Indecision 2024

[temptar]

Admittedly I cannot be bothered to wade through this discussion but absent a justification for the various input probabilities eg, the 20% chance of one candidate having a health crisis the discussion is moot and essentially meaningless.

One thing that annoys me is people arguing the toss over outputs when the inputs are ever so much finger in the air.

Per US actuarial tables both of them have a life expectancy that exceeds five years and the mortality probability for people their age is about 5%, slightly higher for one and slightly lower than the other. But there is not much useful to align an even remotely accurate probability of election disrupting illness for either as Trump could be a headless vampire and 70 million idiots will still vote for him. And the GOP tried to suggest Hillary Clinton wasn't physically up to the job when she had a cold at some point.

In short, the two of you have taken finger in the air guesses and used those to try and argue that you are each more correct in your theories. It doesn't matter because your inputs are trash. I am pretty sure I saw both of you arguing from authority and now it's like a cat fight where the objective is more like a fight to lord it over the loser.

In the meantime, in Ireland bishops have to retire from bishoping at 75. There is a minimum age limit on being president. They might want to think about a maximum age limit too.

In the context of the current election, it is proof we are an entertainment channel controlled by a bunch of teenage aliens doing something akin to playing Sim City while on their equivalent of hallucinogenic carrots.

[dyqik]

My inputs aren't even finger in the air guesses, and they weren't supposed to correspond to reality, just to illustrate a point that if you are worrying about one reasonably unlikely bad occurrence, you should also worry about other equally likely good occurrences.

The reason for arguing with LPM is LPMs aggressive and insulting responses. Plus boredom.

[lpm]

My inputs aren't even finger in the air guesses, and they weren't supposed to correspond to reality, just to illustrate a point that if you are worrying about one reasonably unlikely bad occurrence, you should also worry about other equally likely good occurrences.

And it served its purpose: it demonstrated you were wrong to pay comparable attention to two events, even when those two events have very similar odds.

[temptar]

Oh Jesus you make 4 year olds look mature.

[Bewildered]

It’s entertaining because neither likes admitting they are wrong. I only skim read but I’m fairly sure the following is what happened. They ended up arguing about a probability question where who is right depends on what information you start with, but they were discussing a hypothetical situation initially without any numbers or data so it was ambiguous. I think there was some escalation, maybe with LPM dismissing what dyqik was saying and implicitly assuming something and dyqik then strongly assuming a different scenario and each side getting more insistent. LPM trolled dyqik by belittling him over maths, which he fell for since it’s a source of pride for him, though I might well too and then they just kept going as they were too entrenched to stop and see the ambiguity and even if/when they do they just decide it’s the other person who made the assumption . Though I’m not sure how deep LPM’s trolling goes i thought just the maths belittling bit, and was genuinely bickering in the rest, but maybe it’s all the way through.

[lpm]

The risk of a Biden health crisis isn't bickering, it is the entire ballgame for the November 2024 outcome. There is no other significant unknown variable.

This is the first time since about 1900 that both party nominees are certain. And the election is certain, Biden will beat Trump again.

Unless something throws us off this status quo pathway.

There's no sign of Biden being derailed from the status quo by economic disaster. He is not getting US troops killed in a foreign war. Attempts at inventing scandals have failed.

However a typical 60 year old would face only a 1% chance of dying in the year till the election, but Biden faces about 5%, per actuarial tables. And Feinstein and McConnell have illustrated you can be totally unfit to be president for non-fatal health reasons.

It's obvious America might fall to Trumpist lawlessness simply because an old man happens to be dribbling in a wheelchair at the wrong moment.

So let's poke that risk further. We put in a 20% risk of a Biden health crisis as an illustration only. Is 20% too low? Too high? If he falls and breaks a hip will voters reject him, or does it need to be a stroke? What happens if he is having chemo during the campaign season?

I'm not at all comfortable with this risk of Trump getting back in. If you don't want to get stuck into the maths fiasco, simply take snoozeofreason's numbers here

...the probability of that outcome is 16%...

, where the illustrative 20% Biden health risk gives Trump a 16% chance of sneaking in.

We actually talked about this 4 years ago, when we thought Biden was probably the safest way to get Trump out, but at the cost of being a bit mediocre and age causing problems for reelection in 2024. We in effect bought something to last 4 years, we're now being forced to stretch that to 8. I'm not liking it.

