Nate Silver

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@notdred Moderna claims here that its booster increases neutralization by 23- to 44- fold, i.e. about the same magnitude as the loss Dr. Bloom is expecting from Omicron. Does that imply 3 doses vs. Omicron ~= 2 doses vs. Delta? Or way more complicated than that? https://t.co/dkJHydLrN5 — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Terrible answer from Psaki. Though, the FDA has been terrible on this too. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@conor64 It's because those criticisms get coded as "attacking the experts" and for a variety of reasons the (non-conservative) media is reluctant to do that on pandemic-related issues. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Prediction markets expect Omicron to become the dominant variant in the US by early February. If that's right, Omicron-specific boosters won't be ready by then. ~All the experts I trust think a regular booster will help so you should probably get one soon. https://t.co/zG0vAuGjqs — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@soledadobrien @joshtpm I've been in Florida a lot recently and yeah and it's a totally different world re: masks etc. But, NYC also has a "show must go on" mentality that I think is somewhat lacking in other blue areas. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@joshtpm @soledadobrien I don't think the mitigation efforts in the city are particularly intense. Less than Boston, DC or the West Coast for instance. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@joshtpm Upstate NYC is one of the few parts of the country that mostly dodged the worst of previous COVID waves. Sort of like Vermont. So much less naturally-acquired immunity than NYC. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Designing good algorithms is hard, but this is an especially bad one. And as a news consumer, you should be extremely wary of statistical methodologies you don't understand but that confirm your priors. 8/8 — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

How was the story scored? As being *neutral* to Trump (-0.0176). Now I think the story was fair and accurate (it's accurate to report that Trump poses big threats to democracy). Still, if this is the sort of story you want more of, the algorithm isn't helping to ID them. 7/ — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

I also looked at how FiveThirtyEight stories were classified, and again it's fairly random. Here is a story we did on Trump/GOP efforts to undermine democracy, for example. Exactly the sort of story that @Milbank says there should be more of (I agree). 6/ https://t.co/EgipxruBBf — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

I know some of you would say the media should have fewer polling-driven stories. I mostly disagree, I guess. But, I don't think it reflects some sort of bias if Biden's approval rating drops 5 points and the news outlet writes about that, and the framing is mostly negative. 5/ — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Here are the articles that the algorithm deems *least* favorable to Biden, by contrast. These are a little bit more on the mark, but still, mediocre at best. Again, lots of stuff about stock or commodity prices. And lots of polling stories, e.g. about Biden's approval rating. 4/ https://t.co/SQY7FlMpIN — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

What's probably happening here is that words like "high" and "rise" are viewed as favorable by the algorithm, even if they're taken completely out of context (e.g. "higher taxes" or "stock futures rise"). 3/ — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

These are the articles the algorithm found, out of more than 40K stories, were the most favorable toward Biden. It's just totally random. Lots of stories about the stock market. Many have nothing to do with Biden at all ("Haiti President Assassinated At Home, Wife Wounded"). 2/ https://t.co/ubKvmvaMHi — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

To this good thread explaining why the "sentiment analysis" cited in the @milbank WaPo article this weekend is complete crap—the analysis was used to make the claim that the press is just negative toward Biden as Trump—I'll also add a couple of comments based on their data. 1/ — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @BristOliver: We only have early data on how long threads about the omicron variant might be, but initial results suggest the average om… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @ABCPolitics: With Democrats facing a challenging political environment heading into 2022, can either Stacey Abrams or Beto O'Rourke pre… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@paulmromer I think you're possibly being too self-effacing in the face of a lot of groupthink and hackery. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@joshtpm Yeah. This is exactly the sort of question that isn't easy to tackle algorithmically IMO. Sentiment is an intrinsically subjective quantity, and there's a lot of subtlety in how political language is used. TBH I'd trust the analysis more if it were explicitly subjective. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@joshtpm We probably disagree on the underlying question, but, either way, the degree to which the extremely nontransparent "AI" analysis cited by Milbank should shift our priors on it is somewhere between zero and less than zero. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@joshtpm As an observer (and participant!) in this space myself I think it's not terribly plausible to claim that the media is >= negative toward Biden than Trump. The much more difficult question is whether it's less (or more) *fair* to Biden. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@joshtpm It's some possibly fairly crap algorithm written by a human. The AI label is kind of a BS marketing gimmick. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@ezraklein Also true of Delta breakthroughs tbh. Had a mild one a few months ago that was really hard to distinguish from false alarms I'd had in the past. Woke up in the middle of the night and was very glad to have a home test kit in the cabinet so I could start isolating right away. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

An algorithm is just a set of rules for processing data or completing a task. Algorithms have many uses, though it's hard to design good ones. If you design a dumb set of rules, you'll end up with dumb results. And if you design a biased set of rules, you'll get biased results. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@DKThomp Yeah. And to be clear, I think it's plausible that the coverage is less *fair* toward Biden if e.g. the press is blowing things out of proportion. But I don't think an impartial human, if there is such a thing, would characterize media coverage as more *negative* toward Biden. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@DKThomp I think they're both right. Also think there are interesting effects caused by the fact that pessimistic framings click well with liberals. But as someone who works in the business the idea (not yours) that the mainstream media is just as negative toward Biden isn't too credible. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@DKThomp Alternatively, sentiment analysis is often methodological gobbledygook unless done carefully, and it's not really proper to compare coverage in an election year (very heavily dictated by horse race considerations) to a non election year. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@Stapes The endless Day 1xs in the Main definitely the slowest part of the schedule IMO. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@AstorAaron Yeah I've been in the "Don't get your hopes up that Omicron is milder" camp but this hospital data is more compelling than some of the previous anecdotes. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@JSEllenberg @awprokop Yeah. A lot of it is NYC plus happening to have a lot of hobbies/interests that involves doing things with other people indoors. But maybe also a little bit of the friendship paradox since # of social contacts likely correlated with COVID risk. — PolitiTweet.org