The War Room Bet Thread V3

[Jack V Savage]

Of course not

Let's focus on this because I think it's pretty clear, while you seem to be accusing me of using it to get a cheap win. As I pointed out, we have different purposes here. I see the bet thread as being about finding out who is right in arguments and about asking people to stand behind their words (with the hopes that they will make more of an effort to get things right). I think you're just trying to win, and that you're thinking that I'm playing the same way.

So, if you were to say, "if Trump has a heart attack or a stroke or something, a lot of Americans who don't normally support him will rally around him, and he'll see a bump in his approval," I'd agree with that. Thus, the bet would be settled not a point of legitimate disagreement between us, but rather on a failure of the terms of the bet to properly capture our point of disagreement. Likewise, NK bombing Guam or something could very well cause a bump in Trump's approval. Remember that W, who was arguably an even worse president than Trump, was around 90% after 9/11. If you're asking me if I'd bet against that kind of reaction, the answer is obviously no.

But what I don't see happening is Trump's approval rating rising over 50% as a result of changing perception of his own actions and conduct. I actually think it's being propped up by a strong economy that I think even you'd admit he's had nothing to do with. A downturn there would cause a lot of the people who don't really follow politics but assume the president is doing well as long as the economy is to abandon him, and I think he could fall into the low 30s with even a small recession. I'm gathering that you think it will rise not because of a freak incident that is out of his control and unpredictable but for some reason related to his activity (anti-immigrant rhetoric or superficial alterations to trade deals, for example). So there's a point of disagreement between us that can be at least partly resolved with a bet.

 

[waiguoren]

you seem to be accusing me of using it to get a cheap win.

Win? I thought the bet would be a push in those cases? Are you serious?

I'm gathering that you think it will rise not because of a freak incident that is out of his control and unpredictable but for some reason related to his activity (anti-immigrant rhetoric or superficial alterations to trade deals, for example).

No. It has to do with the big picture. Fundamentally, I see Trump as being a in a moderate-strong position politically, and you seem to see him as being in a weak position. That's a legitimate disagreement over which we should be able to have a bet. Remember that this started with you challenging my belief that Trump will cross the 50% threshold with no conditions. The original bet is generous to you given that he has never been close to 50%, the economy is near full capacity, and that you seem to believe that the Mueller probe is likely to damage Trump further.

I understand that you want to hedge against 9/11-type events, but the reality is that this is not properly modeled as a boolean value. There are many types of attacks that can occur. 9/11-scale terrorist attacks within CONUS are very unlikely to happen. What about the Kenya example I gave? What if some US service members die in an attack in Afghanistan?

 

[Lead]

Good lunch break read. Carry on.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Win? I thought the bet would be a push in those cases? Are you serious?

Or to cheaply avoid a loss, whatever.

No. It has to do with the big picture. Fundamentally, I see Trump as being a in a moderate-strong position politically, and you seem to see him as being in a weak position. That's a legitimate disagreement over which we should be able to have a bet.

OK. But I don't think that legitimate disagreement would be resolved if his numbers temporarily spike after a stroke or something. If his approval just drifts over 50% or rises as a result of some popular law he pushes for and passes, I would be proved wrong. If it just spikes as a result of a fluke event, I don't see how that shows that he was in a moderate-strong position or not in a weak one.

Remember that this started with you challenging my belief that Trump will cross the 50% threshold with no conditions.

I don't think that those kinds of fluke events are particularly likely, but if they happen, I would expect him to get a bump, and I don't think it would show I was wrong about anything the way the things I outlined above would.

The original bet is generous to you given that he has never been close to 50%, the economy is near full capacity, and that you seem to believe that the Mueller probe is likely to damage Trump further.

Those are reasons I offered the alternative (40 or 50 first).

I understand that you want to hedge against 9/11-type events, but the reality is that this is not properly modeled as a boolean value. There are many types of attacks that can occur. 9/11-scale terrorist attacks within CONUS are very unlikely to happen. What about the Kenya example I gave? What if some US service members die in an attack in Afghanistan?

I'm open to your modifications to the terms that avoid piddling events that wouldn't likely move the needle but keep the spirit of the exception.

 

[Higus]

Good lunch break read. Carry on.

