Bruce Bueno de Mesquita Uses Games To See the Future

parallel_prankster writes "Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is a professor of politics at New York University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California. In his new book, The Predictioneer (The Predictioneer's Game in the US), he describes a computer model based on game theory which he — and others — claim can predict the future with remarkable accuracy. The website also has a game page where he provides an online version of the game and information on how to play." The (semi-paywalled; may need to register) New Scientist has a story on de Mesquita, too; a snippet: "Over the past 30 years, Bueno de Mesquita has made thousands of predictions about hundreds of issues from geopolitics to personal problems. Overall, he claims, his hit rate is about 90 per cent."

Comments

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita predicted this first post.

[Anonymous Coward]

..................what an amazing individual!

If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[pizza_milkshake]

But then, he knew I'd say this.

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[red_blue_yellow]

From TFA:

How is such accuracy possible? What Bueno de Mesquita is not doing is predicting random events such as lottery draws. Nor does he claim to be able to forecast the movement of stock markets, the outcome of general elections or the onset of financial crises - events where millions of people have a small influence, but none is able to move the market on their own.

Rather, he confines himself to "strategic situations" where relatively small numbers of people are haggling over a contentious decision. "I can predict events and decisions that involve negotiation or coercion, cooperation or bullying," he says. That includes domestic politics, foreign policy, conflicts, business decisions and social interactions.

Now, that's not to say that he couldn't make money using the predictions, but maybe he's actually more interested in the science/mathematics side of it than the business potential?

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[Anonymous Coward]

it's all government of the 1st world who have machine to manipulate mind.
if you manipulate two powns, thew will thought that each other is the manipulator.

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[BigSlowTarget]

So I guess he doesn't need funding then? Oh and doesn't have any good causes he feels could benefit from donated earnings?

As for not predicting the movement of stock markets, if you can predict business decisions you can predict selected market movements. Will XYZ get the contract? Their stock will go up. Will Mr. suchandsuch decide to buy company z? You can bet company Z stock is going to rise. When you make or lose money based on your predictions every prediction is documented - if you're up you're right and if not you're wrong.

The value of a "90 pct hit rate" can only be reasonably compared to a combination of other forecasting methods and random chance. Documentation of every prediction, wrong and right is essential.

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[francium de neobie]

Agreed. Anyone who can predict the stock market with 90% accuracy should be able to make himself a billion dollars in a few months.

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[fractoid]

Now, that's not to say that he couldn't make money using the predictions, but maybe he's actually more interested in the science/mathematics side of it than the business potential?

I've heard that sort of excuse a lot, but I don't buy it. (heh.) You can buy pretty much anything with money. Saying you're not interested in money is saying that you're not interested in anything you can buy with money. The only person who genuinely have no interest in anything you can buy with money are the people who already have it all, and even they would start being interested in money if they lost it all.

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[francium de neobie]

Money isn't inherently evil - just like how guns don't kill people. If he is interested in a "science" of prediction, shouldn't he try his algorithm on the problem most resilient on any prediction method so far - the stock market?

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[zmollusc]

You used 'lose' instead of 'loose' when the correct word is 'lose'. Is the interweb broken? Next we will see someone in a car analogy slowing the vehicle by applying the 'brakes'.

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[Anonymous Coward]

Not if they specify Toyota.

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[koxkoxkox]

You can buy pretty much anything with money.

I really don't want your life ...

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[wizardforce]

His model seems to do well in cases where a relatively small number of people have significant influence on the outcome and since accurate predictions about the stock market require a model that both accurately predicts events in industry/production as well as the influence of large numbers of stockholders it probably wouldn't be wise to apply his model to that kind of situation; he even admits as much, that it's only good for fairly small groups.

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[fractoid]

How do you mean? All that jazz about "the most important things in life are free"... sure, if you're comfortably fed, clothed, and protected. Romantic walks on the beach, religious activities, whatever else it was that you were thinking of that money can't buy - I can guarantee that they would not be too high up your list of priorities if you were freezing, starving, or in physical danger.

