Ironically, I think Lichtman is right in his last paragraph about authoritarianism taking hold all over the world, and that it is due to manipulation of information. He just needs to clear up his idea of who is doing most of the manipulating.
" I think Lichtman is right in his last paragraph about authoritarianism taking hold all over the world, ..." I am glad that you qualified your statement with "I think ...". I see no evidence of it gaining in any but the "Western" states (countries) and "I think" that it has nothing to do with disinformation but with the fact that the western economic model is imploding.
”All previous attempts to base money solely on intangibles such as credit or government edict or fiat have ended in inflationary panic and disaster.”
Winston Churchill
(Sorryit is so long, but one needs the complete quote)
“Anyone who has seriously studied applied macroeconomics knows that crony capitalists hate free markets, with all the fairness and transparency that they imply. Competition is a serious drag on enormous profits and introduces significant uncertainty and risk. As soon as the game is underway, successful capitalists are constantly pushing the envelope of the rules, seeking to establish rents, monopolies, unfair advantages, and debt traps to snare the bulk of the players and stifle the profit-eroding tendency of real competition.
This is the basis of all aristocracies, which are merely the institutionalization of privilege. Once they make it they bloody well want to change the rules to hang on to it, and take the risk out of their equation. They foster a culture of two sets of books, two sets of rules, and two systems of justice.
The oligarchs are perfectly willing to destroy the lives of hundreds of millions of citizens across the globe to insure their wealth and power remains intact.
Overtaxed, sometimes homeless, unemployed, hungry, and deprived of any hope of justice, the vast majority of French citizens were not blind. They saw their own children starve while stolen riches bought velvet outfits for children of the elite. When their desperation erupted abruptly into unbridled rage, the French Revolution had arrived.
Matt Taibbi
"When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favours; when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you. . . you may know that your society is doomed."
Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged
-
As 'they' become more desperate to retain control of society, so the authoritarianism becomes more blatant and obvious.
It is certainly most obvious in the West, probably because they have been paying lip service to the mantras of "freedom" and "democracy" for so long that it is harder not to notice. But that being said, I don't see these things breaking out in other parts of the world where they formerly didn't exist.
Like all discussions one must first define terms. What do you mean by "freedom" and "democracy"?
The Central Asian countries by all description have both. Not necessarily Westminster "two party" farce of democracy, but like Africa real democracy where everyone has a person to whom they can voice their opinions. More like trade union committee democracy and they can be sure that the person they talk to has the duty and ability to pass the consensus up the line.
Many countries have a problem of "Law and Order" and some have areas like Mexico where bandits are if not in control they are certainly not under control. But then so does New York and London.
The westerners problem is that they conflate government and society with Westminster and treat all other systems as "wrong" and/or evil.
Africa is becoming much more free from authoritarian control, The middle East including Saudi and Iran are becoming more free, no, women and men can't flaunt their bodies and are required to be modest, but the difference to the west is only in degree not in principle.
Watch actual 'walkabout' videos of Iran shopping districts and talk to people who actually have lived and worked in Saudi or Kuwait, look at real life videos of the countries of Africa. No I don't want to live in Kinshasa or Nairobi but those cities have areas which are on a par with most UK-US towns.
I have lived in Africa and Asia and yes the allegiance and control comes primarily through the tribe and tribal chiefs, exactly the same as the US supposed allegiance to being Black or having a vagina. (How could they not vote for a black woman?) But at least the tribes and tribal structure actually supports the lowest levels of society.
Define terms.
The standard of living in the non-west is growing each year that the west does not start a war or revolution.
Imagine a dumb ole redneck like me getting the prediction right.
But I am no soothsayer (as Donald Jeffries called me, I'm sure, in jest or maybe even mocking me). That's ok.
Like I said, I am no genius (altho my measured IQ is 126), I am a midwit (and I know it). I am not pretending.
My stance is that it didn't take a genius to predict the POTUS outcome. It was glaringly obvious at every level that they were pushing the citizens to Trump.
Lichtman is such a knob. I enjoyed reading this first thing today.
If you don't mind, there were a couple of minor typos in the 10th (or so) paragraph; the one ending in "...even AI." The last line has "too" where it ought to be "to" and a little bit before that, the word "lofical" appears. (the ol' f & g keys definitely too close to each other).
