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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   25898 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 4, 2025

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If you know an estimator is consistently high, you can account for that in your planning.

If the estimator knows that they're consistently high, why aren't they adjusting the model they're using to produce estimates with to account for that?

If the estimator is wrong consistently but in a predictable way... they should be able to be wrong less often?

When I say "account for that in planning", I don't mean you adjust your forecasts downward X% from the report because they always overestimate by the same margin. Consistently high is not the same thing as 'always high' or 'consistently high by the same amount'. It just means that on average the estimator is greater than the true value (or, really, the quick estimate tends to be higher than the slow estimate).

If the estimator is wrong consistently but in a predictable way... they should be able to be wrong less often?

Not necessarily. Estimation is always dealing with real world constraints liked limited resources and time frame for gathering and analyzing data, sampling bias, unknown unknowns, etc...

I encourage you to read the Nate Silver article I linked. He talks about this significantly more articulately than I can.

I am somewhat familiar with Nate Silver's approach to modelling and prediction.

And I'll reiterate the general critique.

If you damn well know your model is going to be inaccurate, include error bars, express how much irreducible uncertainty there is. At least acknowledge that the number is most likely incorrect and is subject to large revisions, downplay confidence.

Actually, it looks like they DO have that option on display and HOLY CRAP the bars are really large on some of these.

Maybe its not a particularly useful estimate if businesses are looking for something something reliable to act upon.

Do you want to be the guy in the office who adds in the unprincipled empirical fudge factor to a statutorily mandated report? The verbs in 29 USC 2 are “collect, collate, report, and publish”, nowhere does it say “estimate”, “calculate”, or “determine”.

I'd be the guy in the office suggesting "hey we can publish the report, and show both the standard estimate and the estimate with the empirical fudge factor side-by-side so its clear we're not hiding the ball."

At least in this case I think there is an added political dimension of reluctance to update the model: "You were happy enough to overestimate [measurement] for my opponent last term, and now you want to publish lower estimates, maybe even underestimates on my watch. Are you trying to display partisan bias?"

In addition to the value of "we've at least measured it consistently for the last century, even if there are known issues with it it's easier to fix those in post", which also has some value.

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