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[SerpentMage]

I read part of his book since his book uses what one would call behavioral economics. A very interesting field. What I don't like about him is that he manipulates (read the book). And as such believes that manipulation is everything. I stopped reading half way because I hated his style. That is his flaw since not everybody can be manipulated. People can act irrationally. That he does not account for in his model, and is what I would think is a major flaw. It is sort of like saying, "Greece will be bailed out, Greece will be bailed out" Why? Because that the logical choice and would be according to this guy who does predictions.

What they all forget is Germany... Germany is now saying, "hey Greece head over to the IMF" It is at that point the financial community says, "ooops..." But if you are investing money it is a big f****g oops! And that big f****g oops is what causes financial companies to loose money...

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[SerpentMage]

In my early investing career I asked in a forum, "if somebody has a money making strategy why would they not use it themselves?"

Two answers:

1) They don't have enough capitalization and are trying to attract money.
2) Snakeoil...

1 does happen, albeit not that often, but it does. 2 is the more common answer.

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[Anonymous Coward]

The fundamental reason the stock market is not a predictable system is that it is illogical. There are all sorts of manipulations and human errors that defy any logical definition thus predicting them in a logical system (software etc) is impossible. It's like trying to predict which way a ball will fall when dropped off a building when god is randomly inverting gravity.

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[Imsdal]

As MAD Magazine said years ago: "The best things in life are free. The expensive part is paying for the dinner and movie that comes first".

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[fractoid]

Yeah. Like that 'rich dad poor dad' guy. He thinks he's a financial guru but what he really did was make a modest fortune by sniping mortgage foreclosure auctions (in essence, ripping off the struggling families who'd just lost their homes), and then when that stopped working, he switched tactics to making money by selling "how to make money" books and giving seminars.

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[Anonymous Coward]

What I don't like about him is that he manipulates (read the book).

Nice try, prof. de Mesquita, but we know about sarcasm.

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[Khyber]

"behavioral economics. A very interesting field."

Sounds like BS. The idea that you could apply a mathematical formula to something as unpredictable as human behavior, even in group situations, is somewhat absurd if given a properly diverse set of people.

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[koxkoxkox]

Remember we are talking about the possibility of a guy saying : "ok, I don't want that much money, I have enough". Of course, if he doesn't have a home and enough to eat he should to have more money.

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[Registered Coward v2]

"behavioral economics. A very interesting field."

Sounds like BS. The idea that you could apply a mathematical formula to something as unpredictable as human behavior, even in group situations, is somewhat absurd if given a properly diverse set of people.

Actually it's not - it looks at human behavior related to decision making as as part of the way to explain economic decisions; and seeks to understand apparent irrationality in the market, for example. As such, it is somewhat at odds with efficient market theory which makes Chicago's mens tennis doubles team of Fama / Thaler an interesting combination.

Not surprisingly, human behavior is often not that unpredictable as people may think, especially in larger groups. There's a large body of research on decision making and economics that is quite fascinating and illuminating.

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[dargaud]

Yeah, it's like the turkey predicting that tomorrow it will go to sleep well fed. It will be wrong only once after all. Just before thankgiving. Not a bad score, right ?

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[Courageous]

If his theories are based on manipulation, manipulation based theories should have NOT predicted the market bubble, as everyone was being manipulated into being rich. Further manipulation should have predicted an increasing, never-ending bubble. Sounds like he and the banks use the same theories; whoops, model wrong.

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[nospam007]

"The idea that you could apply a mathematical formula to something as unpredictable as human behavior, even in group situations, is somewhat absurd"

Old news, it's Psychohistory,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory_(fictional)

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[Anonymous Coward]

Ther's a third option:

They have a method that works, but not as well as selling snakeoil. So they apply their method, and sell it as a miricle cure in parallel to make even more money.

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[Kelbear]

Human behavior isn't truly random, it can be predicted, though not with a high degree of individual precision.