[dyqik]

The risk of a Biden health crisis isn't bickering, it is the entire ballgame for the November 2024 outcome. There is no other significant unknown variable.

Apart from the eventual dates and outcomes of four scheduled criminal trials for Trump, several states barring Trump from the ballot under the 14th Amendment, even more scandal about Trump (see the FBI investigation into whether Giuliani was compromised by Russian intelligence), and half a dozen other things, any of which would make a Biden health crisis moot, as Harris or similar else would be able to step in and win.

[Stranger Mouse]

I’m still trying to figure out why non Trump supporters seem to rate Biden’s age as more of a serious issue than Trump’s. Biden looks far fitter than Trump - is it the silver hair?

[Stranger Mouse]

The risk of a Biden health crisis isn't bickering, it is the entire ballgame for the November 2024 outcome. There is no other significant unknown variable.

Apart from the eventual dates and outcomes of four scheduled criminal trials for Trump.

I think the televised nature of the Georgia indictment may have more of an effect than the outcome.

[dyqik]

The risk of a Biden health crisis isn't bickering, it is the entire ballgame for the November 2024 outcome. There is no other significant unknown variable.

Apart from the eventual dates and outcomes of four scheduled criminal trials for Trump.

I think the televised nature of the Georgia indictment may have more of an effect than the outcome.

Yep

[bolo]

I’m still trying to figure out why non Trump supporters seem to rate Biden’s age as more of a serious issue than Trump’s. Biden looks far fitter than Trump - is it the silver hair?

It's how he speaks. He sounds old, and he sometimes says the wrong word (although he's always done that, even when he was much younger).

[Grumble]

Apart from the eventual dates and outcomes of four scheduled criminal trials for Trump.

I think the televised nature of the Georgia indictment may have more of an effect than the outcome.

Yep

Court reports have said that Trump in court cuts a very different figure from the campaign stage. Be interesting to see if the sight of that affects his image.

[lpm]

The risk of a Biden health crisis isn't bickering, it is the entire ballgame for the November 2024 outcome. There is no other significant unknown variable.

Apart from the eventual dates and outcomes of four scheduled criminal trials for Trump, several states barring Trump from the ballot under the 14th Amendment, even more scandal about Trump (see the FBI investigation into whether Giuliani was compromised by Russian intelligence), and half a dozen other things, any of which would make a Biden health crisis moot, as Harris or similar else would be able to step in and win.

Exactly. This is why Biden wins. Why the status quo pathway leads straight ahead to an easy win.

So all we need to consider are Biden factors that will knock him off the path. Adding in additional Trump woes, fun though that is, doesn't change the pathway.

There's big money to be made on this. You can get Biden winning at 7/4, plus add in some insurance with Harris at 40/1. Trump's odds seem massively overstated when there are so few routes for him to sneak through to a win.

[Lew Dolby]

There's big money to be made on this. You can get Biden winning at 7/4, plus add in some insurance with Harris at 40/1. Trump's odds seem massively overstated when there are so few routes for him to sneak through to a win.

as I understand it, bookies odds are fixed by the amount of betting on each "horse". There's not necessarily a link to any other reality

ETA: spelling

[monkey]

The risk of a Biden health crisis isn't bickering, it is the entire ballgame for the November 2024 outcome. There is no other significant unknown variable.

Apart from the eventual dates and outcomes of four scheduled criminal trials for Trump, several states barring Trump from the ballot under the 14th Amendment, even more scandal about Trump (see the FBI investigation into whether Giuliani was compromised by Russian intelligence), and half a dozen other things, any of which would make a Biden health crisis moot, as Harris or similar else would be able to step in and win.

Exactly. This is why Biden wins. Why the status quo pathway leads straight ahead to an easy win.

So all we need to consider are Biden factors that will knock him off the path. Adding in additional Trump woes, fun though that is, doesn't change the pathway.

There's big money to be made on this. You can get Biden winning at 7/4, plus add in some insurance with Harris at 40/1. Trump's odds seem massively overstated when there are so few routes for him to sneak through to a win.

This is a country with a messed up way of picking a president. When Trump won last time, he didn't even get a plurality of the vote. It's not about what the whole country will do, it's about what a few purple swing states decide. I'm not sure you can trust them all that much.I think you (and Dyqik) are too optimistic. I think Biden is more likely to win, but it's not a certainty (or close to one). If I was to guess, I'd probably say something close to that betting odd.

