The Pledge Drive continues! If you enjoy this blog, and can afford it, please click on the “donate” button below! Thanks!
If you thought Chuck Tingle’s version of the Clinton-Trump debate last night was surreal, well, take a look at what Dilbert creator and wannabe master persuader Scott Adams has to say about it.
Unlike some of Trump’s superfans, Adams is willing to admit that, yeah, Hillary kind of won the debate, at least by normal debate standards.
Clinton won on points. She had more command of the details and the cleaner answers. Trump did a lot of interrupting and he was defensive. If this were a college debate competition, Clinton would be declared the winner.
But Adams thinks this “victory on the 2D chess board” doesn’t really matter, because in his mind, apparently, Trump is playing some kind of 95th Dimensional mashup of Chess, Cribbage, and Hungry Hungry Hippos, or something. And in this game, Trump is the clear winner.
“Clinton won the debate last night,” Adams explains. “And while she was doing it, Trump won the election.”
IS YOUR MIND BLOWN YET
On the off chance that your mind is not, in fact, blown, let’s look at exactly why Adams thinks Trump is the real victor in this game of 95th Dimension Chesscribbippos.
As he sees it, Hillary needed to prove to skeptical Americans (or at least to Dr. Adams) that she’s healthy. And she failed.
Clinton looked (to my eyes) as if she was drugged, tired, sick, or generally unhealthy, even though she was mentally alert and spoke well. But her eyes were telling a different story. She had the look of someone whose doctors had engineered 90 minutes of alertness for her just for the event.
Huh. This is your takeaway from a debate in which Trump sniffled so much that people started to wonder if he wasn’t hopped up on the cocaine?
Some will say Clinton outperformed expectations because she didn’t cough, collapse, or die right on stage.
But that’s not enough for Adams, who raises the serious medical question: Is Hillary’s smile kind of weird?
Clinton’s smile seemed forced, artificial, and frankly creepy. … My neighbor Kristina hypothesized that Botox was making her smile look unnatural. Science tells us that when a person’s mouth smiles, but their eyes don’t match the smile, they look disingenuous if not creepy. Botox on your crow’s feet lines around your eyes can give that effect. But whatever the reason, something looked off to me.
CLEARLY UNQUALIFIED TO BE PRESIDENT
Trump, by contrast, was the perfect model of health and handsomeness! Well, not entirely.
To be fair, Trump’s physical appearance won’t win him any votes either. But his makeup looked better than I have seen it (no orange), his haircut was as good as it gets for him … .
But Trump didn’t WIN THE ELECTION LAST NIGHT just by being somewhat less orange than usual. He showed what a calm, cool, and collected customer he is.
Trump needed to solve exactly one problem: Look less scary. Trump needed to counter Clinton’s successful branding of him as having a bad temperament to the point of being dangerous to the country. Trump accomplished exactly that…by…losing the debate.
Wait, what?
Trump was defensive, and debated poorly at points, but he did not look crazy.
MASSIVE WIN
And pundits noticed that he intentionally avoided using his strongest attacks regarding Bill Clinton’s scandals.
You actually think he lost the debate … on purpose?
In other words, he showed control. He stayed in the presidential zone under pressure. And in so doing, he solved for his only remaining problem. He looked safer.
As I put it in a tweet to Adams last night (you’ll have to forgive my typo):
Yeah, Trump throwing a tantrum as the same exact moment he was attacking Hillary for having a bad "temperament" was super duper reassuring. https://t.co/RQnRLxd66C
— David Futrelle (@DavidFutrelle) September 27, 2016
Trump definitely looked presidential, not at all like a giant petulant baby who shouldn’t even be in the same city as the nuclear codes.
BLINKING SARCASM.GIF
The most memorable moments of the first debate: Clinton laughs off Trump’s temperament barb https://t.co/NW6ToTCDFS https://t.co/IR90V9KcLc
— POLITICO (@politico) September 27, 2016
Ladies and gentleman, Donald J. Trump! https://t.co/H9Uy8yzNYZ by @RiosJose559 via @c0nvey
— FLOR DO DESERTO (@FlorDeserto) September 27, 2016
https://twitter.com/peterwsinger/status/780607277938147328
https://twitter.com/CCW000/status/780897508310458368
Oh, wait, that last one isn’t Trump. Hard to tell sometimes.
And here’s the latest Pledge Drive capybara, with a friend:
http://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/781251501947748352
Much smart. Wow. Such wisdom.
