Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 114 posts

Re: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

#81

Post by Jarwain »

delinka wrote: post #77
gareim wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I get this logic. If I told someone they had a 16.6% chance of rolling a die and getting a 6, and then they proceed to roll the die and get a 6, would you laugh and tell me that I was wrong?

That's not a prediction of the outcome. That's a statistic. A prediction of the outcome would be "you won't roll a 6."

The article doesn't claim that Cambridge Analytica predicted the outcome. The only factual claim about the outcome made by the company, according to the article, is that statistic.

The article, however, took that statistic and implicated it as a prediction when all it really was was a statistic.

Re: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

#82

Post by Jarwain »

pavelrub wrote: post #75
gareim wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of words to say very little. >What you are essentially saying is that every prediction that doesn't claim certainty is always correct. This seems to be the crux of it. No, what I am saying is that when you want to laugh at the polls/pollsters, you should be arguing how their methodology was wrong and what they could have done to find the true proportion +/- some standard error with however much confidence level…

> you should be arguing how their methodology was wrong and what they could have done to find the true proportion +/- some standard error with however much confidence level There are countless of arguments about how their methodology was wrong and what could be improved, all over the internet. Almost nobody disputes that the models were bad. I thought this part was obvious. > 20% chance of winning and then actually w…

Is it really a bad prediction? Or just a wrong one?

Sure, you could say wrong predictions are bad. However, maybe it was the best prediction given the data available before a given event. Its weird assigning a kinda subjective good/bad to an event when it is just an assigned probability based on what is known. All we can really conclude is that the improbable happened; we didn't have enough data or the right methodologies to make a more accurate prediction. Learn what we can, and apply it to the next event.

Re: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

#83

Post by xapata »

pavelrub wrote: post #75
gareim wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of words to say very little. >What you are essentially saying is that every prediction that doesn't claim certainty is always correct. This seems to be the crux of it. No, what I am saying is that when you want to laugh at the polls/pollsters, you should be arguing how their methodology was wrong and what they could have done to find the true proportion +/- some standard error with however much confidence level…

> you should be arguing how their methodology was wrong and what they could have done to find the true proportion +/- some standard error with however much confidence level There are countless of arguments about how their methodology was wrong and what could be improved, all over the internet. Almost nobody disputes that the models were bad. I thought this part was obvious. > 20% chance of winning and then actually w…

I'm not sure which ones you read. Nate Silver's analysis seemed pretty sound. His team pointed out that, just as with the housing crisis, if the models were wrong in one state, they were probably wrong in all states in the same way, giving Trump a decent chance at winning.

Note that Taleb criticized the speed that Nate changed estimates, not the estimates themselves.

Re: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

#84

Post by dagw »

delinka wrote: post #77
gareim wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I get this logic. If I told someone they had a 16.6% chance of rolling a die and getting a 6, and then they proceed to roll the die and get a 6, would you laugh and tell me that I was wrong?

That's not a prediction of the outcome. That's a statistic. A prediction of the outcome would be "you won't roll a 6."

If you asked me to predict whether you will roll a six or not, then I will predict that you won't. Is that a bad prediction?

Re: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

#85

Post by dagw »

akjainaj wrote: post #63
gareim wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I get this logic. If I told someone they had a 16.6% chance of rolling a die and getting a 6, and then they proceed to roll the die and get a 6, would you laugh and tell me that I was wrong?

I get your point but that's not a fair comparison because there were 2 choices, not 6.

6 and Not 6 are two choices

Re: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

#86

Post by dagw »

pavelrub wrote: post #75
gareim wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of words to say very little. >What you are essentially saying is that every prediction that doesn't claim certainty is always correct. This seems to be the crux of it. No, what I am saying is that when you want to laugh at the polls/pollsters, you should be arguing how their methodology was wrong and what they could have done to find the true proportion +/- some standard error with however much confidence level…

> you should be arguing how their methodology was wrong and what they could have done to find the true proportion +/- some standard error with however much confidence level There are countless of arguments about how their methodology was wrong and what could be improved, all over the internet. Almost nobody disputes that the models were bad. I thought this part was obvious. > 20% chance of winning and then actually w…

There are countless of arguments about how their methodology was wrong and what could be improved, all over the internet.

