When will this shit end?

[Matt42]

3 minutes ago, Losing my hair said:

That's not really an answer to my question is it?

It’s not - but my point is that data lulls you into a false sense of security. 

This fight isn’t over until it’s over. I have a feeling how this election is going to turn out and it’s not going to be pretty. I can see trumps strategy and I can see how it can undercut Biden.

[stuartbert two hats]

 

 

[Toilet Duck]

9 minutes ago, Losing my hair said:

As with all first past the post elections the result will be decided in a few swing states (as in the UK with marginal constituencies). In 2016 Trump manged to narrowly win in  Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and he will need to hold on to these to win. Biden, on the other hand, needs to win back those states along with states like Florida, Arizona, maybe Texas and N Carolina and hang on to marginals like Minnesota and New Hampshire.

To portray it as a fight between urban and rural is naive; it's much more nuanced than that. At this stage the polls mean little and as Trump showed in 2016 it's possible to lose the popular vote but still win.

I do agree, obviously race, religion, socio-economic factors, sexual orientation and a whole bunch of other things factor in, but Geography is a part of it (or maybe a reflection of the other things, which makes it a useful proxy). The map from Obama’s victory in 2012 looks pretty similar! 

[Matt42]

2 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

The problem is, @Matt42, you don't trust the data out there, favouring your gut, so there's absolutely no point pulling out polling data, because you refuse to become familiar enough with it to be able to assess its validity in a given situation. You saw it being "wrong" in the last election so don't care to look at them at all.

right let me just come clean.
 

I don’t trust the data sorry. Yes that might make me a mad conspiracy theorist but I can see a pattern in how politics is reported. It started with Cameron’s election in the U.K., and I’ve seen it appear in every election since.

The side popular with the left leaning media (remain, Hilary, Corbyn, etc) does dominate most of the media we consume. Brexit, Trump, Boris etc - typically a lot of people who support this don’t want to voice that they do. I’m sorry that all I have to base this on is my gut but I really think this is something we have to be aware of going forward.

If you went into your work and said you loved Boris and voted Trump what kind of response would you get? It’s not popular to voice your support for these people. I think we need to be a bit smarter and admit this.

Long story short I’m a lefty that’s sick of losing and I think we need to work harder on understanding who we are up against. I’ve fallen for this “Biden is leading, everyone is a progressive” stick too many times.

I think we need to acknowledge the opposition more. I find the approach the left typically has is that they like to just scrub the opposition out, stick their fingers in their ears, and say la la la they don’t exist.

I’m sick of us falling for the same shit every time 😂 I’d rather take the approach going forward that trump is deffo going to win and we need to fight harder to make it not so. Rather than claim victory right out the gate.

[stuartbert two hats]

3 minutes ago, Matt42 said:

right let me just come clean.
 

I don’t trust the data sorry. Yes that might make me a mad conspiracy theorist but I can see a pattern in how politics is reported. It started with Cameron’s election in the U.K., and I’ve seen it appear in every election since.

The side popular with the left leaning media (remain, Hilary, Corbyn, etc) does dominate most of the media we consume. Brexit, Trump, Boris etc - typically a lot of people who support this don’t want to voice that they do. I’m sorry that all I have to base this on is my gut but I really think this is something we have to be aware of going forward.

If you went into your work and said you loved Boris and voted Trump what kind of response would you get? It’s not popular to voice your support for these people. I think we need to be a bit smarter and admit this.

Long story short I’m a lefty that’s sick of losing and I think we need to work harder on understanding who we are up against. I’ve fallen for this “Biden is leading, everyone is a progressive” stick too many times.

I think we need to acknowledge the opposition more. I find the approach the left typically has is that they like to just scrub the opposition out, stick their fingers in their ears, and say la la la they don’t exist.

I’m sick of us falling for the same shit every time 😂 I’d rather take the approach going forward that trump is deffo going to win and we need to fight harder to make it not so. Rather than claim victory right out the gate.

That's not really coming clean, we know that's your view. I would urge a more empirical approach to why you've had unmet expectations. Take a closer look at the data, learn more about statistics and probability.  

By all means to talk to those on the other side and listen to their concerns, but don't start rejecting quantitative information just because it throws up a couple of counter-intuititive results.

[Toilet Duck]

2 minutes ago, Matt42 said:

right let me just come clean.
 

I don’t trust the data sorry. Yes that might make me a mad conspiracy theorist but I can see a pattern in how politics is reported. It started with Cameron’s election in the U.K., and I’ve seen it appear in every election since.

The side popular with the left leaning media (remain, Hilary, Corbyn, etc) does dominate most of the media we consume. Brexit, Trump, Boris etc - typically a lot of people who support this don’t want to voice that they do. I’m sorry that all I have to base this on is my gut but I really think this is something we have to be aware of going forward.