Scildfreja Unnýðnes –
I’m not sure that I am saying that.
I’m saying that you have to have some knowledge about how these statements are being chosen, and what kind of statements they are for the truth rating to have any meaning.
You could perhaps have separate contested and uncontested ratings.
@PI
Kind of like this
http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/157663
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/027/214/40e.png
http://i.imgur.com/25MB4tf.jpg
@Roger;
Firstly, I don’t care about the thoughts of ancient philosophers on how to approach truth. We’ve learned a lot since those times. Generally, an unknown factor in the human brain is a falsehood, unless it is associated with something already known, at which point it becomes an anchoring bias.
Right! On to the more interesting bit, then.
I agree that there should be some way to know about how the statements are being chosen and what kind of statements they are.
So it’s very convenient that they give their principles right on the website for you to read, as was pointed out to you previously.
As for needing uncontested ratings in order to get a “clear picture”, that’s entirely false. The number of total entries, true or false, for a politician creates an index of that persons’ frequency of making controversial statements. From there, you can look at the truth or falseness proportions to determine whether their controversial statements are valid or invalid, and whether they have a habit of lying or not.
Adding “uncontroversial statements” would be distracting and specious, because that could be literally anything they’ve said. Politifact is doing it right.
@Roger
Care to explain sir?
Speeches softer than a grey fog
Have the weight of lint
@Oogly: Ah, that makes sense then. XD
http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/aceattorney/images/6/67/AA_Franziska_von_Karma_Arm_Out_3.gif
Then how do you feel that Politifact is not doing this properly? And if they are not doing it properly, then how do you propose they do it to your satisfaction?
How do you feel that Politifact is not living up to your expectations for a ratings system? How can they meet your expectations?
Because, I assume, if you take issue with the way they do things, then you can articulate your exact problem, and why you feel it’s a bad system, yes?
Or shall I just chalk it up to “they’re not giving my preferred candidate the ratings I feel he deserves”?
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/aceattorney/images/a/a3/AA_Franziska_von_Karma_Finger_Wag_2.gif
And I do believe another user has already provided you with a relevant link as to how Politifact chooses their statements. Please refer to the previous page, or Scildfreja’s last comment, since you don’t have a Court Record to look back on.
@Roger
So you think they’re cherry picking which facts to check so that it appears that Clinton is more truthful? That’s something you could actually demonstrate if true. What evidence do you have to support that? I mean, other than them including that one claim from Clinton and not including whether Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, since those are only two things out of thousands which you have personally cherry picked.
@OoglyBoggles
Summer and Rick from my fav Rick and Morty episode!
And with that excuse, I can now post one of the best parts of it, where they beat the shit out of terrible people.
kapok –
I haven’t cherry picked those things from thousands – those were 2 of the first 3 things I looked at on that site. It makes me think that they might be cherry-picking, yes.
Scildfreja Unnýðnes-
“Generally, an unknown factor in the human brain is a falsehood, unless it is associated with something already known, at which point it becomes an anchoring bias”
Knowledge is a matter of relations/associations – so if something were unrelated to any known fact it would simply be nothing. What you’ve said here is that something that we have *no knowledge of* doesn’t exist. A tree falling in the woods etc.
Unfortunately, what we’re talking about is a different question, which is “given certain information what is the likelihood of this fact” – you seem to be suggesting that if the likelihood isn’t 100% (proven) then it must be zero. Real life isn’t that binary, I’m afraid.
The principles they use for deciding which facts to cover basically amount to “whatever we think is interesting”. There is no effort made to ensure that bias on the part of the fact checkers is controlled for.
Paradoxical intention –
I think that giving the rating gives the impression of rigor that doesn’t exist. I think they should just give the facts and then let us make up our own minds about how much of a liar Trump is.
Or actually make sure they have a fair selection of statements.
So, you can’t prove Trump is dishonest unless you fact check everything he’s ever said in his entire life?
That’s not how it works. They only need to rate what’s relevant. It’s not Politifact’s doing that Trump makes more dubious claims than Clinton.
@Roger
Dude, forget the fucking rating system and look at the lies themselves. Why are you obsessing over Politifact’s rating system? What’s that got to do with Trump’s lies?
I guess I’m a tropical tree that grows fiber used in stuffed animals, now. I’ve been called worse.
@Roger
Now, I see what you’re saying. And I’ll join kupo in saying that one instance that you have found does not a pattern make.