Could you link to a couple of your favourites? Non of the ones I've seen felt very convincing.

Re: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

#87

Post by hedora »

mixmax wrote: post #52
IshKebab wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because most poll models gave him a small chance of success. How bad is your memory?

If I remember correctly 538 put him at around 25-30% chance of winning the election. Certainly an underdog, but with a reasonable chance of success.

538 was widely attacked / mocked because they gave him such high numbers. Many people were surprised by the outcome.

Also, it was clear on election night that neither Hillary nor Trump had prepared a speech for a Trump win. (Watch Trump's victory speech from election night. Hillary had to awkwardly postpone hers till morning because she didn't book the venue long enough to handle a close race.)

I suspected 538's projections were spot on because of math and stuff, but many (most?) people did not.

Re: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

#88

Post by pavelrub »

Jarwain wrote: post #82
pavelrub wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you should be arguing how their methodology was wrong and what they could have done to find the true proportion +/- some standard error with however much confidence level There are countless of arguments about how their methodology was wrong and what could be improved, all over the internet. Almost nobody disputes that the models were bad. I thought this part was obvious. > 20% chance of winning and then actually w…

Is it really a bad prediction? Or just a wrong one? Sure, you could say wrong predictions are bad. However, maybe it was the best prediction given the data available before a given event. Its weird assigning a kinda subjective good/bad to an event when it is just an assigned probability based on what is known. All we can really conclude is that the improbable happened; we didn't have enough data or the right methodol…

I would say that predicting the chances of an asteroid hitting Earth based on looking at a crystal ball is a pretty bad prediction.

I agree with your general point. Whether a better prediction could've been made based on available data is really the key question here, and this is exactly what allows us to say that crystal ball predictions are bad.

In the context of predicting election results, I think it is fair to assume that, in principle, there should be enough available data (or an ability to collect such data) to make more accurate predictions. This also seems to be the assumption of all major polling agencies, and was also the assumption in investigating the results of Brexit polls. This is precisely where it differs from dice rolling. It therefore makes sense to assume that the predictions were inaccurate due to methodological reasons, as opposed to pollsters having no practical way of accessing the relevant data.

Re: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

#89

Post by delinka »

dagw wrote: post #84
delinka wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a prediction of the outcome. That's a statistic. A prediction of the outcome would be "you won't roll a 6."

If you asked me to predict whether you will roll a six or not, then I will predict that you won't. Is that a bad prediction?

It's certainly an incorrect prediction if I roll a six. You didn't simply state the odds and leave it at that, you actually made a prediction. Is it a "bad" prediction? Depends on how you're defining "good" vs. "bad" predictions. If the quality of the prediction is not based on the outcome (i.e. whether the prediction is correct), but is instead based on the odds themselves, then that's a conversation that leads to "bad but correct" predictions.

Re: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

#90

Post by pavelrub »

dagw wrote: post #86
pavelrub wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you should be arguing how their methodology was wrong and what they could have done to find the true proportion +/- some standard error with however much confidence level There are countless of arguments about how their methodology was wrong and what could be improved, all over the internet. Almost nobody disputes that the models were bad. I thought this part was obvious. > 20% chance of winning and then actually w…

There are countless of arguments about how their methodology was wrong and what could be improved, all over the internet. Could you link to a couple of your favourites? Non of the ones I've seen felt very convincing.

Sure:

[1] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polls-missed-trump-...

[2] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/why-2016-ele...

While it will take more time to figure out the precise reasons for the failure of the polls, the consensus is that such a failure indeed happen, and there are a number of competing hypotheses for why it happened. Other than on HN, nobody claims that the errors were due to some inherent unpredictability which cannot be addressed through better methodology.

Post reply on HN