If you went into your work and said you loved Boris and voted Trump what kind of response would you get? It’s not popular to voice your support for these people. I think we need to be a bit smarter and admit this.

Long story short I’m a lefty that’s sick of losing and I think we need to work harder on understanding who we are up against. I’ve fallen for this “Biden is leading, everyone is a progressive” stick too many times.

I think we need to acknowledge the opposition more. I find the approach the left typically has is that they like to just scrub the opposition out, stick their fingers in their ears, and say la la la they don’t exist.

I’m sick of us falling for the same shit every time 😂 I’d rather take the approach going forward that trump is deffo going to win and we need to fight harder to make it not so. Rather than claim victory right out the gate.

I think this works the other way too Matt, there’s just as many (maybe more) places where voicing that you voted for Clinton, Corbyn, Remain etc would be as uncomfortable as you saying you voted for Boris, Trump, Leave in the circles you are moving in. Hence the polling tries to get a representative sample (where it’s no stigma to admit voting one way or another). 

[Matt42]

1 minute ago, stuartbert two hats said:

That's not really coming clean, we know that's your view. I would urge a more empirical approach to why you've had unmet expectations. Take a closer look at the data, learn more about statistics and probability.  

By all means to talk to those on the other side and listen to their concerns, but don't start rejecting quantitative information just because it throws up a couple of counter-intuititive results.

Yeah I guess. I have extended family which are very much over in the republican camp so I hear their arguments quite a lot. My fear is that they aren’t alone and their views are not platformed (for obvious reasons).

All these nuts views you hear from trump voters - there’s someone I can physically point to which believes in this stuff so it feels very real to me.

[steviewevie]

29 minutes ago, Matt42 said:

Yeah I guess. I have extended family which are very much over in the republican camp so I hear their arguments quite a lot. My fear is that they aren’t alone and their views are not platformed (for obvious reasons).

All these nuts views you hear from trump voters - there’s someone I can physically point to which believes in this stuff so it feels very real to me.

yeah...there is still a hec of a lot of people over there who think Trump is great. But, enough of them to win him another 4 years?

[Toilet Duck]

27 minutes ago, Matt42 said:

Yeah I guess. I have extended family which are very much over in the republican camp so I hear their arguments quite a lot. My fear is that they aren’t alone and their views are not platformed (for obvious reasons).

All these nuts views you hear from trump voters - there’s someone I can physically point to which believes in this stuff so it feels very real to me.

Me too, our family in the US are all Republicans and voted for Trump (and will do again). 

[DeanoL]

For this idea that America is almost completely Republican and that the polls are lying to make sense, we have to explain what has changed in the past ten years since they elected a black democrat as President twice in a row. That’s not made up polling, that happened. 

This isn’t the UK where the Tories have won four times in a row.

Edited September 5, 2020 by DeanoL

[Matt42]

7 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

For this idea that America is almost completely Republican and that the polls are lying to make sense, we have to explain what has changed in the past ten years since they elected a black democrat as President twice in a row. That’s not made up polling, that happened. 

This isn’t the UK where the Tories have won four times in a row.

Weak republican candidates.

According to my small sample group trump is a president they’ve been crying out for since Bush.

[SwedgeAntilles]

1 hour ago, Matt42 said:

how can people look at that and still argue that the democrats don’t have an extremely concentrated vote base and how can they argue that most Americans aren’t typically republican 😂

 

These maps aren't particularly helpful though, it's the same with Scotland at the moment. Based on land mass alone it would look like the anti independence vote was on about 75%, but - like in the map you've quoted - those bits in blue tend to have far greater population density. So yeah these kinda maps are striking but they're not something to draw conclusions from. 

[Zoo Music Girl]

2 hours ago, Matt42 said:

How can it be a conspiracy when this keeps happening? Would any publication in America seriously want to publish a poll which shows trump leading? 

Yes, especially on the left, as it will encourage the vote out against him.

 

[SwedgeAntilles]

I should say @Matt42 that I completely understand your position on this. I may be further to the left than you have described yourself but were still fighting against the same thing. The last few years have been utterly exhausting and dispiriting for all of us on the left/centre left. This resignation to another Trump victory is completely natural given recent history and the state of the world today. 

I said earlier I slept through the last US election but what I didnt mention was that I ended up phoning a sickie that day (I've long since left that job so I think I'm fine admitting that now). It really hit me hard. It seems daft to say that given I have absolutely no connection with America whatsoever but combined with losing the indy ref in 2014 and the Brexit vote in 2016 it was just the straw that broke the camel's back. I kinda lost faith with humanity that day.

But recently I'm trying to be more optimistic. I think one of the ways pricks like Trump, Johnson their the acolytes thrive is by convincing the rest of us there's an inevitability to their victories. That's its not even worth fighting. That is not even worth hoping for something else. I think we should fight against that, even if it's what our brains are telling us will happen. 