Also, regarding your one instance: It is true that Politifact technically only ruled on the charge that he was sued, and not whether he was found guilty. But Trump vehemently denies that the case had merit (and yet for some reason, he settled, after his countersuit for $100 million was thrown out?), as he did on the debate stage. It would have been noteworthy for them not to cover it at all. It is a bit unfortunate that they could only rule on the allegation that he was sued.
That being said, it takes quite a bit of willful ignorance to ignore the mountain of evidence of Trump’s racism throughout his life, that has continued to this day, and say that Clinton tying Trump’s birtherism to that pattern of racist comments and behavior, is somehow against the facts.
The idea that the government’s suit had no merit, given Trump’s history, is pretty darn laughable.
ETA: Yeah, echoing IP: We could also just forget the percentages entirely and look at the quantity, frequency, and egregiousness of Trump’s untruths.
ROFLing at kupo / kapok.
@PeeVee the (Noice) Sarcastic
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oQVvGVU1p8o/UAfFxr4ohjI/AAAAAAAACBA/TlK9_jEPRg8/s1600/adventure+time+dawww.gif
Teehee! I love it. Thanks, buddy 🙂
@IP (Edit: sorry about mixing up the nyms, I blame PeeVee ?)
Precisely! The Toronto Star found that Trump told 34 lies in that debate. Clinton told 6. Find 28 more lies for her. Fuck it, find 11. If she even lied half as much as he did, I’d be amazed. 4 lies in 45 minutes (hour and a half split between 2 people)? That’s nothing, Rogark
How does one get kapok from kupo??
So I figured out the standard here for how we’re supposed to evaluate Trump’s statements.
Trump: “I put my penis in the various orifices of a goat.”
Fact Check: Trump is a goatfucker.
Trump Apologists: Nuh-uh! He never said he fucked a goat!
(I’ve chose an unfortunate post to ask this, but how does one add pictures to a post? I promise I’m not trying to post pictures of goatfuckery.)
@PeeVee
I’m guessing autocorrect.
Image test!
http://www.angryflower.com/reliable.gif
ETA: Eyyy, looks like it worked. So, Schnookums – just post the image link, plain, and provided it ends with the right kind of image file extension, I think the comment software should sort it out. Also, lots more relevant comics in the archives, here: http://www.angryflower.com/archive.html
@Schnookums
Edit window ran out. You get a direct url for the image (on most sites you can right-click and open the image in a new tab or copy the image location), then in your post you paste the url on its own line. It needs to be http, not https and it needs to end in an image format like jpg or gif (other common formats work, too).
Example (hope my escape codes work!):
Blah blah blah Oh hai Mark!
http://www.imghost.com/mark.jpg
ETA: Yay, that worked. As long as it looks kinda like that it should work.
@Schnookums
Just paste the goat porn into the box in accordance with kupo’s instructions. 🙂
Axe: *snerk*
I have that effect…?
kupo: ah. I suppose…mine wants to autocorrect your name to “kudos”…
Diptych: perfect.
http://media.giphy.com/media/SriJPYsPgvpNm/giphy.gif
Seems like you want to get technical? Okay. The structure of knowledge and understanding, to the best of our understanding, can be represented by a model consisting of:
a set of states and transitions {N, T},
N emission parameters { θ },
2T transmission probabilities { ϕ },
N-dimensional vector space { Φ },
T states { x } for each time t,
T observations { y } for each time t,
F(y|θ) transition function,
α emission hyperparameter,
β transition hyperparameter,
and H(y|α) prior, where H is used to find the probability in the bayesian calculation P(A|B) = [ P(A) / P(B) ] H(y|α)
Pedantic? Yes, certainly. So is throwing crusty philosophy around. I said fairly clearly that we behave as if uncertains were false. We must do this, else H(y|α) → ∞, and all of our means of knowledge fail.
Stick to the topic, please. You’re faffing about with semantics and esoterics while endorsing the least-trusted and most-deceptive candidate for president that the United States has ever seen. Stop hiding from that.
@Roger
Blah de blah de blah de
Get to the points already
I hate word salad
Lets give it a shot! Let me show you my artistry!
http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee77/schnookumsfd/Laurice_Deauxnim_Thumbs_Up_1_zpsm51vzxdo.gif
I too am a foolish fool who foolish spouts foolish things!
That’s not goat porn at all.