyphen as an "and", and the interpretation is different.

Again, a simple clarification about the meaning of the text would have avoided all your balls and insults.

[lpm]

Think how much is your time you could have saved.

Looking back at the timings, I wrote wow your maths sucks, and within 2 minutes later I'd written out the correct answer. Two minutes! You're on two days and still wrong!

When there's an asteroid heading to earth, and us Scrutes want to know where it'll hit, we'll need you to speed up a bit.

[dyqik]

Think how much is your time you could have saved.

Looking back at the timings, I wrote wow your maths sucks, and within 2 minutes later I'd written out the correct answer. Two minutes! You're on two days and still wrong!

When there's an asteroid heading to earth, and us Scrutes want to know where it'll hit, we'll need you to speed up a bit.

You wrote out an answer that did not correspond to the outcomes you listed.

In your original enumeration of the outcomes, there are no orange balls with black crosses.

ETA: or if there are, they are already divided between outcomes two and three.

[lpm]

If you look again at your own wording:

60% chance Nothing much happens in next year - Biden wins
20% chance Trump has health crisis - Biden wins
20% chance Biden has health crisis - Trump has a chance

line one is a certain outcome
line two is a certain outcome
line three is where we have placed the missing element, stating in black and white only that "Trump has a chance" rather than "Trump wins".

Hence you are wrong even in your re-do of the maths. You changed the first line, inventing 51.84%, when the wording is clear any other scenario not listed falls within the third line.

Which of course corresponds with the actual question in English we are discussing, where we don't care about the status quo but do care about a Biden health crisis.

Try again, sticking with the 60 and 20, and you should manage to come up with the correct figure of 80% changing to 84%.

[dyqik]

If you look again at your own wording:

60% chance Nothing much happens in next year - Biden wins
20% chance Trump has health crisis - Biden wins
20% chance Biden has health crisis - Trump has a chance

line one is a certain outcome
line two is a certain outcome
line three is where we have placed the missing element, stating in black and white only that "Trump has a chance" rather than "Trump wins".

Yes, and that I've changed to Trump wins for simplicity (because Trump having a better chance includes outcomes where Biden wins, and so there's overlap between the scenarios). Change it back to Trump has a chance throughout, and it's technically more complicated.

The strawman scenarios as originally listed are:
1. 60% chance: Nothing much happens resulting in a Biden win.

2. 20% chance: Trump has a health crisis resulting in a Biden win.
This includes scenarios where both have health crises, but Biden stays in the race, and wins.

3. 20% chance: Biden has a health crisis resulting in Trump having a better chance
This includes scenarios where:
Both have health crises, with Biden withdrawing from the race, and Trump pushes through it to have a better chance against the backup Democrat. Both have health crises, with both staying in, but Trump's odds improve over Biden's.
Only Biden has a health crisis, resulting in improved odds for Trump against the either Biden or the backup Democrat.

Missing scenarios, excluded from your enumeration of outcomes, and so not part of the normalization:
Biden has a health crisis, Trump doesn't, and the outpouring of sympathy and Trump's ugly reaction to it improves Biden's chances.
Biden has a health crisis, withdraws, and the replacement Democrat has an better chance of beating Trump than Biden (whether due to the replacement's greater electability, sympathy or Trump's ugly reaction to Biden's health crisis)
Both have a health crisis, and withdraw.

So under this detailed enumeration of scenarios, comparing the strawman odds including 1,2 and 3, with the odds including 1 and 3 only, the odds of Trump having a chance are 1 to 4 (20% to 80%) and 1 to 3 (20% to 60%). But the odds of a Biden win are not 3 to 4 and 2 to 3.

Note that probabilities are not assigned to the chances of "Trump having a health crisis" and "Biden having a health crisis". You can calculate them under various assumptions about the missing scenarios if you like.

[headshot]

Isn't there a Bickering section for all this??

[dyqik]

Isn't there a Bickering section for all this??

There is.

[lpm]

Yes, and that I've changed to Trump wins for simplicity (because Trump having a better chance includes outcomes where Biden wins, and so there's overlap between the scenarios). Change it back to Trump has a chance throughout, and it's technically more complicated.

The strawman scenarios as originally listed are:
1. 60% chance: Nothing much happens resulting in a Biden win.

2. 20% chance: Trump has a health crisis resulting in a Biden win.
This includes scenarios where both have health crises, but Biden stays in the race, and wins.

3. 20% chance: Biden has a health crisis resulting in Trump having a better chance
This includes scenarios where:
Both have health crises, with Biden withdrawing from the race, and Trump pushes through it to have a better chance against the backup Democrat. Both have health crises, with both staying in, but Trump's odds improve over Biden's.
Only Biden has a health crisis, resulting in improved odds for Trump against the either Biden or the backup Democrat.

Missing scenarios, excluded from your enumeration of outcomes, and so not part of the normalization:
Biden has a health crisis, Trump doesn't, and the outpouring of sympathy and Trump's ugly reaction to it improves Biden's chances.
Biden has a health crisis, withdraws, and the replacement Democrat has an better chance of beating Trump than Biden (whether due to the replacement's greater electability, sympathy or Trump's ugly reaction to Biden's health crisis)
Both have a health crisis, and withdraw.

So under this detailed enumeration of scenarios, comparing the strawman odds including 1,2 and 3, with the odds including 1 and 3 only, the odds of Trump having a chance are 1 to 4 (20% to 80%) and 1 to 3 (20% to 60%). But the odds of a Biden win are not 3 to 4 and 2 to 3.

Note that probabilities are not assigned to the chances of "Trump having a health crisis" and "Biden having a health crisis". You can calculate them under various assumptions about the missing scenarios if you like.

You are doing this the wrong way round. Biden's health is the dominant factor, so everything starts with that. We don't start with maths, then work backwards to his health risks.

Monkey said earlier that the risk of death in the next year was around 5% to 7%. There's probably stats on serious illness, but add in the same? Maybe add a bit to reflect non-serious illness - a couple of nights in hospital might be normal for an 80 year old but Fox News would turn it into a brain tumour or something.

So we're talking something like 15%. 20% is fine as a placeholder. Your bumping up to 28% for no reason probably isn't fine.

We need to do the maths from this starting point, locking in 20% for Biden as a fixed component. All other combinations fall in around that foundation. It's plain wrong to do combinations of scenarios and then see what percentage it throws out for Biden's health.

[Gfamily]

Ffs, someone take take this to The Pit!
Please

[jimbob]

Meanwhile more accusations about Rudy Giuliani being compromised by Russia.

Given how Borat got him, it wouldn't have been difficult for the FSB when he was in Russia

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... elligence/

[dyqik]

You are doing this the wrong way round. Biden's health is the dominant factor, so everything starts with that.

No. As I and other pointed out, Trump's health is a similar sized factor. My maths was merely an illustration of the pitfalls of ignoring that factor.