Offer to give 500 dollars to each person with no strings attached, I think everyone here can make a pretty darned good prediction of whether or not a person would take it. It may not be a 100% accurate prediction, but the outcomes certainly aren't random. This point is just to establish that human behavior forms trends that can be predicted.

After you conclude that there are trends in human behavior, you just need a large enough sample group to find them. You don't need everybody in the sample group to neatly line up on the same response. Let's say 90% take the money, and 10% reject it. You've got a 90% chance of predicting what they'll do. If you want to improve it, figure out why the 10% are really rejecting it. Perhaps they don't trust you, so maybe you can sign a statement attesting that you place no obligation on them for taking your money. If half of that 10% group find this to be enough to accept the money, you can predict that 95% of people will accept 500 dollars if you offer them a signed statement of no obligation with it. You tease out the source of deviation then account for it in the model to get closer to truth.

If you find that in the real world, 20% are rejecting the money, then the model is off and you just need to find out why and account for it, you need to expand the sample set be broad enough to represent the general population and capture all the errors. That's a lot! Or, just get a sample of the set of people you're going to use the model on. If you want to make predictions on Indians, get a sample of Indians. An American may not fit the model, but you wouldn't need to account for his deviation since you aren't planning to use it on him anyway.

It's a monumentally difficult task, but that's not the same as impossible. Simple and relatively obvious predictions can be made, but over time, more factors can be accounted for. It's also why the summary sounds like a load of crap, because I don't believe one man can close the massive gap of unknown factors all by himself, even with a lifetime of work.

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[Anonymous Coward]

I have found if you rub peanut oil on your balls, cover them with powdered sugar, and then hold dangle them them out by the monkey cage at the zoo you will see visions of the future.

--- The Great Ballzinei... has spoken

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[Anonymous Coward]

You cannot predict the future. You can predict behaviour pretty accurately.

As Redd Foxx said...
"Oh you don't curse, huh. Well let me take you out to the parking lot and slam your fingers in the door. You will say God Damned and Mother Fucker!"

Great teller of future events.

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[jandersen]

Why would you assume that the first thing anybody with a good idea would do, is to go and make money from it? Things like altruism and curiosity for its own sake are arguably some of the traits that make humans "human"; and there are many things that are much more interesting and satisfying than money.

That aside, the purpose of game theory as such is to predict the behaviour of systems, so it isn't so surprising that they achieve some success. The big problem, as far as I can see, is to create a model that is realistic enough, pretty much like when you predict the weather, although the method is different. And then you have to know which questions to ask, since the answer may well be something like "42".

Prediction is not actually that difficult in itself; you do it every day when you say things like "Tomorrow I will go to a meeting" - and sure enough, next day you do go to a meeting. This is trivial, of course, but that is all there is to it; the rest is down to how many data you have and whether you are able to take it all into account.

And that, funny enough, is why using a techique like Tarot or I Ching can sometimes be amazingly effective. When you lay out Tarot cards, it is of course entirely random, but that is exactly why it works; because when you try to think about the consequences of some important problem, you are likely focusing too strongly on only a part of the available data, and trying to interpret the random set of images you've laid out breaks you out of the box you have created for yourself - it is, in effect, a form of brainstorming.

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[SPickett]

His model works if there are small number of GROUPS have influence. There are many stock market situations where this may be useful.

For example, a stock in play for a takeover. You have groups within the takeover target - management, institutional shareholders, public shareholders. You have the acquiring company management and acquiring company shareholders. Maybe you have a second potential acquiring company out there for a possible bidding war. You have two groups of speculators, one betting on the takeover, one betting against it.

It seems like you could use game theory in predicting such a situation.

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[Jiro]

First of all, there are so many things that money can buy that it's difficult to think of how someone who isn't a monk or equivalent wouldn't want some more. Does he have a mortgage? Children or grandchildren interested in going to Stanford? Even assuming his personal needs are met, enough money could, oh, endow a university and create a whole research center just to study his theories.

But perhaps a more important reason is that using his theories to make money is hard to fudge. Making money would prove that he's right, and surely he's interested in proving he's right even if he's not really interested in the money--it would show that he's not just making easy predictions, or fudging the predictions to match the events, because that kind of thing can make the predictions look successful but won't get him any money.

