If you are one of the people who criticise prediction markets on their accuracy in forecasting the Brazilian election, I have a question for you:
What should Lula's odds have been before voting started in Brazil?
Should it have been 50.1%?
Maybe 100%, because the universe is deterministic and Lula ended up winning?
Clearly I'm being facetious, but here are the facts:
- Bolsonaro won round 1 by a significant margin, and the split was expected to favour him over Lula.
- This is the first time a candidate who lost in round 1 managed to win in round 2 in Brazils history, in all 7 earlier presidential elections the winner of round 1 went on to win.
Bolosnaro was clearly the favorite. But should he have been 60% instead of 80%? Maybe 70%? Based on what? These are questions you have to answer if you are going to talk about prediction market odds being wrong about the Brazil election!
How are they theoretically findable? How could you possibly get this information? Even if you went out of your way and you personally did door to door knocking in Brazil—a very impractical thing to do, you are going to have a very significant margin of error.
You would then find it very useful to come up with a probabilistic forecast like 'Lula has a 30% chance of winning the election'. And you would have a hard time accounting for corruption, things like voting being extended by two hours a couple minutes before it was supposed to close, and only in certain locations.
This is not different from sports! The main difference is that sports is more knowable than elections, it's much more of a 'solved game'.
people comparing this to sports or poker or dice are dumb. elections aren't pure random draws. they just compress collective attitutes into a single vote.
the facts that would crystallize in the outcome were knowable before. they were theoretically findable, and there was a big incentive to find them. yet no one did.
decap retweeted
כל המשפחה שלי ביביסטית, שכנעתי אותם בארוחת שבת להצביע למשותפת. כמעט - הסבתא שמצביעה בן גביר תצביע לרע"מ.
Unfortunately the very first comment I see on /r/Jordan after seeing your tweet is theorising about Mossad.
But on a more positive note, it is total condemnation as far as I can see.
I wish everyone who isn't an Arabic speaker could see the posts and comments from Muslims in Palestine and Jordan regarding the terror attack on the church. It is honestly heartwarming: it's all condemnation and demands to look at how ideology uses religion to massacre innocents. No conspiracy theories, no attempts to blame "Mossad," the "US," etc.
On the other hand, it is depressing seeing the discourse in English.
decap retweeted
So this guy's country went to shit because Arabs struggle to settle political differences amicably, so the West generously allows him in, and he spends his time here advocating for medieval sharia punishments, including execution for blasphemy. What a great benefit to our society!
Question for this idiot: should we execute apostates in Canada and America too? If he says, "No it's not a Muslim land." What if Muslims were the demographic majority via immigration? What then?
How are these people being given visas to visit America? What is he doing in NYC? Just deport him back to Toronto already.
There are people right now in universities studying accounting who won’t graduate for another 4 years. Harrowing to think about.
decap retweeted
I have now made this same bet at 1:4 odds with @_decap. I've put up $7500 against his $30,000.
I have now bet @GregHBurnham at 1:3 odds that P vs NP or the Riemann Hypothesis will be solved within a year (EOD 2027-09-17).
So what you’re saying is that they’re fungible biomass? Interesting.
Israelis love to ask what Haredim contribute.
Let's take a look at Nof HaGalil.
Over the past two decades, the city has undergone a major demographic shift. Its Arab population has grown substantially, while many younger secular Jews have left.
Now the city is looking to Haredim to help restore the demographic balance.
