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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022

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Might arguing with opposing alter egos of yourself make for rhetorically compelling reading for issues relating to the culture war or otherwise?

Nate Silver, of the political analysis publication 538, recently posted two articles ahead of the US midterms:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-case-for-a-republican-sweep-on-election-night/

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-case-for-a-democratic-surprise-on-election-night/

The articles were formatted as transcripts of imaginary conversations between the author and "Nate Redd", his Republican alter ego, and then the author and "Nate Bleu", the Democratic version. Both alter egos suffer from prejudiced priors in favor of their political leanings, whereas the author, a Silver (which coincidentally might approximate gray?!) tribe spokesman, is presumed rational.

I'm sure partisans can pick apart plenty of issues big and small from their preferred versions, and I personally thought the Democratic version was substantially better written, and you can decipher what that might reveal about Silver's social circles and private beliefs (or mine, especially if you disagree with my take). Still, on the whole, I found the rhetorical exercise to be a productive deconstruction and rendition of how the average politically engaged reader thinks. The conversational format makes it easier to digest for the masses. It also has the bonus of being funnier, in particular in the Dem version where Silver took plenty of shots in poking fun of Mr. Bleu.

Back to my original question. Should more nonpartisan or rational bloggers/essayists/substack writers attempt something akin to this format every so often as they try to advance sophisticated takes on controversial subjects?

Disappointed by the ending of the dialogue with Mr redd. Nate should have proposed a bet at 2:1 odds. Given their stated beliefs that should have satisfied them both.

Feels like Nate is a bit allergic to actually putting money down on his model's predictions since that might actually put him at risk.

I think Nate Silver is effectively betting on his predictions, since the only reason his website gets any attention (and therefore makes money) is if his predictions are well calibrated. This isn't always perfect (he got a lot of flak for 2016, based on the mistakes of other people that he deliberately avoided, for example) but I think it's reasonably close.

Yes but the political events are sufficiently spaced & he's now got sufficient capture of the audience that there's no real advantage to him in putting his status to any real test.

Add on the fact that he gets maximum attention in closely contested elections, which is to say the ones that are toss ups, and it is pretty easy to nudge your model to make a race look more like a tossup than it actually is, and pretty easy, afterwards, to argue that the outcome was "always in doubt." If he doesn't stand to lose money on the outcome, then he can get away with this indefinitely.

It begins to look like he's not necessarily adding much clarity to the world despite getting much so much attention.