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[SwordsmanLuke]

I always got the impression that it was because trading systems work - but only as well as the trader using them. I've found that knowing when *not* to follow your system is more important than whatever system you happened to be employing. That's knowledge that only comes with time and (often painful) experience.

Your system could be excellent at predicting market movements, but you may just not be cut out to be a trader. In such a situation, selling the system itself could very well make more economic sense than using it yourself.

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[JesseMcDonald]

Human behavior isn't random, but it is chaotic in the context of competition. One can predict the result easily enough when there are no conflicting self-interests, as in your example, but that predictability disappears as soon as you try to influence the outcome in a way one or more of the individuals involved perceives as not being in their favor.

If all you want to do is model non-coerced and purely cooperative human behavior then that won't be an issue, but most behavioral economists find themselves employed in the development of political policies which are intended to change others' behavior. The chaotic nature of competition makes the long-term outcome of such measures impossible to predict; this phenomenon is observed all the time, and goes by the name "Law of Unintended Consequences".

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[orichter]

It doesn't necessarily follow that if he can be right 90% of the time, he can make money. It's possible that what he says is true, but not particularly useful. Let me give you an example. I play limit poker, and while I'm not good enough to make a living at it, I am good enough to consistently make around $5-$15 per hour. The key is folding most of your hands. Typically, I make money on 1 hand in 25, meaning if I fold every hand, I will be right 96% of the time and still be unable to make money. The key is to maximize expected value. If the expected value of the 4% of hands I win is more than 25 times the value of the times I lose, I still make money, but it doesn't take very many mistakes to turn a winning proposition into a losing one. The key here is not the fact that he's right 90% of the time, but how much he loses when he's wrong vs. how much he makes when he's right. Those are not the same things.

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[Khyber]

All of this relating to my point of a 'diverse group sample'

Thank you for clarifying this a bit better than I could.

Re:If he isn't already rich then he's lying

[jandersen]

I think, at the end of the day, that what we have here is a combination of some journalist overstating the case and a scientist who has found something that is genuine, but not nearly as sensational as the article claims. A bit like when Einstein tried to explain that space-time is curved, and the newspapers translating it to "If you have a big enough telescope, you can see the back of your own head".

As for what money can buy - your arguments are not wrong, but I think you simply don't know what drives many scientists and much of science too: not money or fame, not even discovery of great answers, but the struggle itself to find answers. It's a bit like a journey; what do you like about going on a journey? To me it is the journey itself, the things you see and experience which you didn't expect. I don't go on holidays so I can come home and show the photos to everybody; and that is what drives a scientist, I think.

Already been done.

[dynamo52]

Hari Seldon invented psychohistory.

Re:Already been done.

[Forthac4]

I saw an interview with him on The Daily Show and he made mention of the parallel with Seldon.

Re:Already been done.

[buchner.johannes]

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-september-28-2009/bruce-bueno-de-mesquita

Re:Already been done.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hari Seldon invented psychohistory.

Sounds more like the Moneytron in the 1980s.

Re:Already been done.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pack your backs. We're heading Terminus.

Re:Already been done.

[mrdogi]

Can't believe I missed that thought. Asimov is one of my favorite authors. My first thought, actually was "A Mind Forever Voyaging"

Re:Already been done.

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn I was hoping to have the first Hari Seldon post.... too slow.

Re:Already been done.

[el_jake]

My last visit to Trantor i couldn't find him, I guess he is fictional?

B.S.

[Anonymous Coward]

In theory, sure, with enough information and accurate models, we can predict things. But we have neither. What he's good at is predicting that if he wants better book sales, he should talk himself up.

rly?

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet he didn't predict that his web server will be dead soon from the slashdotting.

So, if it works, this is like...

[Securityemo]

...Psychohistory?

90% Accuracy

[ShakaUVM]

Ok, he claims he has 90% accuracy.

What do, you know, independent evaluators of his claims say?

