But he kind of sucks and isn’t worth following.

He’s a sellout at heart, including his recent association with Polymarket.

Someone cool would have never sold out a website as good as 538 used to be. Now he’s more interested in profiting off of gamblers.

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derektank 25 days ago | parent | next [-]

538 has basically always been a licensed product, first with the NYT in 2010, and then with ESPN/ABC/Disney since they left the NYT in 2013. There were only 2 years where it was an independent blog

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yieldcrv 25 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

538 got one election right a decade and a half ago with a contrarian alternative data source, and hooked a bunch of partisan gamblers since

now you can actually bet on your beliefs and dont need to debate with anyone on whether the koolaid colored wave of choice will actually happen, or whether you are a slave to an algorithm induced hall of mirrors. note, the senate has been 50-50 for over a decade, its probably the latter

so the only intervention necessary here is on yourself, focusing on things you cant control while delusionally thinking this time will be different, over and over and over again

extracting value from partisan gullibility and pathetic power struggles is unironically the move

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ownlife 24 days ago | parent | next [-]

There's no "getting elections right"; these models just estimate probability. They gave Trump a 29% change in 2016 -- that's almost 1 in 3!

A better way to assess accuracy would be to bin predictions (0-10% chance, 10-20% chance, etc.) and see if the observed frequency aligns with the predictions.

	▲	yieldcrv 24 days ago \| parent [-]
		I like market based approaches as a signal and opportunity creation, price discovery In parallel your signal could be a data source adding to individuals contribution to price discovery

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stackghost 25 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Pretty sure the only election that 538 didn't correctly call was 2016. For sure they correctly predicted both Obama wins and Biden.

	▲	owisd 25 days ago \| parent [-]
		They don't really 'call' elections since they only publish probabilities. If you'd bet on the candidate 538/Silver was more bullish than the bookies, then the only election year you wouldn't have made money would have been 2024.

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jimbokun 25 days ago | parent | prev [-]

You do realize the person responsible for 538 is the same person?

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fragmede 25 days ago | parent | next [-]

People change over time. The Nate Silver of 2026 isn't the same Nate Silver of 2010 or 2013.

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furyofantares 25 days ago | parent | next [-]

That's a funny response in the context of "Now he’s more interested in profiting off of gamblers" given I remember posting with him on the 2+2 forums in the early aughts poker boom days where he was a popular poster teaching a lot of people how to profit off gamblers.

	▲	matltc 25 days ago \| parent [-]
		2+2 is great. Still go check on casino megathreads if I wanna play somewhere in a new town

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jazzpush2 25 days ago | parent | prev [-]

See also his new book versus his old. His new book is nothing but name-dropping.

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kortilla 25 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

… yes, that’s why he mentioned that he isn’t cool for selling 538…

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dangus 24 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes that’s literally what I’m talking about. He made a cool site, sold it off to get enshittified, and now his main gig is grifting off of polymarket.