This comment says it better than I could. The debate was a disaster for Biden. Which sucks.

ITT: People not understanding probabilistic forecasts.

Nate Silvers models are not perfect, but pretty close. You can do retro analysis on them to see. If someone with a 5% chance to win actually does win, that doesn't mean the model was wrong... That just needs to actually happen only 5% of the time.

Getting elections"wrong" as people are talking about here shows they don't really know how these models work. If you haven't looked at the retrospective analysis on these results, then you are likely unqualified to declare that they are useless or wrong.

Saying polls are garbage is a straight bad take. The differentiation between polls is immense, and people treat them like they are just one thing.

They do adjust, and if you don't know that I'm not likely to believe you have the knowledge to say they are bad.

Polls are still very indicative. Democrats are not magically beating them by 9 points. That's just flatly untrue, unless you are just rolling every poll together with no regard for methodology, funding source, sample size, or track record.

Starting with a declaimer of being fairly far left...

Biden is not looking like he has a winning chance. He's barely leading in national polls, but those polls are misleading, as, because of the senate, democrats typically need to win by 2.5-3 points in order to have a shot at the electoral college. So he's behind there.

He's behind in several key states where he needs to win. If you count states where he's down 2 points or less, he BARELY has enough to win. Can't miss a single state.

The debate hurt Biden. This is not a logical contest, it's a popularity one, and Biden is not doing well. I think he's done some great policy things, but that's not how people vote. Democrats have to learn that it's not enough to be "right" if you're going to lose elections.

There is a sizeable gap between "beyond a reasonable doubt" in terms of a very specific law, and things that are gross/immoral.

People keep questioning the timeline as a defense... They might not have known until 2020. It's normally against internal company policies to just look through people's DMs. It's not like someone's job is to rifle through them. They probably were made aware of it, and then took action.

That's speculation on my part, but if Twitch sat on it for 3 years, shame on them too, but that doesn't so shit for this guy. It was still not ok.

The monetary incentive was to pay out his contract so they didn't have a VERY public story about a VERY high profile streamer inappropriately messaging a minor with their service. That could be super damaging for Twitch. So they likely paid it out to try and bury the story.

Mountain Goats right?

I mean you're not entirely wrong, but you're a little wrong. Just because they added levels later doesn't mean you were correct... These games have road maps, and they don't quickly change gears. There's math and analytics that go into all of it.

I think you're stretching when you say "around a few people". There's more money in 10,000 people spending a bit than 10 spending a ton. It's a gradient. The top 10 spend a lot, but not enough to morph your road map for. Especially when the companies own multiple properties. Better to get them transitioned to a new game within your umbrella than disrupt the entire content road map.

There's also far worse stuff than that and way harsher criticisms. You're getting closer with the "changing the prices" bit, but it's even worse than that, imo.

It's the reason I left working at one of them as a data analyst. I'm not speaking in generalities or that interested in debating here... I know precisely how the calculations for these types of things are done because I used to be on the team that did them.

Not this game, but a different one. The whole industry operates very similarly.

Adding thousands of levels for 1 whale is unlikely to be profitable. That's a lot of development cost for content that likely won't be seen. Pointing to other games by the same studio is a much better idea if you can get them to make the transition.

I'm never sure how to approach crypto on these platforms, because it's rare to get a nuanced take.

I've moved past bitcoin to ethereum, I think it answers a lot of the criticisms.

I try not to get caught up on whether or not it's a currency, store of value, or most other definitions. I just approach it from, is it a good product?

I'm in the middle on things such as money laundering or criminal activity. On one hand, the ledger system makes it incredibly easy to trace back transactions if someone ever messes up. On the other it serves a similar function as cash except you don't have the physical weight, which is non trivial to transport. I know some criminals have to have used it successfully.

Crypto is hard. There's so many goddamn scams and stuff like NFTs that could be a good idea if they got the weight of enforcement, but there's no real enforcement mechanism. We have silly slips of paper that say whether we own things, I don't think it's a stretch to say we could make them digital with the right implementation. But those silly slips of paper hold the weight of law behind the. NFTs have no one to enforce anything, thus are useless.

I'm always afraid to open this up on this platform because there's so many non nuanced takes, and people writing just the same criticisms. I'm hoping to have a good discussion, and I'm open to other opinions on it. But I haven't found an argument that makes me think Ethereum is a problem or something to avoid. It's certainly risky, but I think that risk is justified to the level of which I hold it.

Totally agree with others about therapy. When I went, I used it as a sort of emotional dumping ground. My therapist helped me through some pieces but honestly listened a lot. I know the payment part of therapy is viewed negatively... I viewed it as a huge positive. I'm paying this person and so it doesn't have to be an equal conversation. If I need to vent for 45 minutes straight, I can do that, and they are compensated for that time.

In reality, I was doing the same thing to friends and family, but I'd only get 30% out at any given time, and so I just spread it around. Getting therapy helped me lessen the amount I needed to vent (some techniques help you work through things) and also have me a central location. It made me a far better husband and friend.

Happy Pride Month

Always worth noting whether these simulations are trying to predict the winner on election day or winner if the election were held today. It's often glossed over but it's wildly important to know to put the model into context.