Lol, this is painful as hell to read. Wai's weaseling is so transparent, and Jack is way too cautious to take a bet he wasn't sure he could win.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Jack is way to cautious to take a bet he wasn't sure he could win.

This is a fair criticism from a spectator standpoint, but my thinking is that the ideal WR bet is one where both principals feel pretty confident that they'll win and thus the outcome goes a long way toward settling the underlying argument. If it's one where it could go either way, it's more of a game of chance and less interesting to me.

 

[Higus]

This is a fair criticism from a spectator standpoint, but my thinking is that the ideal WR bet is one where both principals feel pretty confident that they'll win and thus the outcome goes a long way toward settling the underlying argument. If it's one where it could go either way, it's more of a game of chance and less interesting to me.

It's not meant as a criticism, just an observation. Wai is cautious about bets too, but it's apparent that he's more into the "letter" of the bet rather than the "spirit" of the bet, and that he likes to give himself plenty of angles and leeway to win while denying the same for his opponent.

 

[Lead]

Lol, this is painful as hell to read. Wai's weaseling is so transparent, and Jack is way too cautious to take a bet he wasn't sure he could win.

I actually like this thread cause you get to usually watch two people ideologically opposed have to work together to come to a deal. It's the weird art of having to work together in order to eventually beat the other. Rugby has a similar concept to it in some part of the game that I always admired.

 

[waiguoren]

I'm open to your modifications to the terms that avoid piddling events that wouldn't likely move the needle but keep the spirit of the exception.

At this point it seems like you're just dodging my objection entirely. You've proposed a national security exception, but you haven't clearly delineated where it ends. I gave you multiple examples of events that are likely to cause spikes, and you haven't said if they would nullify the bet or not. Again, Trump's RCP average spiked by nearly 4% following Trump's bombing of Syria over Russia's objections. What if he had hit 50% in that case? You would nullify the bet? In my view that would be ridiculous.

Those are reasons I offered the alternative (40 or 50 first).

This is a perfect example of why it's silly to talk about the "spirit" of the bet: different people will see different "spirits". In my view, the original bet was to be over whether Trump will ever be able to command the support of half (1/2) of the population. Apparently, that wasn't the "spirit" of the original bet according to you, as evidenced by your proposed alternative (40 or 50 first).

If you want me to take the "spirit" of the bet seriously, please at least specify what you think the "spirit" of the bet is.

I'll try to reach a step further. I think tribalism might be impacting the way you look at bets. I am not approaching these bets from the standpoint of "my team vs. your team". In the past two years I have been nailing the anti-Trump tribalists for their irrationality. Of the two major political groups, they are still more arrogant on average, which makes them more susceptible to smiting. If Trump does become a dominant political force, I expect to begin taking lots of bets with Trumpanzees. Already I have attempted a few, but the other parties have not had the confidence to follow through.

 

[Jack V Savage]

At this point it seems like you're just dodging my objection entirely.

By telling you to come up with language that reflects our disagreement?

You've proposed a national security exception, but you haven't clearly delineated where it ends.

I didn't propose a "national security" exception. I'm proposing an exception for extraordinary events that are beyond the president's control that tend to cause short-term spikes in popularity because our underlying disagreement is about the strength of his current political position and our confidence in his ability to perform his duties (in that I think unknown future actions are more likely to hurt his popularity than help it, while I'm guessing you disagree).

I gave you multiple examples of events that are likely to cause spikes, and you haven't said if they would nullify the bet or not. Again, Trump's RCP average spiked by nearly 4% following Trump's bombing of Syria over Russia's objections. What if he had hit 50% in that case? You would nullify the bet? In my view that would be ridiculous.

I wasn't humoring your obvious trolling (you've been going overboard with the disingenuous denials that Trump is subservient to Putin). As I said, if you want to proceed, propose your own language that fits the spirit of the disagreement.

This is a perfect example of why it's silly to talk about the "spirit" of the bet: different people will see different "spirits".

You spelled it out pretty well earlier. The underlying disagreement is about the strength of his position. I believe he's in a very weak position, though I grant that if he has a stroke or we get attacked, there will be a temporary bump in his popularity.

I'll try to reach a step further. I think tribalism might be impacting the way you look at bets. I am not approaching these bets from the standpoint of "my team vs. your team".