I don't know how long Lichtman has been predicting but I would bet he back tested his model (e.g., found 13 questions that matched prior election results) then predicted going forward and got lucky a few times.
Most models (including I suspect this one) are created by deciding on the result that you desire and then finding assumptions and logical arguments to support the required outcome.
Any model that does not do this is discarded and new, different assumptions are found until a set that match the outcome is made.
Any data or facts that do not support the outcome are discarded as "Misinformation" or blatant "Disinformation".
This has been the method for at least 30,000 years.
Well, monkeys were wrong and Lichtman was wrong. So did Lichtman make a monkey of himself because his model (reality, in his mind) crapped out or because he chose a model that appealed to his desires and hopes, his liberalism, to use a word from the old politics.
A few months ago I uncovered here in my Brazilian backwater called Goiânia, the concept of "epidemiological integrity" - as it was applied during the pandemic by our highly qualified public health authorities and local university scientists. What that meant is that the number of deaths attributed to Covid had to equal excess mortality - the MODEL, therefore, being COVID DEATHS = EXCESS MORTALITY. Because the mortality data base is highly centralized here in Brazil, the authorities took great pride in the accuracy of their "predictions". After all, you could pretty much tell at the close of each week, whether the number of deaths observed was above normal, or not. And let me tell you something: NOTHING CAN SHAKE THEIR CONVICTION, REGARDING THE ESSENTIAL EXCELLENCE OF THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO SCIENCE AND PUBLIC HEALTH! Nada!
Just like the GIGO COVID-19 model from that mathematician bought and paid for by Bill Gates at the Imperial College of London.. $280 million by one Bill Gates Foundation accounting.
"If we do a good job with the vaccines we can get that number (P) down by about 10%." Gates Ted talk.
“Alas, for him, the news turned out badly. He likely won’t be called next time.”
I’m betting he will. The kind of people who ever listened to him in the first place would rather be told what they want to hear than be told something true that conflicts with their worldview. His being wrong about this election will be forgotten in short order, in the same way that when early summer rolls around each year and hurricane “experts” give their annual solemn warning that this will be a historically-bad, record-setting hurricane season with 50 named storms including 12 that will be Category 5, no one remembers that they said the same thing the last 25 consecutive years and not only did none of those years set any records, many of them had below-average hurricane activity.
What matters on the left — in terms not only of predictions of all kinds, but also general news reporting — is reinforcement of the narrative, not truth or accuracy. If the New York Times is going as strong as ever today after the sheer number of things they were wrong about in the last eight years in their coverage of Trump, covid, Biden, Ukraine, etc., Lichtman will be just fine.
I’ll go further: I’d argue that if Lichtman had had the temerity to ever predict a Trump win at any time over the course of this year, *that* would have immediately rendered him radioactive and gotten him permanently dropped from reporters’ and political analysts’ call lists, despite being borne out as correct. Whereas telling the left what they wanted to be told & being wrong might cause him to lose a few people, but the rest, in true cult fashion, will actually become more trusting of him.
All,
Lichtman not taking his loss well at all.
https://x.com/vanikehuman/status/1859035624038428825
This election seems to have exposed very large numbers of people like Professor Lichtman.
Those unfortunate souls who have gone through life with absolutely NO connection to reality.
Pity.
Ironically, I think Lichtman is right in his last paragraph about authoritarianism taking hold all over the world, and that it is due to manipulation of information. He just needs to clear up his idea of who is doing most of the manipulating.
" I think Lichtman is right in his last paragraph about authoritarianism taking hold all over the world, ..." I am glad that you qualified your statement with "I think ...". I see no evidence of it gaining in any but the "Western" states (countries) and "I think" that it has nothing to do with disinformation but with the fact that the western economic model is imploding.
”All previous attempts to base money solely on intangibles such as credit or government edict or fiat have ended in inflationary panic and disaster.”
Winston Churchill
(Sorryit is so long, but one needs the complete quote)
“Anyone who has seriously studied applied macroeconomics knows that crony capitalists hate free markets, with all the fairness and transparency that they imply. Competition is a serious drag on enormous profits and introduces significant uncertainty and risk. As soon as the game is underway, successful capitalists are constantly pushing the envelope of the rules, seeking to establish rents, monopolies, unfair advantages, and debt traps to snare the bulk of the players and stifle the profit-eroding tendency of real competition.
