Nate Silver

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@jonmladd @mattyglesias The median voter isn't all that conservative in some of these places. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @robferdman: The Onion either has impeccable timing or remarkable speed https://t.co/Bl29zckwuu — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @aaronecarroll: As someone who has written a gazillion words on how we pay too much for "me-too" drugs and things that barely work, I wi… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@MattZeitlin I think the opposite is true. First doses fell off a massive cliff exactly timed to the J&J pause and haven't recovered, and the attempts to interpret ambiguous survey data to say "everything is fine" have seemed rather heroic to me. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Given the rapid decline in cases in NYC this is not a huge surprise, but still good to see that the so-called New York variant gets its ass kicked by vaccines and doesn't seem to cause many reinfection problems. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Obviously it was different when he was president and nearly everything he did or said had tremendous news value. Now that's a lot more questionable, though. Substantive moves toward running in 2024, sure. Random cranky rants about Liz Cheney or whatever, not really. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

There's definitely some tension between the notion of deplatforming Trump from Facebook and Twitter—a notion that is fairly popular among journalists, at least the ones who are most vocal about it—and the tendency by journalists to amplify his every utterance. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

If you've appreciated 538's coverage amid a very tough year—and I've certainly appreciated reading from and learning from all my colleagues—please consider voting for us in the Webby Awards... https://t.co/3zy7Qg9DHz — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @moxie: Signal tried to use Instagram ads to display the data Facebook collects about you and sells access to. Facebook wasn't into the… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@nhannahjones I don't think I mentioned anything about masks? Even after being fully vaccinated I personally always still wear a mask indoors around strangers. And outdoors I'll do it too if I think it'll make people more comfortable (so mostly yes in NYC, sometimes not if I'm elsewhere). — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@jasonfurman I agree although COVID involves such a wide array of behavioral changes that it's hard to imagine that some things aren't impacted. A somewhat trivial example but whether to reciprocate a handshake is something that might change post-vax, for instance. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@allahpundit It is perhaps telling that none of the ~2,000 words in that big NYT article on herd immunity yesterday was "Israel". — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@ProfOrganizer I agree and once you get vaccinated, you greatly reduce the risk you pose to their health. Hence, that should probably compel some changes to behavior. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@notdred I think David makes a smart point and undoubtedly the calculation is different if you have kids, etc. At the same time, I don't know that people intuitively grasp just how large e.g. a 20-fold reduction and they may treat it as far more of an incremental step than it actually is. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@notdred I think David makes a smart point and undoubtedly the calculation is different if you have kids, etc. At the same time, I don't know that people intuitively grasp just how large say a 20x reduction in risk is and may treat it as though it's a 2x reduction or something instead. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@notdred I think my point is more subtle. Whatever someone's risk tolerance, having a 20-fold reduction in getting symptomatic COVID and (uncertain but let's say) a 5- to 10-fold decrease in transmitting COVID ought to meaningfully change their behavior relative to their pre-vax baseline. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@notdred If you're much less likely to transmit post-vax I'd think that should change your behavior even around unvaccinated or mixed crowds. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

These aren't incompatible points. At least some people say they're continuing extremely cautious behavior (even after vaccination) until cases fall below a very low threshold. If cases never fall below that threshold then they don't have an exit strategy. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@mattyglesias An unfortunate side effect is that sometimes people yell at the reporter if they don't like the framing when it's almost certainly an editing issue instead. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@mattyglesias I agree with that and it sometimes seems to result in articles like this one where the headline and lede are fairly strident and pessimistic but then the body of the article is extremely thoughtful and nuanced. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@mattyglesias I'm a comparative optimist I suppose but there's good reason to think that the endgame will be long, patchy, bumpy even if the overall trajectory is positive. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

It's very difficult to know what constitutes rational behavior during a pandemic like COVID-19 so there's a a limit to how much you might judge anybody's choices. But I'd argue one sign of *irrationality* is if a person doesn't change their behavior much after being vaccinated. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@CT_Bergstrom Good thread. I really dislike when there's statistical method that may be perfectly fine unto itself, but which is extrapolated out in such a way as to imply a rich degree of geographical detail when it isn't there in the underlying data. Comes up a lot in election analysis too. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@megandraheim We know quite a lot about it. And I'm a journalist so tbh my job is just to be accurate and truthful. I'm not trying to figure out the optimal "message". https://t.co/XAyTHmltzu https://t.co/U38g1NieHc https://t.co/bhxRvu5sDy https://t.co/y5H908vJYs — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@JamesSurowiecki @justjoshinyou13 The CDC vaccine finder lets you search for your preferred vaccine and there doesn't seem to be any shortage of places with J&J availability. https://t.co/4vsJSKliqC — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@JamesSurowiecki IDK, even if the inflow was slower, there ought to be a lot of supply built up given the pause. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

This was predictable but sure looks like no one wants anything to do with the J&J vaccine, even with the pause lifted. https://t.co/KzISbdszCc https://t.co/TEBRpxSYL7 — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@DKThomp Seems inevitable that some jurisdiction will try weed. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @thehowie: Herd immunity is a local phenomenon, as well. I don’t understand why this is not emphasized more (it is alluded to in the tim… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@additionalcom @jbarro Headlines and lede paragraphs matter a lot! Far more people read the headline than the article, especially given how articles are shared on social media. A lot of mainstream media coverage on COVID has had the habit of foregrounding bad news and then backing off it later. — PolitiTweet.org