This comment says it better than I could. The debate was a disaster for Biden. Which sucks.

ITT: People not understanding probabilistic forecasts.

Nate Silvers models are not perfect, but pretty close. You can do retro analysis on them to see. If someone with a 5% chance to win actually does win, that doesn’t mean the model was wrong… That just needs to actually happen only 5% of the time.

Getting elections"wrong" as people are talking about here shows they don’t really know how these models work. If you haven’t looked at the retrospective analysis on these results, then you are likely unqualified to declare that they are useless or wrong.

Saying polls are garbage is a straight bad take. The differentiation between polls is immense, and people treat them like they are just one thing.

They do adjust, and if you don’t know that I’m not likely to believe you have the knowledge to say they are bad.

Polls are still very indicative. Democrats are not magically beating them by 9 points. That’s just flatly untrue, unless you are just rolling every poll together with no regard for methodology, funding source, sample size, or track record.

Starting with a declaimer of being fairly far left…

Biden is not looking like he has a winning chance. He’s barely leading in national polls, but those polls are misleading, as, because of the senate, democrats typically need to win by 2.5-3 points in order to have a shot at the electoral college. So he’s behind there.

He’s behind in several key states where he needs to win. If you count states where he’s down 2 points or less, he BARELY has enough to win. Can’t miss a single state.

The debate hurt Biden. This is not a logical contest, it’s a popularity one, and Biden is not doing well. I think he’s done some great policy things, but that’s not how people vote. Democrats have to learn that it’s not enough to be “right” if you’re going to lose elections.

There is a sizeable gap between “beyond a reasonable doubt” in terms of a very specific law, and things that are gross/immoral.

People keep questioning the timeline as a defense… They might not have known until 2020. It’s normally against internal company policies to just look through people’s DMs. It’s not like someone’s job is to rifle through them. They probably were made aware of it, and then took action.

That’s speculation on my part, but if Twitch sat on it for 3 years, shame on them too, but that doesn’t so shit for this guy. It was still not ok.

The monetary incentive was to pay out his contract so they didn’t have a VERY public story about a VERY high profile streamer inappropriately messaging a minor with their service. That could be super damaging for Twitch. So they likely paid it out to try and bury the story.

Mountain Goats right?

I mean you’re not entirely wrong, but you’re a little wrong. Just because they added levels later doesn’t mean you were correct… These games have road maps, and they don’t quickly change gears. There’s math and analytics that go into all of it.

I think you’re stretching when you say “around a few people”. There’s more money in 10,000 people spending a bit than 10 spending a ton. It’s a gradient. The top 10 spend a lot, but not enough to morph your road map for. Especially when the companies own multiple properties. Better to get them transitioned to a new game within your umbrella than disrupt the entire content road map.

There’s also far worse stuff than that and way harsher criticisms. You’re getting closer with the “changing the prices” bit, but it’s even worse than that, imo.

It’s the reason I left working at one of them as a data analyst. I’m not speaking in generalities or that interested in debating here… I know precisely how the calculations for these types of things are done because I used to be on the team that did them.

Not this game, but a different one. The whole industry operates very similarly.

Adding thousands of levels for 1 whale is unlikely to be profitable. That’s a lot of development cost for content that likely won’t be seen. Pointing to other games by the same studio is a much better idea if you can get them to make the transition.

I’m never sure how to approach crypto on these platforms, because it’s rare to get a nuanced take.

I’ve moved past bitcoin to ethereum, I think it answers a lot of the criticisms.

I try not to get caught up on whether or not it’s a currency, store of value, or most other definitions. I just approach it from, is it a good product?

I’m in the middle on things such as money laundering or criminal activity. On one hand, the ledger system makes it incredibly easy to trace back transactions if someone ever messes up. On the other it serves a similar function as cash except you don’t have the physical weight, which is non trivial to transport. I know some criminals have to have used it successfully.

Crypto is hard. There’s so many goddamn scams and stuff like NFTs that could be a good idea if they got the weight of enforcement, but there’s no real enforcement mechanism. We have silly slips of paper that say whether we own things, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say we could make them digital with the right implementation. But those silly slips of paper hold the weight of law behind the. NFTs have no one to enforce anything, thus are useless.

I’m always afraid to open this up on this platform because there’s so many non nuanced takes, and people writing just the same criticisms. I’m hoping to have a good discussion, and I’m open to other opinions on it. But I haven’t found an argument that makes me think Ethereum is a problem or something to avoid. It’s certainly risky, but I think that risk is justified to the level of which I hold it.

Happy Pride Month

Almost upvoted because I thought this was The Right Can’t Meme

This hurts to read.

I know it’s satire, but this is like… 5% more satirical than actual beliefs on the topic at some points. The helping the poor section in particular.

They’re not perfect, but they’re not complete bullshit.

I can’t explain it all in a comment, but, like most things, there are good polls and bad polls. Saying polls are bullshit is like saying car mechanics are incompetent because some of them are.

If you read up on polls and their methodology, and read more then headlines, you can start to discern good ones from bad ones.

Most people don’t realize margin of error and how close elections are. There hasn’t been that large of polling errors in the last several elections. 2016 was larger than normal, but still within pretty explainable ranges.

Good polls are worth paying attention to, and proclaiming they are all bullshit is just a flatly bad take. There are a lot of shit polls that are politically motivated to make candidates look good or bad, but there are good pollsters doing good work. But you have to know what to look for. Not all polls are equal.

I would share similar feelings.

Andor is great because it’s largely disconnected. They don’t rely on any big major cameos, there’s hardly even Jedi or Force involved. It’s just a standalone story in the same universe. Honestly, the same things that made Rogue One great make Andor great.

I don’t think you’ll be disappointed, unless you wanted more Skywalker Family Space Drama.

Andor was the anti Star Wars series. It was the best written series of all time in Star Wars terms. The dialouge was not just good, it was fucking captivating. Almost every star wars film or show the script is usually mediocre at best and has to be overcome by the actors.

Andor had multiple scenes that left me in awe of the great writing. Maybe it’s because my expectations were low… But damn it was good.

I read the first few words as soft candles and was so confused.

What time zone is that minute in?!

I think you’re applying your own viewpoint here to the general public.

I don’t enjoy wrestling. I also don’t enjoy reality TV, teen dramas, horror shows, or European Football. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have value.

If TV needs to provide some infallible, logical benefit to be worth something, then every show is in trouble. It’s practically all made up stories about nothing that matters.

This is one of the narrow times that “the customer is always right” applies correctly. It doesn’t matter if it’s “good” by any one person’s definition. If people watch, it has value.

I’d pay good money to see high quality Starcraft 2 tournaments on TV. I doubt many other people would. That’s how value is determined.

Yeah this has since been deleted because he didn’t agree to that caption at all. Dude was just trying to be nice and take a picture.

You can dislike his last stand up special, but I don’t think any part of it could be misconstrued to the point where he was saying there are only two genders or trans people don’t exist.

First episode on the new network - The Problem With Apple