This is the basis of all aristocracies, which are merely the institutionalization of privilege. Once they make it they bloody well want to change the rules to hang on to it, and take the risk out of their equation. They foster a culture of two sets of books, two sets of rules, and two systems of justice.
The oligarchs are perfectly willing to destroy the lives of hundreds of millions of citizens across the globe to insure their wealth and power remains intact.
Overtaxed, sometimes homeless, unemployed, hungry, and deprived of any hope of justice, the vast majority of French citizens were not blind. They saw their own children starve while stolen riches bought velvet outfits for children of the elite. When their desperation erupted abruptly into unbridled rage, the French Revolution had arrived.
Matt Taibbi
"When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favours; when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you. . . you may know that your society is doomed."
Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged
-
As 'they' become more desperate to retain control of society, so the authoritarianism becomes more blatant and obvious.
It is certainly most obvious in the West, probably because they have been paying lip service to the mantras of "freedom" and "democracy" for so long that it is harder not to notice. But that being said, I don't see these things breaking out in other parts of the world where they formerly didn't exist.
Like all discussions one must first define terms. What do you mean by "freedom" and "democracy"?
The Central Asian countries by all description have both. Not necessarily Westminster "two party" farce of democracy, but like Africa real democracy where everyone has a person to whom they can voice their opinions. More like trade union committee democracy and they can be sure that the person they talk to has the duty and ability to pass the consensus up the line.
Many countries have a problem of "Law and Order" and some have areas like Mexico where bandits are if not in control they are certainly not under control. But then so does New York and London.
The westerners problem is that they conflate government and society with Westminster and treat all other systems as "wrong" and/or evil.
Africa is becoming much more free from authoritarian control, The middle East including Saudi and Iran are becoming more free, no, women and men can't flaunt their bodies and are required to be modest, but the difference to the west is only in degree not in principle.
Watch actual 'walkabout' videos of Iran shopping districts and talk to people who actually have lived and worked in Saudi or Kuwait, look at real life videos of the countries of Africa. No I don't want to live in Kinshasa or Nairobi but those cities have areas which are on a par with most UK-US towns.
I have lived in Africa and Asia and yes the allegiance and control comes primarily through the tribe and tribal chiefs, exactly the same as the US supposed allegiance to being Black or having a vagina. (How could they not vote for a black woman?) But at least the tribes and tribal structure actually supports the lowest levels of society.
Define terms.
The standard of living in the non-west is growing each year that the west does not start a war or revolution.
With his head so far up his butt, I hope Lichtman, at least, takes the time to perform a self-examination for polyps.
God laughs at "if".
Imagine a dumb ole redneck like me getting the prediction right.
But I am no soothsayer (as Donald Jeffries called me, I'm sure, in jest or maybe even mocking me). That's ok.
Like I said, I am no genius (altho my measured IQ is 126), I am a midwit (and I know it). I am not pretending.
My stance is that it didn't take a genius to predict the POTUS outcome. It was glaringly obvious at every level that they were pushing the citizens to Trump.
Lichtman is such a knob. I enjoyed reading this first thing today.
If you don't mind, there were a couple of minor typos in the 10th (or so) paragraph; the one ending in "...even AI." The last line has "too" where it ought to be "to" and a little bit before that, the word "lofical" appears. (the ol' f & g keys definitely too close to each other).
In all events, another banger, good sir.
I don't know how long Lichtman has been predicting but I would bet he back tested his model (e.g., found 13 questions that matched prior election results) then predicted going forward and got lucky a few times.
After all, that is how most models are built.
I doubt he tested it at all.
Most models (including I suspect this one) are created by deciding on the result that you desire and then finding assumptions and logical arguments to support the required outcome.
Any model that does not do this is discarded and new, different assumptions are found until a set that match the outcome is made.
Any data or facts that do not support the outcome are discarded as "Misinformation" or blatant "Disinformation".
This has been the method for at least 30,000 years.
EXACTLY!
William you are too kind and polite. Tell us how you really feel please.
Thank you for clearing up my naïve ideas about models and experts. Bursting bubbles is not just for kids.
Of course he was tricked! No psycho expert can ever admit their own mistakes. They are so perfect they can only be tricked!
Let's just stay in Lichtmanland for a second - how has he not included 'inflationary event' in his list.