[dyqik]

Trump only won in 2016 thanks to a decades long smear campaign against the Clintons, and being a novelty. He didn't come that close to winning in 2020, and since then his reputation has got much worse, Dobbs has made many voters anti-GOP, and very motivated, and the economy is rapidly improving under Biden.

[Stranger Mouse]

Trump only won in 2016 thanks to a decades long smear campaign against the Clintons, and being a novelty. He didn't come that close to winning in 2020, and since then his reputation has got much worse, Dobbs has made many voters anti-GOP, and very motivated, and the economy is rapidly improving under Biden.

Yeah but the USAdian voters don’t seem to actually be aware of the reality compared to the alternate universe pushed at them by dodgy media. And the intense GOP voter suppression is always a factor.

One thingI have been afraid of is GOP officials carrying out some dodgy Trump style election interference but keeping it quiet and clever rather than the bullhorn approach that the Trump team previously tried.

One hope is that Trump will suffer with more attention. They discussed it on All In With Chris Hayes yesterday. The popular view is that Trump benefits from the focus on him but this may not be true.

From around 1 hour 2 mins 20 secs https://all-in-with-chris-hayes.simplec ... n-any-case

[lpm]

The recent times an incumbent president has lost after only a single term:

2020 - terrible president vs reasonable challenger

1992 - poor domestic economy (Bush 1) vs exceptional campaigner (Clinton), combined with 3rd party candidate getting 19% (Ross Perot)

1980 - terrible domestic economy, hostage crisis (Carter) vs exceptional campaigner (Reagan)

1976 - poor economy, loss in Vietnam, Nixon hangover (Ford) vs reasonable challenger (Carter)

Before that need to go back to Hoover 1934 (Great Depression) and Taft 1912 (split the party and Theodore Roosevelt ran as third party)

There needs to be fairly exceptional conditions for a one term loss - economic troubles in particular. Biden has steered the economy neatly through inflation and the next year should be good. Without US troops embroiled abroad and a third party spoiler implausible due to the extreme partisan politics, there's no reason to think Biden would lose to a normal candidate.

That's before even looking at Dobbs or demographics or fundraising or organisation.

[Bewildered]

There's big money to be made on this. You can get Biden winning at 7/4, plus add in some insurance with Harris at 40/1. Trump's odds seem massively overstated when there are so few routes for him to sneak through to a win.

as I understand it, bookies odds are fixed by the amount of betting on each "horse". There's not necessarily a link to any other reality

ETA: spelling

I think it’s a bit more complicated than that…
https://www.pinnacle.com/en/betting-art ... eir%20book.

Also if odds were getting strongly biased away from rational expectations given the limited info we have, there would be strong incentives for others to exploit that.

[dyqik]

There's big money to be made on this. You can get Biden winning at 7/4, plus add in some insurance with Harris at 40/1. Trump's odds seem massively overstated when there are so few routes for him to sneak through to a win.

as I understand it, bookies odds are fixed by the amount of betting on each "horse". There's not necessarily a link to any other reality

ETA: spelling

I think it’s a bit more complicated than that…
https://www.pinnacle.com/en/betting-art ... eir%20book.

Also if odds were getting strongly biased away from rational expectations given the limited info we have, there would be strong incentives for others to exploit that.

The easiest way to exploit that is to bet on the long odds option. Lots of people doing that drives the odds back towards reality.

But there's plenty of choices where the rational expectation isn't the popular or common one.

[Woodchopper]

Ffs, someone take take this to The Pit!
Please

We usually move arguments to The Pit when they become content free personal abuse. This discussion doesn't seem to have descended to those levels. Though it is very boring.

I could split it off into a separate thread if people would like that.

[headshot]

Yes please.

[jimbob]

Seconded

[Stranger Mouse]

An article about the Trump testimony to the NY AG. The “worthless clause” is quite something

https://www.meidastouch.com/news/transc ... my-summary

[Bewildered]

Ffs, someone take take this to The Pit!
Please

We usually move arguments to The Pit when they become content free personal abuse. This discussion doesn't seem to have descended to those levels. Though it is very boring.

I could split it off into a separate thread if people would like that.

I’d prefer them left in - I don’t find it boring - and apart from these posts discussing what to do with them I think that discussion had stopped now anyway.