Rebane's Ruminations

The Robots in Our Future

George Rebane

Has everyone been noticing that the news and commentaries have suddenly become inundated with stories of robots, new golden ages of man and machine, dystopias in which humans are redundant, and things bespeaking generally of the Singularity?  Also there is a new slate of AI cum robot movies about to be released that examine alternative futures (more here).  In my ongoing correspondences – yes, there is life beyond RR – a couple of these threads have been alive on-and-off for months.  They generally relate to the related harbingers of change and social disparity much discussed here, and recently expounded well in Tyler Cowen's Average is Over (2013), George Gilder's Knowledge and Power (2013), and Charles Murray's Coming Apart (2012),  As I opined to my correspondents,  ‘My strong belief is that if you cannot follow the arguments in those three essays, then you literally have no clue about what has been going on in America, and less where the country is going.’

(BTW, should you want to evaluate the import of any such works, just make note of their predictive power, both achieved and how they enable you to successfully anticipate what comes next.  This is also an especially quick way to judge ideologically based public policies that are always launched with strong predictions about their future benefits.  Back to robots.)

A correspondent pointed to the review of The Robots are Coming, the new book by John Lanchester reviewed in the London Review of Books.  In perusing Lanchester’s utopian vision of the coming society of man and machines, I was more than a bit miffed at how short-sighted (ignorant?) most of these writings are.  In my contribution to the exchange I launched into what for me is now becoming a familiar rant (edited for inclusion here) –

The problem with these technology-lite writers (besides being collectivists) is that they conceive of such smart AIs as coming to create a stable human/robot society.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  When machines reach near-human intelligence and can walk the streets with us, it will be but a short skip and a jump from the Singularity, after which all the rules will change to what we know not.  Lanchester’s contemplated reign of Pax Homo et Machina is a naïve wet dream, and doubly so as it also envisions a world with some centrally planned society having “alternative forms of ownership” that prescribe humans living in a la-la land of contemplative and creative bliss while robots clean our toilets and go to work as our proxies.  Light thinking on steroids.

Scattershots – 25feb15 (updated 26feb15)

George Rebane

FCC to make the Internet into another plodding government regulated utility.  If tomorrow’s vote goes as expected by the progressive Left, the rapidly innovative years of the World Wide Web will be over for all Americans.  The liberals’ dream of so-called ‘net neutrality’ will be achieved, sold to the true believers with the promotion of five prominent myths –

1. The internet has always been neutral;

2. Net Neutrality regulations are the only way to preserve an open internet;

3. Net Neutrality regulations improve broadband competition;

4. All prioritized network services are harmful to users;

5. Net Neutrality rules will make broadband cheaper and internet services like Netflix faster.

For anyone with even a smidgeon of knowledge about how the internet works and what motivates businesses, these pretensions are laughable.  Unfortunately, the truth on all counts is exactly the opposite, but the entire initiative for additional government takeover is based on the tried and true Saul Alinsky rules (q.v.).  The Mercatus Center at George Mason University gives a short and clear refutation of the matter here.

Robots will ultimately take your job, and give no guarantee to create another one that you can or are willing to do.  That realization is even reaching the high towers of learning at government funded MIT Artificial Intelligence Labs.  There a conclave of the country’s leading AI and robotics researchers meet monthly to discuss such matters.  Heretofore, they and other such groups have been regularly issuing the pabulum that ‘not to worry, technology’s advance will create at least as many new jobs as the old ones it makes redundant.’  Well, that considerable bit of fiction hasn’t proved to be true in the recent past, and will continue to contribute to systemic unemployment with every passing year.  But RR readers have known that for a long time now.

However, the advances in job eliminations are now proceeding at such a pace that it’s hard to keep putting out these agenda-driven dreams for public consumption, especially from those working in the field who still want to look at themselves in the mirror without blushing – “Experts rethink belief that tech always lifts employment as machines take on skills once thought uniquely human”.  The truth, as reported here, is that the mid-level jobs are disappearing most rapidly.  This leaves behind low-end jobs and more high-end jobs, but netting out to fewer jobs for humans as productivity continues to grow as shown in the nearby figure.  (more here)

'Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain' (updated 26feb15)

George Rebane

“I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America,” Giuliani said during the dinner at the 21 Club, a former Prohibition-era speakeasy in midtown Manhattan. “He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.” (Politico, 18feb15)

Mayor Giuliani’s recent remarks about President Obama’s character and values has caused a national kerfuffle on the Sunday talk shows that to me seems more than a bit silly.  The Mayor said that he didn’t believe Obama loved America in the way most Americans do because of his upbringing and the society in which he traveled.  He was brought up by parents and grandparents who were socialists and communists, and who evinced little love for our country.  And as an adult Obama was constantly exposed to and worked with people of similar sentiments (“God damn America!”, Rev Wright).  So his honor pulled that together as a picture that described the man in the attempt to explain away his unfortunate pronouncements and disastrous policies.

