Nate “I call ‘em as I see ‘em” Silver is being booted about the Internet for not living up to expectations with his widely heralded new site “FiveThirtyEight,” whatever the fuck that means.* Nate has been roughed up by the likes of Tyler Cowan and Paul Krugman,† not to mention Mike “I’m a putz” Allen, who doesn’t count. According to both Tyler and Paul, Nate & Co.’s postings are too short and too sweet to satisfy a real data-cruncher’s appetite.
My own beef with Nate is a little different. In his own statement of principles, “What the Fox Knows,” Silver takes justifiable aim at windbag opinionators like George Will, Michael Barone, and Peggy Noonan, all of whom grossly miscalled the 2012 election, but he doesn’t understand that they were simply lying—regardless of what the data “told” them, they wanted to weaken Obama—“The man is a loser!”—and strengthen Romney—“The man is a winner! You can smell it!”
Silver talks about how hard it is to make a “very” accurate prediction. “[Y]ou have almost no hope of beating Las Vegas unless you’ve spent at least 100 hours studying the betting line in question.” “By contrast, in conventional journalism, predictions are often treated as a parlor game, involving little effort and less accountability.”
But how many people, trying to make money in Vegas by betting on the Super Bowl, spend a 100 hours “studying the betting line in question”? Virtually none. They just bet, the way they would bet at Black Jack or roulette. Why? Because people don’t gamble to win, they gamble for the excitement of betting.
Talking heads make predictions for the same reason. It gives them an adrenaline rush to say that Obama is going to get his ass kicked, or that Boehner is out or that Rubio is history. The more outrageous the prediction—the less likely it is to come true—the greater the rush, which is why people will pause dramatically and say things like “Obama will resign before the 2016 election!” and why they watch shows like House of Cards, where the kind of things that don’t happen in DC do happen! Because it’s fun! And when you’re having fun, the cold, dead hand of data is the last thing you need!
*It’s the number of presidential electors in the Electoral College—one for each senator and representative.
†Paul, leading by example, correctly uses “data” as a plural noun, in silent contrast to Nate, who naïvely employs the singular.
-
