If, over his career, Nate's site gives a 2/3 vs 1/3 split 1,000 ti mes, and something near 333 times the 1/3 split wins, I think he gets to declare himself accurate.
Similarly, a modern poker pro isn't trying to guess what the opponent has. The modern player is trying to put the opponent on a spread of possible hands under the circumstances. The outcome of any given hand doesn't matter, and there is an expected amount of variance in performance even under a game-theoretic perfect strategy. The question is whether the strategy pays out in the long run, and whether the player has a deep enough bankroll (in comparison to the stakes they are playing at) to ride out the variance. If you think the pro is doing something else, you probably are still a very long way from getting to that level. ----------- Eric P. Charles, Ph.D. Department of Justice - Personnel Psychologist American University - Adjunct Instructor <[email protected]> On Sat, Apr 18, 2020 at 2:32 PM <[email protected]> wrote: > So, Eric [Charles], > > > > What exactly were the *practicial* consequences of declaring that Hillary > was “probably” going to win the election or that a full house was probably > going to win the pot given she lost and the dealer held a strait flush? > > > > Nick > > > > Nicholas Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology > > Clark University > > [email protected] > > https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ > > > > > > *From:* Friam <[email protected]> *On Behalf Of *Eric Charles > *Sent:* Saturday, April 18, 2020 12:06 PM > *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group < > [email protected]> > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] anthropological observations > > > > -------- Nick says --------- Nate constantly says that making such > predictions is, strictly speaking, not his job. As long as what happens > falls within the error of his prediction, he feels justified in having made > it. He will say things like, "actually we were right." I would prefer > him to say, "Actually we were wrong, *but I would make the same > prediction under the same circumstances the next time.” *In other words, > the right procedure produced, on this occasion, a wrong result. > ----------------- > > > > Well... so this connects a lot with poker, which I am in the process of > teaching the 10 year old... If I recall, Nate was giving Trump a 1/3 chance > of victory, which was much higher than most of the other models at the > time. You can hardly fault someone because something happened that they > said would happen 2/3 of the time. > > > > If a poker player has a model that predicts a given play to be the best > option, because it will work 2/3 of the time, and this one time it doesn't > work, that isn't grounds to say the model failed. > > > > YOU want the modelers to have models that rarely give anything close to > even odds. So do I, so I'm sympathetic. But the modeler might prefer a more > honest model, that includes more uncertainty, for a wide variety of > reasons. > > > ----------- > > Eric P. Charles, Ph.D. > Department of Justice - Personnel Psychologist > > American University - Adjunct Instructor > > > > > > On Sat, Apr 18, 2020 at 12:17 PM uǝlƃ ☣ <[email protected]> wrote: > > I think it's interesting that you seemed to have *flipped* your thinking > within the same post. You restate my point about conceptual metaphors by > saying models/computation merely *justifies* decisions/rhetoric. Then a few > paragraphs later, you suggest that's conflating language with thought. > > My diatribe to Nick was that he *uses* metaphors/models simply to impute > his conceptual structure onto Nate. Nick's decision is already made and he > wants Nate's work to justify it. And the way he *imputes* his conceptual > structure into Nate's work is through the sloppy use of metaphor. Then when > Nate tells Nick (indirectly) that Nick's wrong about what Nate's done, Nick > rejects Nate's objection. > > I'm picking on Nick, of course. We all do it. I wish we all did it much > less. > > On 4/18/20 6:14 AM, Steven A Smith wrote: > > But frankly as often as not, I saw > > them use our work to *justify* the decision they had already made or > > were leaning heavily toward, *apparently* based on larger strategic > > biases. > > > > [...] > > > > As for your gut-level (and often well articulated) mistrust of > > "metaphorical thinking", you may conflate a belief (such as mine) that > > language is metaphorical at it's base with being a "metaphorical > > thinker". Metaphor gets a bad rap/rep perhaps because of the > > "metaphorical license" often taken in creative arts (albeit for a > > different and possibly higher purpose). > > -- > ☣ uǝlƃ > > .-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... > .... . ... > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > > .-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... > .... . ... > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >
.-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... .... . ... FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