The lamestream, of course, went ballistic and even pulled in some mainstream Republicans to assure everyone that they never ever talk about personalities, but only the person’s policies.  Not only that, but it now appears that the politically correct way to deport oneself when discussing other people is to limit yourself to what they did or were supposed to have done.  To delve into what possibly made them do it has become a no-no.

Well, that’s not the way it was, and truth be told, is not even now.  But you have to be careful when you start trying to dig under a politician’s policies to discover what made him do it then, what he is doing now, and importantly, what he might do in the future with issues yet to be resolved.  Such studies, of course, have been the sum and stuff of analyzing the world's leaders and prominent people since age immemorial.  Humans are by their nature critters who seek to understand and organize their environment by constantly attributing cause – ‘why did he do it?’, ‘why might he do that next?’.  Nowhere is that endeavor more prevalent than in politics, and to hear politicians seriously deny that they ever abstract or talk about someone’s underlying personal traits confirms that when a politician’s mouth is open, he’s most likely lying.

So today, to point out that Obama’s murky past included heavy doses of anti-Americanism in his younger years is held by the Left as being out-of-bounds, prejudicial, and racist.  Today we should only judge him by his public policies, period.  Of course, that was not the case in the treatment of Bush2, Clinton, and other American leaders.  Tomes have been written over the centuries dissecting the personal lives, character, foibles, and values of prominent people to understand and explain their behavior.  Today the CIA and other security services develop and maintain extensive personality profiles on just about everyone in the public eye so that they can explain why they are doing what they do, and can predict what they may do in the future.  It would be utter foolishness not to devise such personality models of important people.  So why can we not explain to others the conclusions we have drawn about what in our opinion makes someone tick?

[26feb15 update]  Listening to comments by Ron Fournier of the National Journal on Fox this afternoon piqued an inquiry of our readership.  Fournier’s dissertation on Obama’s latest charitably labeled missteps jibed with much of what is reported these days.  Many of these missteps have been purposive policies and actions which the overwhelming fraction of Americans would agree have hurt our country.  But Fournier, like every other reporter and commentator today, since Giuliani’s famous statement, has hastened to add the obligatory political correctness that he wasn’t calling Obama unpatriotic.  No, no, no.

Well, I have not been accused of being politically correct, nor do I want to stand so accused in the future.  So I would ask Fournier, and more importantly the more conservative commentators on Fox (e.g. Krauthammer, Riley, Hayes, …), to present evidence that Obama is in fact a patriotic American.  Make two columns on a sheet of paper and title them ‘Unpatriotic Acts’ and ‘Patriotic Acts’.  The column of Unpatriotic Acts has been overfilled for some time now.  The question is – what would these politically correct commentators put in the other column to give evidence of Obama’s patriotism and give balance to the lists?

Predictions Derby – 22feb15

George Rebane

Evolution chases environment.

The last go around was Predictions Derby – 12feb15.

Chris Christie – Opens his PAC to raise funds for potential candidacy.  L =3, meaning that the probability he would do this now for a future announcement of candidacy is three times as high as the probability he would do it and then decide not to run.  This raises his prob of running from 0.500 to 0.750.

Jeb Bush – announces that Paul Wolfowitz, James Baker, and Tom Ridge will become his foreign policy advisory team, given that he’s a bit weak in that area, and that they would agree to have throw in with him in this capacity implies that the likelihood of this evidence supporting a future announcement to run is L = 5.  This raises his prob of running from 0.948 to 0.989.

Hillary Clinton – has had some bad press about the contributions to the Clinton Family Foundation from foreign donors that everyone except her and some diehard progressives consider as a conflict of interest (aka corruption).  After denials, the Foundation has announced a new policy for accepting donations that is supposed to solve this problem.  This just adds to the list of demerits that will impugn her candidacy should she announce.  This evidence weighs against her candidacy, and I give it the likelihood of L = 0.9 that reduces her probability of running from 0.808 to 0.791.

