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Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

passingtime.substack.com

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Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#211

Post by nerdponx »

throwaway-blaze wrote: post #209
parasubvert wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would make sense if there was an actual argument for the process being compromised. But there isn’t. You can rebuild it and be accused of inserting back doors. There’s no win - the whole argument is that the process is sound if a certain party wins, if that party loses, then the process is corrupt. Notice how there’s no cries of election integrity problems for this election? Because the “right” party won.

You must not read lefty X / Twitter where they're wondering where 15mm voters went from last time.

They stayed home.

Ironic though because lefty social media just spent a solid year telling people that both candidates were trash and Gaza would suffer regardless of who got elected.

Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#212

Post by nerdponx »

lmm wrote: post #193
parasubvert wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would make sense if there was an actual argument for the process being compromised. But there isn’t. You can rebuild it and be accused of inserting back doors. There’s no win - the whole argument is that the process is sound if a certain party wins, if that party loses, then the process is corrupt. Notice how there’s no cries of election integrity problems for this election? Because the “right” party won.

> That would make sense if there was an actual argument for the process being compromised. But there isn’t. There are pretty strong arguments that many states illegally (according to their own rules) expanded the scope of postal ballots in 2020, added people to the voter rolls without adequate checks that resulted in people getting added who shouldn't have, etc., which could very plausibly have added up to enough to…

The assertion that the deep state skews Democrat is so preposterous it sounds like an SNL sketch. Imagine a bunch of G-men sitting around in a conference room with oat milk lattes while the Cigarette Smoking Man lays out plans for the next year Pride parade.

Also consider that maybe only Republicans filed suits because their presidential candidate lost.

But more direct to your point: No consequential voting irregularities were found, and this time around the Democrats arguably had an even stronger incentive to commit widespread voter fraud than before, while the current President is a Democrat, and yet somehow all the fraud from 2020 is now just gone. That stretches credibility, to say the least.

Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#213

Post by eschaton »

throwaway-blaze wrote: post #206
eschaton wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because it’s not “Democrats” that the far right wants to prevent from voting, it’s anyone poor or from an ethnic minority, who often happen not to have as much access to a DMV or other facility in which they can obtain an ID. Elsewhere in the thread is mentioned the predominantly-Black county that has a DMV only open one day a month. Why do you think that is?

You really think poor people and minorities don't have IDs? They must never interact with any form of government or finance that ever needs an ID. This is a massive trope some people bring up all the time. Please show credible data that this is true and I'll happily admit I'm wrong.

Enough don’t that this can be an effective means of voter suppression, otherwise the states doing it would not be doing it. It doesn’t actually improve election security at all, all it does is add expense and difficulty to voting even for their own voters.

Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#214

Post by nerdponx »

tacitusarc wrote: post #202

“ In my first and only 15 minutes of watching, Chamath’s confidence in making this false claim, coupled with his co-hosts’ complete lack of critical pushback, suggests to me that these kinds of mistakes happen often enough to where these guys’ content isn’t worth consuming.” This is what I call “anti-credibility.” Where credibility increases the likelihood of belief in subsequent claims, anti-credibility increases th…

It makes more sense if you notice that the direction of wrongness is consistent, in which case an adjustment across the board in the other direction makes sense. Works great for politicians of all kinds, and their supporters, as we see here.

Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#215

Post by nerdponx »

nfw2 wrote: post #181

I think part of All-In's success is that it has the vibe of a group of friends sitting around and shooting the breeze. It's way less academic than something like the Ezra Klein Show, but that's the point. Is there bloviating involved? All the time, especially from Chamath. Are there bad takes? Certainly. But it's entertaining.

Being confidently wrong about matters of public policy in front of a large audience is more than just an incidental bad take. It pollutes the public well of information and thereby does a disservice to society. You do not have a right to entertain yourself with something that damages the ability of society to make decisions and govern itself.

Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#216

Post by nerdponx »

27153 wrote: post #30
nostrebored wrote: post #19

Misinterpreting data is easy. To be clear -- I think the All In podcast is frequently flagrantly wrong, but basically all podcasts that try to foretell events are. Chamath mistaking 0.85 absolute as 0.85 relative is fairly easy to do. Even the critique's interpretation is very shallow -- things like second order effects, like the fiscal multiplier contribution, aren't considered. But macro is an art more than a scien…

The order of magnitude of his mistake makes it damning. Especially considering he began his commentary by noting that "the data can be confusing"

"Data is hard, let me interpret it for you" is specifically crafted to get people to trust the speaker ("wow this guy understands data I better listen") and discourage independent corroboration ("I don't want to look at it myself if it's hard and I'm likely to misinterpret, best leave that to an expert").

Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#217

Post by nerdponx »

kemiller2002 wrote: post #12
voisin wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100%. In 2016 it was fair to be shocked that he meant what he said literally rather than figuratively in a crass manner of getting elected. I think everyone expected he would cut to the middle once elected, as he was a New York democrat for his whole life. But in 2024 we now know that when he says something he means it.