It really seems that you have a hard time even conceiving that other people are not as tribalistic as you are, that there are other modes of thought. In this case, the sole point of disagreement is Trump's political strength. One can *like* what Trump is doing to the country and still perceive political weakness, though I certainly don't like it. Likewise, it's possible (though unfortunately rare) for one to be a Republican but nevertheless not think that the president should be above the law. You seem to feel obligated to interpret every disagreement as an attack on your tribe.

 

[waiguoren]

By telling you to come up with language that reflects our disagreement?

Don't be silly. Here's what has happened so far:

1) In another thread, I predicted that Trump's approval rating will reach 50% at some point in his presidency.

2) You responded and said you'd be willing to bet me on (1) with no pre-conditions.

3) I formalized (1) here in the bet thread.

4) You started trying to hedge the bet to protect yourself against events that could cause you to lose, arguing that those events would violate the "spirit of the bet".

5) I pointed out that the "spirit of the bet" is totally subjective and noted that you could easily weasel out of the bet unless the extra conditions were airtight.

6) You are now asking me to go through the trouble of tightening up your vague conditions to capture the "spirit" of the bet as you perceive it.


So no, I'm not going to do that. You can try to present conditions and I will consider them. That already happened once in this thread, and your conditions were so leaky that the bet would have to be nullified for all modern presidents.

 

[waiguoren]

I didn't propose a "national security" exception. I'm proposing an exception for extraordinary events that are beyond the president's control that tend to cause short-term spikes in popularity

Yeah, you proposed two categories of "extraordinary events" and one of them concerned national security. It's too vague to be taken seriously, as I have pointed out multiple times in this thread.

because our underlying disagreement is about the strength of his current political position and our confidence in his ability to perform his duties (in that I think unknown future actions are more likely to hurt his popularity than help it, while I'm guessing you disagree).

This has nothing to do with "his ability to perform his duties".

I wasn't humoring your obvious trolling (you've been going overboard with the disingenuous denials that Trump is subservient to Putin).

It's not trolling. I genuinely think that if you believe Trump is "subservient to Putin", you need to devote substantially more time to examination of the evidence that contradicts that narrative.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Don't be silly. Here's what has happened so far:

1) In another thread, I predicted that Trump's approval rating will reach 50% at some point in his presidency.

2) You responded and said you'd be willing to bet me on (1) with no pre-conditions.

3) I formalized (1) here in the bet thread.

4) You started trying to hedge the bet to protect yourself against events that could cause you to lose, arguing that those events would violate the "spirit of the bet".

5) I pointed out that the "spirit of the bet" is totally subjective and noted that you could easily weasel out of the bet unless the extra conditions were airtight.

6) You are now asking me to go through the trouble of tightening up your vague conditions to capture the "spirit" of the bet as you perceive it.

I never said "with no preconditions." My first response to your bet proposal was this:

"I'm pretty confident about this (note that volatility appears to be declining and the current level is well below that mark), but my fears would be A) a health scare or assassination attempt or B) a new war would temporarily provide him with a bump. If we have an exception for those events, I'll take the bet."

Surely you can see that a temporary bump provided by one of those things would not really relate to our disagreement on the issue (especially since I'm explicitly saying that such a thing would not surprise me). Why would I bet against something that I expect to happen (I mean, I think something like that is somewhat unlikely, but stipulating that they occur, I'd expect a bump)? Why would you consider a win in that event to be legitimate? IMO, you realize that there is no way that Trump organically gets to 50% and rather than simply admit that, you're trying to find a way to steal the win on a technicality.

This has nothing to do with "his ability to perform his duties".

I would agree that it's possible for him to do a good job and still not see a rise in popularity (in theory--in reality, I don't agree that it's possible for him to do a good job given what we know about him), but I think that given the state of the economy, people are looking for reasons to like him and would find them if he weren't so consistently terrible at all aspects of the job.

 

[waiguoren]

I never said "with no preconditions." My first response to your bet proposal was this:

I am trying very hard not to assume the worst about you for framing our exchange this way. How can I be charitable to you......perhaps your memory is broken. That would be understandable. My memory is often very poor.

Here is how this discussion began (Lounge thread):

I'd bet against Trump approvers hitting 50%, but you know that that's not who we're discussing.

Maybe consider revising your "I never mentioned 'no preconditions' " statement.