America's Dunkirk Foreign Policy

George Rebane

The only thing effectively led from behind is a retreat, for in that direction you are already properly positioned to lead.

In concert with President Obama’s just ended sideshow on “violent extremism” that once more diverts attention from our true enemy, John Kerry writes (here) that the solution to the global assault is really a jobs program for disaffected Muslim youth.  In the process the whole purpose is to convince America’s gruberized that “a more prosperous and safer future requires us to recognize that violent extremism can't be justified by resorting to religion.  No legitimate religious interpretation teaches adherents to commit unspeakable atrocities, such as razing villages or turning children into suicide bombers.  These are the heinous acts of individuals who distort religion to serve their criminal and barbaric cause.”

This is about as good a testament to hopeless denialism as can be fashioned.  In reality, the violent extremists (aka ragheads) are undeniably the most sincere, dedicated, and committed of faithful hordes that have ever gathered to spread and enforce their vision of Man serving God’s will.  The grievously useless idiots in Washington and elsewhere actually do believe that people will travel long distances to suffer privation, bleed, and give their lives for some gratuitous “criminal and barbaric cause”!  They also believe that such people will be persuaded to put down their weapons by some government jobs program in the Middle East.  Were that to be true, we would be witness to an historical shift in human nature, instead of a reprise and continuation of the war between Islam and the world of infidels it seeks to conquer and convert.

Islam divides the world into the ummah – the global community of Muslims – and infidels – the non-believers who must eventually either accept Allah or be dispatched.  As part of their missionary zeal, the Quran permits and encourages the use of taqiyya if it will advance Islam.  In the face of this our leaders are telling us that it is they who are the final word in interpreting the teachings of Muslim scripture and attendant historical commentaries like the Hadith and the more recent and widely influential writings of Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966).  Today the rekindling of Islam’s war on the west has been and continues to be preached throughout Islam by prominent clerics with followings in the millions.

Yet we in our capitals loudly deny the deep religious and spiritual influence that fundamental Islam has on bringing more and more young Muslims and converts to an epiphany that gives meaning to their lives and sets their course of action.  Designating these young men and women who enthusiastically place themselves in danger, suffer hardships, and willingly give their lives as common criminals and thugs is the height of contemporary western hubris and dangerous ignorance.

When Islamists amass into forces numbering in the tens of thousands (more?), who then conquer, hold and administer territories the size of sovereign nation-states on multiple continents, whose call attracts more tens of thousands from across the world while offering no riches but only relevance and deliverance, then history and reason dictate that they no longer can be labeled criminals and thugs to be dealt with the tools and institutions that our civil society has traditionally mobilized against such enemies.

We will be successful in countering fundamental Islam only when we recognize and respect its adherents in our midst and on the battlefield as a zealous and courageous people, completely dedicated to the teachings of their prophet and god, and willing to give their all in attaining the cosmic goal in which they believe and to which they are charged.  To deny the power of fundamental Islam and do less than that is to yield our principles, traditions, and values to a social order that to us is beyond words reprehensible and atrocious.

Governments’ Wall-to-wall Insanity

George Rebane

[This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary aired on 18 February 2015.]

It’s again hard to know where to start.  At the federal level the administration is tying itself in knots as report after report comes in of Islamic terrorists operating on multiple continents while becoming more united and coordinated.   Our leadership has no idea from what it is supposed to protect America and its allies.  Three European capitals suffer attacks from indigenous Muslims, and now ISIS operates freely on the shores of Tripoli, and demonstrates its reach with a video of its mass execution of 21 Egyptians for the capital crime of being Christians.

Everyone from the Danish prime minister to the pope regales against the jihadi organizations that are united in the global goal of Islamic supremacy.  Yes, even liberal commentators have started to identify the similarity between Nazi Germany’s goal of imposing racial supremacy to the Islamists’ goal of religious supremacy.  And in the White House we are going through contortions wordsmithing daily pronouncements that describe events without ever mentioning their Muslim perpetrators and Christian or Jewish victims.  According to our leaders we are at war with a tactic called terror that is being randomly practiced by unidentified criminal elements.  All the while the world laughs at us and then sadly shakes its head.  January 2017 cannot come quickly enough.