Personally I'm with @Homer in saying it's too close to call at the moment. And while I'm far from a Biden fan I'm going to step the next 8 weeks or so hoping he can get the job done.

tl;dr - don't let the man get you down

[Matt42]

@SwedgeAntilles thank you - I just feel like when it comes to any election or referendum I expect the worst. I find that they’ve all followed the same cycle. usually the first part of that cycle is polls and media coming out strong for the left candidate and then Election Day being a totally different story.

Poland as well hasn’t given me much hope either. It seems like the right wing parties in the west are on a bit of a winning streak.

[MEGABOWL]

5 hours ago, Toilet Duck said:

There’s two things really going on here, one is the sensitivity of PCR and the other is whether the test as it currently is can accurately quantify viral load. The sensitivity is an issue and could indeed pick up dead viral fragments or contamination. As it happens, it’s something I raised with the head of our diagnostics solutions group here in Ireland, since discharges from hospital were taking weeks past symptoms fading, but required two consecutive negative tests. Patients were still on COVID wards, surrounded by other patients shedding tons of virus, so I asked him if anyone had been moved to a single room to convalesce once symptoms disappeared and if they ended up he discharged quicker. He agreed that it was a worry, but there wasn’t the bed space to organise in such a way. So, yes, the test is super sensitive and there can be lots of positive results that may not be infectious...the second part is where the criticism levelled is by those that don’t really understand how PCR works. It’s basically a qualitative assay (yes/no), at best, semi-quantitative (which is where these CT values come in). They do give an indication of how much viral RNA is there, but only relative to something else. Input has a huge impact on the CT value, so unless every sample is collected in exactly the same way, it’s impossible to compare them to each other. There have been many studies (long before coronavirus) to see if CT values can accurately measure viral load, and most have concluded you can’t (those that show a correlation were smaller studies with the same person/centre collecting all samples  the same way). 
 

so, basically, yes, the test is too sensitive for the next phase of our management of this, but no, testing centres haven’t been deliberately not telling people whether they are infectious or not. The new rapid tests are only starting to get approval, so, testing was using the best we had available, but we can now start to shift the question we are asking from “infected?” to “infectious?”...the caveat being we don’t have a clear idea of how much virus makes you infectious!

I didn’t say it was deliberate, I just said the Lab referenced was recording the Quantitative numbers but nobody had requested them. It’s indicative of a certain lack of nimbleness on the part of the Authorities IMO.

[zahidf]

2 hours ago, Matt42 said:

My prediction is that trump will win as much, or a few more states than he did in 2016. He will keep major ones that Hilary lost, and Biden will probably win the popular vote by increasing democrat votes in democrat states.

I don’t think there will be a trump landslide, explaining it as “walking it” is probably unfair on my part. I think Trump will basically lose none of his core base - and most who voted trump in 2016 will vote for him again.

Everyone will be reminded that the majority of America is filled with patriotic, gun owning, socialist hating citizens. The democrats again will be scratching their head why these people don’t want to vote for them.

Nah less of his base around 

And hes losing the indepenents he won last time

 

I dont understand where you think hes INCREASING his vote 

 

 

[fatyeti24]

27 minutes ago, Matt42 said:

@SwedgeAntilles thank you - I just feel like when it comes to any election or referendum I expect the worst. I find that they’ve all followed the same cycle. usually the first part of that cycle is polls and media coming out strong for the left candidate and then Election Day being a totally different story.

Poland as well hasn’t given me much hope either. It seems like the right wing parties in the west are on a bit of a winning streak.

I get exactly where you're coming from.  I have become almost fatalist over the last few years, which I'm sure I never used to be.  I'd still be surprised to see anything but a Trump victory, but that's because I rely on vibes rather then data.  I find the analysis of those on here who do study the data to be somewhat reassuring.

I do recall after the 2010 election having a good old whinge about the only difference between those who ruled over us was the colour of the tie that winner was wearing around his neck.  They all seemed so similar.  If only I knew what was to come!  I fully accept all responsibility for what has happened around the world since.  If I live by the vibes, I must also die by the vibes - that's how the juju works.

[zahidf]

GET HIM JOE

 

[zahidf]

Oh FFS

 

[CaledonianGonzo]

Aha haha

Clicked into this thread expecting to see that. Him and Carol Decker off of T'Pau.

[ace56blaa]

7 minutes ago, zahidf said:

Oh FFS

 

Ring a Ring o' stone roses
a pocket full of posies
(a tissue, a tissue) 
we all fall down

[Euphoricape]

15 minutes ago, zahidf said:

Oh FFS

 

"Sometimes I,  fantasise..."

[CaledonianGonzo]

No income tax, no guarantee 

[ace56blaa]

Cases at 1813, today so a little down. But the gov data website is all over the place today again.