I like Kottke's approach of simply not reporting on "horse race" coverage in general and sticking to the consequences. I think this is probably a good orientation to have for anywhere that we...
I like Kottke's approach of simply not reporting on "horse race" coverage in general and sticking to the consequences.
I think this is probably a good orientation to have for anywhere that we discuss politics and current events, including here.
i dunno, i think consequences don't really sway much. All the climate change discussions in the media have been all about consequences, and where has it gotten us?
i dunno, i think consequences don't really sway much. All the climate change discussions in the media have been all about consequences, and where has it gotten us?
There’s a sense in which the future doesn’t exist. When we think about the future, it’s an imaginative act where we think about what might happen, compare scenarios, talk about likelihood. It’s...
There’s a sense in which the future doesn’t exist. When we think about the future, it’s an imaginative act where we think about what might happen, compare scenarios, talk about likelihood. It’s all storytelling, mental constructs, mathematical models, castles in the air. That’s true of both the stakes and the odds.
Election predictions seem like a fairly well-behaved mathematical model that you can do probability calculations on, but much like gambling, it’s because the system is designed in a way that makes the math possible. Voting is an algorithm and we can do probability calculations on it.
But that’s an illusion because one of the inputs is all the news that might happen between now and election day. One candidate might be favored at some point, but there are many contests that are interesting to the end. The probability calculations leave room for surprises, which sometimes actually happen.
Predicting what candidates will do if they win is in some ways pretty easy and in other ways impossible. In California, I rarely see races where there’s a clear reason to choose one Democratic candidate over another. I expect legislators to mostly vote the same way. In many contests, the stakes seem low?
But we don’t know what challenges they’ll face, and our impressions of them aren’t all that predictive.
So I think there’s a lack of information, but it’s very hard to fill. What does reporting on “the stakes” look like?
I don't think I agree with this. Political commentary as a whole is a problem, not just the horse race "who seems the most Presidential" stuff. Talking about "stakes" to me sounds too much like...
I don't think I agree with this. Political commentary as a whole is a problem, not just the horse race "who seems the most Presidential" stuff. Talking about "stakes" to me sounds too much like the journalist is ascribing value based on their own opinion and presenting that as the objective truth. Which I don't think has been shown to be a foolproof strategy in the past.
Orange-man-bad style politics seem to have just normalized some very abnormal behavior because people got desensitized to it constantly being told how grave the situation was for 4 years straight.
I'd much prefer AP style reporting where we just get told what happened and decide the significance for ourselves, not being lectured by journalists on how it ought to be perceived.
Our international reputation has already been tarnished. Faith in institutions has already been shattered. The Republican party has already gone mask off. An attempted coup has already been executed. Racists and bigots and sexists have already been validated. The trajectory of American politics has been inexorably shifted.
You can take your dinner plate and set it on the floor because the steaks have never been lower. Constantly being on the brink of devolving into dictatorship is just going to be the new normal from now on because that's a powerful incentive to tell voters they HAVE to support you.
I like Kottke's approach of simply not reporting on "horse race" coverage in general and sticking to the consequences.
I think this is probably a good orientation to have for anywhere that we discuss politics and current events, including here.
i dunno, i think consequences don't really sway much. All the climate change discussions in the media have been all about consequences, and where has it gotten us?
There’s a sense in which the future doesn’t exist. When we think about the future, it’s an imaginative act where we think about what might happen, compare scenarios, talk about likelihood. It’s all storytelling, mental constructs, mathematical models, castles in the air. That’s true of both the stakes and the odds.
Election predictions seem like a fairly well-behaved mathematical model that you can do probability calculations on, but much like gambling, it’s because the system is designed in a way that makes the math possible. Voting is an algorithm and we can do probability calculations on it.
But that’s an illusion because one of the inputs is all the news that might happen between now and election day. One candidate might be favored at some point, but there are many contests that are interesting to the end. The probability calculations leave room for surprises, which sometimes actually happen.
Predicting what candidates will do if they win is in some ways pretty easy and in other ways impossible. In California, I rarely see races where there’s a clear reason to choose one Democratic candidate over another. I expect legislators to mostly vote the same way. In many contests, the stakes seem low?
But we don’t know what challenges they’ll face, and our impressions of them aren’t all that predictive.
So I think there’s a lack of information, but it’s very hard to fill. What does reporting on “the stakes” look like?
I don't think I agree with this. Political commentary as a whole is a problem, not just the horse race "who seems the most Presidential" stuff. Talking about "stakes" to me sounds too much like the journalist is ascribing value based on their own opinion and presenting that as the objective truth. Which I don't think has been shown to be a foolproof strategy in the past.
Orange-man-bad style politics seem to have just normalized some very abnormal behavior because people got desensitized to it constantly being told how grave the situation was for 4 years straight.
I'd much prefer AP style reporting where we just get told what happened and decide the significance for ourselves, not being lectured by journalists on how it ought to be perceived.
Our international reputation has already been tarnished. Faith in institutions has already been shattered. The Republican party has already gone mask off. An attempted coup has already been executed. Racists and bigots and sexists have already been validated. The trajectory of American politics has been inexorably shifted.
You can take your dinner plate and set it on the floor because the steaks have never been lower. Constantly being on the brink of devolving into dictatorship is just going to be the new normal from now on because that's a powerful incentive to tell voters they HAVE to support you.