Sandbox - 16feb15

[Boy, do these sandboxes fill up fast!  Has anybody read the just published 'The Great Divide - Why Liberals and Conservatives will never, ever agree' by William D. Gairdner?  It seems that others are beginning to realize that we are beyond the tipping point and our polarization is irredeemable.  But then, longtime RR readers are aware of that observation of our body politic.  Nevertheless, it's always heartening to welcome more people who have come to understand and share the perception.]

The Minsk Summit (updated 20feb15)

George Rebane

“OK, OK, Poroshenko's a bit pissed that it didn’t exactly work out. 
But he did promise to behave, so c’mon guys, let’s stand
a bit closer to the big guy for the picture.”

[13feb15 update] "The Minsk accord ratifies a Russian satrapy in the Ukraine." (here)

[20feb15 update] Well, what'd I tell ya?

Predictions Derby – 12feb15

George Rebane

All evolution chases environment.

Some more news has come in the interval that warrants updating the probabilities that members of our Repub and Dem shortlists will declare their 2016 candidacies.  The updated histograms reflect the rationale given below.  (Please review tutorial here, and then participate with your own numbers which I'll incorporate into the graphs.  Thanks.)

Hillary Clinton – she has been reported to be mismanaging her campaign and staff, and has suffered some losses.  Although she doesn’t always know what she wants or is needed, the lady does have a temper.  I assess that the probability of this evidence given that she will declare or P(E|H) = 0.80 (since she is already so disposed), and the probability of this evidence given that she will bow out or P(E|-H) = 0.95 (having these histrionics has a higher chance of blowing her campaign machinery to an extent where she will take a pass).  Therefore L = 0.8/0.95 = 0.84, meaning her probability of declaring has gone down.

Democrat Other – given that we have only one real contender, and no convincing moves by Warren or Biden (the dufus with no chance), I ascribe that it is twice as likely as not that some other Democrat will declare their candidacy before the Dem convention, therefore L = 2.

Scott Walker – he opened his Iowa campaign office.  That takes money and commitment to people, which he would not do unless he had a good idea that he would run.  Therefore P(E|H) = 0.90, and P(E|-H) = 0.10, giving L = 0.9/0.1 = 9.

Jeb Bush – has begun distancing himself from Common Core the previous embrace of which started causing him a lot of grief with most conservatives.  Therefore P(E|H) = 0.60, and P(E|-H) = 0.33, giving L = 0.60/0.33 = 1.82.

Marco Rubio – has started hiring members of Romney’s former re-election team, and dialing for dollars from Romney’s cadre of funders.  Therefore P(E|H) = 0.90, and P(E|-H) = 0.15, giving L = 0.90/0.15 = 6.

Republican Other – The Repub field is already very crowded.  Since no one off the list of named contenders has made a significant peep, and all the named continue to make noises, I assess that it’s two to one against any other Republican rising to prominence as a contender.  Therefor L = ½ = 0.5.

The Muddled Middle – A revealing look (updated 11feb15)

George Rebane

The nonsense that truth and goodness lies in some romantic purple region between the Right and Left ideologies is an idea long contended in RR.  Here we have always advanced the notion that presenting clear and complete arguments from both sides is the sum and stuff of a working democracy.  In my 2012 post ‘The Muddled Middle’ I summarized the utility of such ‘polarized’ arguments –

Nothing will make it more clear to the dimly lit electorate than highlighting the differences as much as possible.  Everyone knows that the so-called center of the road is where the business-as-usual takes place which has gotten us to where we are, where all principle winds up as putrid roadkill.

In his How Not to be Wrong – The Power of Mathematical Thinking (2014) Jordan Ellenberg serves up a powerful graphic that documents how our current ideological spectrum divides itself on the Right/Left vs More/Less Informed plane (see figure).  The data points are generated from “a political survey taken by Public Policy Polling on December 15, 2011; there are one thousand dots, each representing a voter who responded to a twenty-three question poll. The position of a point on the left-right axis represents, well, left and right: people who said they supported President Obama, approved of the Democratic Party, and opposed the Tea Party tend to be on the left-hand side, while those who favored the GOP, disliked Harry Reid, and believed there is a “War on Christmas” are over on the right. The vertical axis stands roughly for “informedness”— voters toward the bottom of the graph tended to answer “don’t know” to more insidery questions like 'Do you approve or disapprove of the job [Senate Minority Leader ] Mitch McConnell is doing?” and to express little or no excitement about the 2012 presidential election.'"

