[chrismanfrank]

You basically have it right.

But it's not a misunderstanding. Taleb understands Silver's approach, but thinks it's BS, entertainment not forecasting.

He's right, but I don't know why he cares. The problem isn't that Silver doesn't know math, it's that his goal is to entertain, not predict.

[Pharmakon]

Taleb calling someone else an entertainer is a bit rich, sort of like a clown telling someone to have dignity. I have no opinion on Silver whatsoever, but Taleb is a bloviating ass who has gone from popular milquetoast observations, to climbing fully up his own backpassage. That this all began with the likes of Dinesh D’Souza doesn’t help.

I realize that Black Swan is popular here, but it was horrendous. A single essential premise which, instead of support, rested for chapter after chapter on assertions. That’s not evidence, it wasn’t an argument, it was the sound of someone having one good idea and then realizing they lacked the capacity to support it.

[noego]

Quantifying the current voter sentiment makes you a entertainer? If anyone should be accused of "entertainment", I'd imagine it's the guy known for writing mass-market books.

[hopler]

Calling a statistician and entertainer is a rude insult, similar to calling a cable news channel an entertainment channel.

[dragonwriter]

> You basically have it right.

GP doesn't even have Silver’s model right (he describes the “nowcast”, which was never the headline forecast model), so if he is right that that is what Taleb is referring to, that would be a pretty damning indictment of Taleb’s critique.