Well, monkeys were wrong and Lichtman was wrong. So did Lichtman make a monkey of himself because his model (reality, in his mind) crapped out or because he chose a model that appealed to his desires and hopes, his liberalism, to use a word from the old politics.
A few months ago I uncovered here in my Brazilian backwater called Goiânia, the concept of "epidemiological integrity" - as it was applied during the pandemic by our highly qualified public health authorities and local university scientists. What that meant is that the number of deaths attributed to Covid had to equal excess mortality - the MODEL, therefore, being COVID DEATHS = EXCESS MORTALITY. Because the mortality data base is highly centralized here in Brazil, the authorities took great pride in the accuracy of their "predictions". After all, you could pretty much tell at the close of each week, whether the number of deaths observed was above normal, or not. And let me tell you something: NOTHING CAN SHAKE THEIR CONVICTION, REGARDING THE ESSENTIAL EXCELLENCE OF THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO SCIENCE AND PUBLIC HEALTH! Nada!
I do not doubt it.
Here´s the genius A-team:
https://lets.ecoevol.ufg.br/p/1172-people
On the comment on Brazil.
When bucks are involved
Especially when big bucks are involved.
Gavi Alliance COVAX Facility (Brazil)
Host Country Brazil
Name of Insured Party Gavi Alliance (“Gavi”)
Project Description DFC political risk insurance in an amount up to $250 million will
support Gavi’s efforts to allocate COVID-19 vaccines to the
Government of Brazil (the “GoB”) and strengthen the COVAX facility
(the “Project”).
Investment Type Procurement Services
Proposed Insurance
Amount
Up to $250 million
Total Project Costs Up to $449 million
Policy Review
Developmental Objectives The Project is expected to have a highly developmental impact in Brazil
by facilitating procurement of COVID-19 vaccines through the COVAX
Facility and thereby addressing the priority public health issue in the
country. These vaccines have remained in very short supply in the
country, despite the urgency of mass vaccination to save lives and resume
normal economic activity levels.
Environment and Social
Assessment
SCREENING: The Project involves the procurement and allocation of
vaccine, and as such, is a financial transaction that is screened as a
Category C activity for the purposes of environmental and social
assessment.
The primary environmental and social issues identified in this
transaction relate to the need for an Environmental and Social
Management System that is commensurate with the risks posed by the
Project and that meets the IFC Performance Standards and DFC’s
Environmental and Social Policy and Procedures (ESPP). Climate
change resilience assessments for Category C projects are not required
under DFC’s policies.
APPLICABLE STANDARDS: Under DFC’s ESPP, the Insured Party
is required to comply with applicable local and national laws and
regulations related to environmental and social performance and
applicable provisions of the 2012 International Finance Corporation’s
Performance Standard (“PS”) 1 and 2.
Just like the GIGO COVID-19 model from that mathematician bought and paid for by Bill Gates at the Imperial College of London.. $280 million by one Bill Gates Foundation accounting.
"If we do a good job with the vaccines we can get that number (P) down by about 10%." Gates Ted talk.
“Alas, for him, the news turned out badly. He likely won’t be called next time.”
I’m betting he will. The kind of people who ever listened to him in the first place would rather be told what they want to hear than be told something true that conflicts with their worldview. His being wrong about this election will be forgotten in short order, in the same way that when early summer rolls around each year and hurricane “experts” give their annual solemn warning that this will be a historically-bad, record-setting hurricane season with 50 named storms including 12 that will be Category 5, no one remembers that they said the same thing the last 25 consecutive years and not only did none of those years set any records, many of them had below-average hurricane activity.
What matters on the left — in terms not only of predictions of all kinds, but also general news reporting — is reinforcement of the narrative, not truth or accuracy. If the New York Times is going as strong as ever today after the sheer number of things they were wrong about in the last eight years in their coverage of Trump, covid, Biden, Ukraine, etc., Lichtman will be just fine.
I’ll go further: I’d argue that if Lichtman had had the temerity to ever predict a Trump win at any time over the course of this year, *that* would have immediately rendered him radioactive and gotten him permanently dropped from reporters’ and political analysts’ call lists, despite being borne out as correct. Whereas telling the left what they wanted to be told & being wrong might cause him to lose a few people, but the rest, in true cult fashion, will actually become more trusting of him.