> Holding a forecaster to a standard of "Silver must get 100% of predictions correct or else he's a fucking moron" is, in itself, a sign of low critical thinking skills.

The forecaster in question was fully aware of everything you're saying and yet he blew 100k on what he thought was a sure thing that turned out to not be. Maybe if he was as statistically-aware as you claim, he would not have made the bet, since he should have known there was a reasonable statistical probability he was wrong. I don't demand Nate get "100% of predictions correct", I'm mocking him because he's overrated and he made an outrageously confident prediction that blew up in his face when almost anyone who wasn't high on their own supply could see he was wrong, or at least could clearly see there was no basis for such a confident prediction. "There is an 80% chance Trump wins Florida by < 8pts" is very different from "I'll put down 100k that Trump wins Florida by < 8 pts."

Of course the real problem is "statistical probabilities" don't actually factor into it and 538's model is actually not that well calibrated, and anyway we're talking about real-world forecasting, for which "well, 80% of the time I'm right" is useless in terms of actionable information unless the only reason you care about election forecasts is to gamble on prediction markets.