Surely you can see that a temporary bump provided by one of those things would not really relate to our disagreement on the issue (especially since I'm explicitly saying that such a thing would not surprise me). Why would I bet against something that I expect to happen (I mean, I think something like that is somewhat unlikely, but stipulating that they occur, I'd expect a bump)? Why would you consider a win in that event to be legitimate? IMO, you realize that there is no way that Trump organically gets to 50% and rather than simply admit that, you're trying to find a way to steal the win on a technicality.

No, it's that I reject this made-up notion of an "organic" increase in a politician's poll numbers. I don't think this phrase has any meaning except as a tool to protect yourself against your prediction going terribly wrong. Any change can be called "non-organic". For example, Trump didn't have to bomb that Syrian airfield in 2017 over Russia's objections, but you could certainly argue that his hand was forced by the use of chemical weapons and therefore the poll bump Trump got was "inorganic".

 

[HereticBD]

LOL @Jack V Savage talking big, and then attempting to weasel out of another bet HE proposed.

Ah', memories...

Don't waste your time @waiguoren. He won't accept without the bet being rigged so he can't possibly lose. Then he'll somehow convince himself that you're the one backing out for not accepting his ridiculous conditions. It's what he does. All this shit he's doing is for his own ego, because he can't just admit to himself that he's not as confident as his original statement would lead one to believe.

 

[waiguoren]

LOL @Jack V Savage talking big, and then attempting to weasel out of another bet HE proposed.

Ah', memories...

Don't waste your time @waiguoren. He won't accept without the bet being rigged so he can't possibly lose. Then he'll somehow convince himself that you're the one backing out for not accepting his ridiculous conditions. It's what he does. All this shit he's doing is for his own ego, because he can't just admit to himself that he's not as confident as his original statement would lead one to believe.

I appreciate your insight. However, I am very desirous of this scalp. More so than any other scalp on these forums, in fact.

 

[HereticBD]

I appreciate your insight. However, I am very desirous of this scalp. More so than any other scalp on these forums, in fact.

If nothing else, you get to show what dishonorable weasel he is.

I'm telling you though, he'll never accept the bet without his rigging. You may even come to a concession on one, and then he'll just add another, and then another, and then another. The bottom line is, he has no confidence in his position that Trump will not hit 50%, and will never bet on it until he has every conceivable angle covered that allows him to back out when he loses, because he knows he will.

 

[waiguoren]

The bottom line is, he has no confidence in his position that Trump will not hit 50%, and will never bet on it until he has every conceivable angle covered that allows him to back out when he loses, because he knows he will.

I'm willing to accept some conditions. The problem is that the "conditions" he laid out are extremely vague and would allow way too much wiggle room. If he'd restrict himself to e.g., "the bet is a push if a terrorist attack occurs that kills more than 200 Americans within the continental US", I'd go along.

His original voiding language was "a new war". Well, did Trump's bombing the Syrian airfield count as a new war? Did Obama's airstrikes in Libya count as a new war?

Then he offered America being attacked (embassy, consulate, American soil) by agents connected to a state. I asked him if bin Laden would have been considered to be "connected" to Saudi Arabia so that the Kenya embassy bombing would count. He didn't answer. This type of thing leads me to wonder if he is negotiating in good faith here.

 

[HereticBD]

This type of thing leads me to wonder if he is negotiating in good faith here.

Wonder no more. I assure you, he is not. I predict that if you do accept certain conditions and all seems settled, he'll then try to bump that rating up to 55% or 60% for him to accept, because he'll say he didn't consider some other bullshit factor when it comes to polling.

 

[Jack V Savage]

I am trying very hard not to assume the worst about you for framing our exchange this way.

Do you understand the distinction between "not mentioning any exceptions" and "asserting that there are no exceptions"? Seems clear to me. FYI, I think I win either way, but I'm listing exceptions that would make the bet outcome not line up with the points of disagreement.

Is it fair to say that we agree that Trump is in a very weak position politically, with very low approval ratings that are themselves propped up by a strong economy that he has nothing to do with and that the only plausible way he gets to 50% approval is an attack by another nation or a health scare?

I appreciate your insight. However, I am very desirous of this scalp. More so than any other scalp on these forums, in fact.

It's interesting that you like to claim not to be tribalistic, but then you always end up back-slapping posters like Heretic, Starman, Farmer, b-hop, and TCK, who have no values other than tribalism.