Ruminations – 9feb15 (updated 16feb15)

George Rebane

Data homogenization is not an objective scientific process.

Recreational marijuana will be legalized across the country over the next several years.  RR is on record as a proponent of judicious progress in this direction.  Nevada County’s economy already enjoys a major contribution from the illegal RMJ that various estimates put above the $100M range annually.  Legalization will drastically change the local RMJ production industry, but our county’s political and economic development leadership continues to ignore the existential contribution of RMJ to our economy.  A better approach would be to recognize NC’s role as a major RMJ producer, and plan for the coming changeover as California is about legalize RMJ production.  NC should create an environment which will benefit the local economy as RMJ moves into prime time so as to attract commercial growers that will produce the weed in legal grows that contribute zero nuisance to established developed areas and generate taxable revenue to the benefit of all.  In today’s Union George Boardman makes a good case (here) for such preparations.  (Russ Steele has another take here on the impact of RMJ legalization on Nevada County's economy.  I contend his assessment that NC cannot support large commercial RMJ grows and processing to replace the current 'mom & pop' illegal producers.)

‘Those Left Behind’

George Rebane

[This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 5 February 2015.]

There is no doubt that America’s income and wage gaps are real, and everyone sees it as a social problem that should not be ignored.  Both the Right and Left agree on the reading of that data, but that is where the agreement ends.  The Left denounces the gaps as evidence of the country’s rich having robbed the poor through various open market stratagems and legal ‘loop holes’.  But it pays to remember that the so-called loop holes are just the artifacts in complex laws carelessly crafted, and often by not very bright people.

We hear a lot about the ‘productivity conundrum’ – why have wages not risen with increasing productivity.  A little thought reveals that this is not a conundrum.  Rapid technical advances have created machines and methods that can do very complex things faster, cheaper, and with fewer people than before.  So the cost of doing and making stuff has gone down along with increased layoffs of the resulting redundant workers.  That leaves the fewer highly paid workers and a lot of low paid workers not yet displaced.  Therefore productivity goes up while the median wage goes down.  You can work this out for yourself on the back of an envelope.

What really is happening is that capital is replacing labor to provide everyone with better and cheaper goods and services, and today this process has no peaceful end in sight.  It will end only with riot, revolution, or a mindful restructuring of our economy.  President Obama’s ‘middle class economy’ is not one that can afford to transfer enough wealth to those being left behind and still improve everyone’s quality of life.  Demogauging himself as a populist Robin Hood will ultimately pauper all but a small autocratic elite who will then rule by the gun.

Here we have been talking about the growth of America’s systemic unemployment that is quietly confirmed by the increasing number of the permanently unemployed and those participating in the workforce.  All the while we are told to keep our eye on that dodgy unemployment rate.

Sandbox - 5feb15

[As a heads up, the transcript of my KVMR commentary this week is entitled 'Those Left Behind' and will post around 6pm.  Its focus is Obama's budget and the wage/wealth gap, so if you want to hold your fire on that until you can post comments under a relevant topic.  Thanks. gjr]

Prediction Derby_4feb15

George Rebane

Well, let me kick things off with a quick take on a couple of Republican and one Democrat politicians.  Hopefully, these can also serve as examples that invite other readers to offer their own updates in the Prediction Derby comment streams.

Scott Walker update – given all his activities in the recent past that now adds his going after Romney’s former contributors, I judge that a this behavior is at least 20 times more likely of someone preparing to declare his candidacy, rather than just sticking his toe in the water and planning to pull out later.  Hence, here L=20 will be used in today’s update.  This updates the prior probability of 0.5 to 0.95 = 20*0.5/(20*0.5 + 1 – 0.5) that Walker will declare his candidacy.  (See the pdf download here for the source of the update formula.)

Jeb Bush update – given all his activities in the recent past, and current money raising efforts, he is now defending that, if he runs, he would be running on his own accomplishments, and not building Bush3 on the shoulders of Bush2 and Bush1.  In light of Romney’s pulling out after similar work to recreate his name and attract big money contributors, I assess the likelihood for this recent evidence as L = 10, that is the chances he would be blowing his own horn now are ten times as high as if he would be doing this as a candidate ready to pull out of the race.  This updates his prior probability of 0.5 to 0.91 = 10*0.5/(10*0.5 + 1 – 0.5) that Jeb will declare his candidacy.