I will firmly admit, that in the 2015 primaries I thought he was the lesser of 2 evils between him and Ted Cruz. I will absolutely state that I was foolish and wrong. That's not happening again.

Cruz would have been much better because then Clinton would have crushed him and none of this 12-year (4 more to go) nightmare would have happened.

Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#218

Post by toyg »

lmm wrote: post #193
parasubvert wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would make sense if there was an actual argument for the process being compromised. But there isn’t. You can rebuild it and be accused of inserting back doors. There’s no win - the whole argument is that the process is sound if a certain party wins, if that party loses, then the process is corrupt. Notice how there’s no cries of election integrity problems for this election? Because the “right” party won.

> That would make sense if there was an actual argument for the process being compromised. But there isn’t. There are pretty strong arguments that many states illegally (according to their own rules) expanded the scope of postal ballots in 2020, added people to the voter rolls without adequate checks that resulted in people getting added who shouldn't have, etc., which could very plausibly have added up to enough to…

> I don't think anyone seriously disputes

... that the federal "deep state" doesn't matter, since elections are handled at the lowest level by state authorities - which are tightly controlled in red states, as much as in blue states (if not more, arguably), by the locally-dominant party. This is just how business has always been done in good ol' Murica.

Writing sweeping statements like the one you make, indicates that one lives in a partisan bubble.

Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#219

Post by lmm »

nerdponx wrote: post #212
lmm wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That would make sense if there was an actual argument for the process being compromised. But there isn’t. There are pretty strong arguments that many states illegally (according to their own rules) expanded the scope of postal ballots in 2020, added people to the voter rolls without adequate checks that resulted in people getting added who shouldn't have, etc., which could very plausibly have added up to enough to…

The assertion that the deep state skews Democrat is so preposterous it sounds like an SNL sketch. Imagine a bunch of G-men sitting around in a conference room with oat milk lattes while the Cigarette Smoking Man lays out plans for the next year Pride parade. Also consider that maybe only Republicans filed suits because their presidential candidate lost. But more direct to your point: No consequential voting irregular…

> The assertion that the deep state skews Democrat is so preposterous it sounds like an SNL sketch. Imagine a bunch of G-men sitting around in a conference room with oat milk lattes while the Cigarette Smoking Man lays out plans for the next year Pride parade.

The top LGBT-friendly employer these days is Raytheon. Even pre-Trump the Dems were the party of big government, unions, urbanity, education...; now they're also the party of military interventionism, the media, and really most of the establishment.

> Also consider that maybe only Republicans filed suits because their presidential candidate lost.

I'm talking in the run-up to this election before the outcome was known.

> No consequential voting irregularities were found

Now you're subtly narrowing the goalposts a whole lot. Voting irregularities, no (other than that ballot box getting set on fire, but I guess you're saying that's not "consequential"), but plenty of potential crime in the overall process (lists of names being added to the rolls at the last minute, that sort of thing). The legal challenges will likely be dropped, if they haven't already, because the Republicans won the election anyway, so what relief could they possibly ask a court to grant?

> the Democrats arguably had an even stronger incentive to commit widespread voter fraud than before, while the current President is a Democrat, and yet somehow all the fraud from 2020 is now just gone

Some of the alleged misdeeds of 2020 were only possible because the pandemic created an excuse - rapid expansion of postal voting in violation of the law and/or under "creative" executive orders was something that could happen in plain sight then, but would be rather harder to brush under the carpet now. But, again, a lot of the same allegations were being made in the run-up to this election - we're only not hearing so much about them because the Republicans won.

Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#220

Post by lmm »

toyg wrote: post #218
lmm wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That would make sense if there was an actual argument for the process being compromised. But there isn’t. There are pretty strong arguments that many states illegally (according to their own rules) expanded the scope of postal ballots in 2020, added people to the voter rolls without adequate checks that resulted in people getting added who shouldn't have, etc., which could very plausibly have added up to enough to…

> I don't think anyone seriously disputes ... that the federal "deep state" doesn't matter, since elections are handled at the lowest level by state authorities - which are tightly controlled in red states, as much as in blue states (if not more, arguably), by the locally-dominant party. This is just how business has always been done in good ol' Murica. Writing sweeping statements like the one you make, indicates tha…

> ... that the federal "deep state" doesn't matter, since elections are handled at the lowest level by state authorities - which are tightly controlled in red states, as much as in blue states (if not more, arguably), by the locally-dominant party.

The whole point of the "deep state" concept is that it's not controlled by the formal political structures at all - yes the state bureaucracy is nominally accountable to the elected executive, but in practice it's made up of humans who are unlikely to be 100% loyal to their boss or their organisation's stated mandate (and with the chain of command being pretty long, there's plenty of room for small disalignments to compound). Even in red states (and red counties), the offices of the state bureaucracy are, systematically, often in blue islands. It's got nothing to do with state vs federal, because it's the same kind of people who work in government jobs[1] either way.

[1] OK, "government office jobs" or something, yes the typical military employee is quite different from the kind of people I'm talking about. But you know what I mean.

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