I understand the point but people are trying to change “more accurate than a gut feeling” to “the best predictive tools we have”, which betrays how accurate they are.
I’m not sure anyone here would defend the methodology of these polls but they keep referencing them constantly.
I understand we have nothing else, but maybe we just can’t predict the future as well as we think we can.
“the best predictive tools we have”, which betrays how accurate they are.
I understand we have nothing else
Yes, we don’t have anything better, so they literally are the best predictive tools we have. It’s just that all our tools suck. If you see someone say “Florida is now a Harris state based on a couple of rallies I’ve seen” it’s more than fair to counter with “polls show Trump has a sizeable lead there”, particularly when you compare with polls run the same way in other states and use it as a rough relative indicator of Trump v. Harris bias between states, even if the absolute values are likely to mismatch the result.
How is that any different than two people arguing about who’s right about a math problem, where one is trying to cook their way to the answer, and the other is trying to crochet their way to the answer.
Neither of them are ever going to be right, neither side should be using those tools to solve that problem.
Maybe you can explain to me all of the benefits we gain from pre-vote polls?
I understand the point but people are trying to change “more accurate than a gut feeling” to “the best predictive tools we have”, which betrays how accurate they are.
I’m not sure anyone here would defend the methodology of these polls but they keep referencing them constantly.
I understand we have nothing else, but maybe we just can’t predict the future as well as we think we can.
Yes, we don’t have anything better, so they literally are the best predictive tools we have. It’s just that all our tools suck. If you see someone say “Florida is now a Harris state based on a couple of rallies I’ve seen” it’s more than fair to counter with “polls show Trump has a sizeable lead there”, particularly when you compare with polls run the same way in other states and use it as a rough relative indicator of Trump v. Harris bias between states, even if the absolute values are likely to mismatch the result.
How is that any different than two people arguing about who’s right about a math problem, where one is trying to cook their way to the answer, and the other is trying to crochet their way to the answer.
Neither of them are ever going to be right, neither side should be using those tools to solve that problem.
Maybe you can explain to me all of the benefits we gain from pre-vote polls?