Hillary Clinton update – given that she has been obviously preparing herself ever since she resigned as SecState, and her recent announcement that she will delay her decision to run until later toward summer in order to let the Republican dust settle, I give her likelihood for the sum of this evidence as L = 5.  She is still being too careful and looks like she knows some yet to be disclosed hard knocks are coming her way that the Repubs will not unleash until she commits to a candidacy.  This updates her prior probability of 0.5 to 0.83 = 5*0.5/(5*0.5 + 1 – 0.5) that Hillary will declare her candidacy.

The updated charts are below.

 

Predictions Derby – Candidates, Nominees, and Next President (Part1)

George Rebane

[I've been noodling doing a 'predictions derby' on RR since last summer as potential candidates started making noises about running in 2016, even before the 2014 mid-terms were held.  If it worked, then the 'derby' would be held in three parts - who will be the declared candidates going into the conventions, who will be nominated, and who will win in Nov 2016.  The output of this exercise would be periodic outputs of bar charts of probabilities (see below) that would be updated as new happenings took place and new evidence came in.  Interested readers would evaluate such information that I would then aggregate in a Bayesian update formulation to post the new bar charts. 

I have no idea how this will turn out with respect to reader interest and the work to track such political happenings; but since we track and comment on them anyway, I thought summarizing our collective take in an evolving graphical format would be interesting.  I wrote the piece below last summer; and you should probably download it if you want to play.  Note the bar charts start out at 0.5 probabilities for each potential but undeclared candidate.  This shows that before considering evidence, we are 50-50 ignorant about whether they will run or not.]

Ever since Nate Silver became a phenom prognosticator of some renown (The Signal and the Noise), I’ve considered starting a prognostication feature on RR that involves its readership.  The methodology will be based on the Bayesian inference techniques on which I have reported before (search RR for ‘Bayes’).  While Silver’s book is primarily a self-promotion that claims to explain his methodology but doesn’t, RR readers following my explication of Bayesian inference will be able to develop and use the methodology for countless purposes in their own private and commercial affairs.  Look at it as part of the service ;-)

What really tipped my decision to give this a try on RR was twofold – Silver’s disastrous performance at the FIFA World Cup predicting Brazil’s defeat of Germany (at around 0.68), and some ideas for commercial applications.  But the already ferocious political maneuvering by both parties preparing candidates for the 2016 elections was the real clincher to motivate the development of a participative predictions process (think of it also as ‘crowd sourcing’ and integration of evidence).  So I started to push some squigglies with Bayes theorem and came up with an easily understood formula that should provide some entertainment, and that also has a rigorous decision theoretic basis – that is, it’s not just idle fun.

The idea here is to predict who will run, and then who will be nominated as each party’s presidential candidate.  If there is enough interest, I’ll extend the methodology to predict our next president.  And all of this will be done by computing and updating our ‘collective’ beliefs about the future.  The measure of belief is the probability that something yet unknown will come true.  Belief calculations are based on a combination of hard probabilistic data, and subjective assessments all brought together under the celebrated formalism discovered long ago by the good Reverend Bayes (and rediscovered about 50 years ago when the methodology really took off).

So how will it work?  Let’s discuss the ‘hat into the ring’ predictions first.  We can all come up with a list of potential candidates from each party and add to the list an ‘Other’ candidate.  The fundamental Bayes approach takes a prior chance, odds, or probability, and combines it with recent evidence to calculate an updated or posterior chance, odds, or probability that now reflects the latest evidence.  The prior probability summarizes all the knowledge we had about each candidate’s propensity to throw their hat in the ring.  And incorporating the latest evidence (news report, stump statement, lurid revelation, etc) will yield the updated posterior probability that again incorporates and summarizes all the previous knowledge we have about each candidate in the context of the hypothesis ‘s/he will throw his/her hat in the ring’.  You can visualize the result as being a histogram with each bar labeled with a potential candidate’s name and having a height from zero to one.  As time goes on, the bars will get taller and shorter, and some may appear while others are removed.

Everyone can bring evidence to the table and give his assessment of that evidence in how it impacts each candidate being tracked.  We may debate the assessment as others refute/modify it, but I will be the final arbiter because, well dammit, it’s my blog (so there).  But so as not to unreasonably piss off anyone, I will always do my best to found my adjudication.  In any case, as opposed to Silver’s close-to-the-chest methodology, here you can refuse to accept the RR prediction and run a parallel one yourself, and show us all up.

[to continue reading this piece Download Predictions Derby]