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Is The Economist Always Wrong?

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Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?

#101

Post by andsoitis »

davidw wrote: post #58
narism wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because Fox News crowed about it doesn’t mean it’s bad journalism. Arguably toeing the party line is what resulted in Democrats being in that situation (fielding a weaker candidate against Trump) in the first place.

Framing someone who supports democracy vs someone who tried to overturn a free and fair election as a 'weaker' candidate is kind of the problem though. In any sane world, you'd support a literal corpse over a guy who does not want there to be free and fair elections.

> In any sane world, you'd support a literal corpse over a guy who does not want there to be free and fair elections.

No, you’d be serious about picking the best candidate you’ve got to stand up against the formidable foe. If all you’ve got is a corpse you might as well not bother.

Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?

#102

Post by andsoitis »

davidw wrote: post #57
akoboldfrying wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me personally, seeing the phrase "both sides" used pejoratively is a red flag telling me I don't need to read any further. When people disagree about something, hearing from both sides is important. Can this ideal of openmindedness be cynically abused by strawmanning one side while steelmanning the other? Yes, but in that case the appropriate response is to criticise the specific ways that one or both sides were…

This explains the problem with it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance It's fine if you're talking about something where there are a broad spectrum of fairly reasonable policy positions. It's not fine when you have a TV segment that's like "here's Christina, an astrophysicist from Stanford, explaining how we measure the circumference of the earth, and up next we'll have Bob from the flat earth society"

What’s ann equivalent example that you think The Ecobomist has done?

Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?

#103

Post by kqr »

twolf910616 wrote: post #76
givemeethekeys wrote: post #64

They don't have any real skin in the game. Who cares if they're right about something? Are they putting money on the line? What is their P/L for being "right"?

I think that's the wrong way to look at it. They do have skin in the game, in the sense that their readers wouldn't want to pay for a newspaper that is consistently wrong. And, even if they don't, it doesn't mean that it's not valuable

That's not quite what "skin in the game" means in this context.

The Economist does not need to be right, they only need their readers to believe they are right. That's not quite the same thing, and that small difference is what separates "skin in the game" from not having it.

They can get readers to believe they're right either by being right, or by being ambiguous enough to appear right in multiple futures. Professions where there's skin in the game don't have ambiguity and persuasiveness as an escape to the same degree.

Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?

#105

Post by gherkinnn »

ggm wrote: post #87
skrebbel wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that amazing? For all his faults, Boris Johnson is an excellent writer.

There is an amazing write up[0] of somebody who was present when Boris gave some apparently "impromptu" speeches who absolutely pins him to the ground on his technique for appearing haphazard, off-the-cuff when it's patently clear its a rehearsed schtick. The man is literate. The problem is he is also almost amoral, and should never have been allowed to occupy a position of authority. He has some charming qualities,…

What a thrilling read!

Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?

#106

Post by drdeca »

Joker_vD wrote: post #52
claw-el wrote: post #8

The tricky thing about predictions made by public entity or persona is that, the fact that they are making public predictions creates a major influence on the outcome itself. People react to predictions made by them.

Yep. That's why predicting the future of a system you're a part of is sometimes literally impossible; it boils, fundamentally, to the fact that logical negation doesn't have a fixed point.

If your prediction is a probability distribution, rather than a discrete outcome label, then, assuming the distribution over the future depends continuously on your action, there should be a fixed point, I think?

Like, if you output a probability distribution among n options, and then there is a continuous map from the probability distribution you describe in your output, to another probability distribution over those options…

Err, hm, maybe you need a stronger hypothesis on the continuous map? If it is contractive then it will definitely have a fixed point. I don’t remember the hypothesis needed.

Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?

#107

Post by zimpenfish »

next_xibalba wrote: post #16
davidw wrote: post #12

After subscribing for 15 years or so, I noped out after their "walker" cover. The world has enough "both sides" journalism, and I had thought them somewhat immune from that.

Wait, what? People were offended by that? It seemed an apt cover in light of the situation. For those unaware, the economist ran this [1] image after Biden’s historically disastrous debate in ‘24 (as a result of Biden’s age based senility being on full display after months of party and media complicity). [1] https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/07/04/why-biden-must-...

I think people were probably offended by the lack of such covers relating to Trump's diminished mental acuity when it was on display for all to see in the brief period of 2015-present.

(Not just The Economist, mind; almost every MSM outlet has mostly ignored Trump's mental inadequacy from the moment he came down the escalator. If they'd reported on it honestly from the start, there would be no Trump presidencies.)

Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?

#109

Post by mdp2021 »

It is shocking that idle bets, nothing but after dinner games, are confused with assessments. It is not too different from confusing opinions and arguments in debates.

If you predict an event E the juice is in the reasons that make it possible, and in the hurdles and dynamics that might make that not happen. (That is especially bewildering as it disregards the influence of the paper, as if separated from the world it comments about.)

Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?

#110

Post by jrowen »

davidw wrote: post #58
narism wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because Fox News crowed about it doesn’t mean it’s bad journalism. Arguably toeing the party line is what resulted in Democrats being in that situation (fielding a weaker candidate against Trump) in the first place.

Framing someone who supports democracy vs someone who tried to overturn a free and fair election as a 'weaker' candidate is kind of the problem though. In any sane world, you'd support a literal corpse over a guy who does not want there to be free and fair elections.

It's not really just framing though, it was reality. An election is a popularity contest, not a morality detector. Everybody knew Biden was (by then) a wet noodle that could not hold his own against Trump.
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