Re:90% Accuracy

[red_blue_yellow]

Well, actually, they say 90%. From TFA:

According to research by the CIA, Bueno de Mesquita's model is more than 90 per cent accurate (British Journal of Political Science, vol 26, p 441).

Is that independent enough for you?

Re:90% Accuracy

[wizardforce]

What do, you know, independent evaluators of his claims say?

Well he hasn't submitted anything about his computer model to peer review so I'd imagine that it would be something along the lines of show us how or it didn't happen.

Re:90% Accuracy

[ShakaUVM]

>>Is that independent enough for you?

Then that should have been posted in the summary instead. Whenever I read self-written claims of a model's accuracy, my bullshit meter goes off.

In related news, Miss Cleo predicts ongoing instability in the Middle East, conflicts over water rights, and people being unhappy with those jokers in government.

Re:90% Accuracy

[Anonymous Coward]

>>Is that independent enough for you?

Then that should have been posted in the summary instead. Whenever I read self-written claims of a model's accuracy, my bullshit meter goes off.

In related news, Miss Cleo predicts ongoing instability in the Middle East, conflicts over water rights, and people being unhappy with those jokers in government.

In even more related news, you made a false assumption and are trying to justify it.

Re:90% Accuracy

[ShakaUVM]

>>In even more related news, you made a false assumption and are trying to justify it.

No, my point was that if you make easy predictions, then it's easy to get a high success rate.

Re:90% Accuracy

[damburger]

Its a journal of political 'science'. Thats no more a science than social science is. Given the very qualitative nature of some of his predictions/confirmations:

How are things going in Pakistan? The analysis in the penultimate chapter of The Predictioneer’s Game indicated that IF — a contingent forecast — the US gave Pakistan $1.5 billion in aid then the Pakistani government would turn away from making side deals with the Taliban and Al Qaeda militants in Pakistan and, instead, go after them but not wholeheartedly. This is what has been happening.

http://www.predictioneersgame.com/blog

I would say its fairly easy to spin events to get his 90% rate, and I'm not entirely convinced that a journal of a non-quantitative science would necessarily pick up on that Let me know when he gets published in Nature

Re:90% Accuracy

[lxs]

I think the model can be very simple (basically multiply some probabilities). Asking the right questions and getting accurate data is the hard part.

It's very easy to end up with a GIGO situation.

Re:90% Accuracy

[TapeCutter]

"Its a journal of political 'science'. Thats no more a science than social science is."

Just for the record, political "science" IS one of the social "sciences". They call it science because it makes predictions but as you have rightly pointed out testing those predictions is more often a subjective art than an objective measurement.

Re:90% Accuracy

[donaggie03]

It might have been a false assumption, but it was a logical one to make. What kind of BS summary talks about self claimed accuracy when an independent organization's claims are just as accurate?

Re:90% Accuracy

[Anonymous Coward]

now there's a predictable response if I ever saw one.

Re:90% Accuracy

[SnarfQuest]

You mean, like the way the National Enquirer rates the psycics as being over 90% accurate, but if you get the Prediction issue from the previous year, only the obvious things came true. You know, like "bat boy will devour a large midwest town". He does that EVERY year. It's like predicting 5 o'clock.

When you predict enough, you gotta be right

[Opportunist]

At least sometimes. If I make a thousand predictions (the more they contradict each other, the better) and only publish them AFTER the results are in, I can easily claim that I can predict the future. It's a simple magician's trick. Ask a person to think of a number between 1 and 10 (or pick a card, or whatever), then hand him a sealed envelope telling him you knew he'd pick that number (or hand him an envelope containing the card). You couldn't write it down and give him that envelope after he chose, so you have to be able to predict it, else you could not have written it down before the show, right?

What you don't hand him are the other envelopes containing the other numbers/cards.

Re:When you predict enough, you gotta be right

[MoeDumb]

What about magicians who leave the sealed card with the answer in plain sight all through the trick? Dai Vernon for one could do it. Can you explain that?

Re:When you predict enough, you gotta be right

[Anonymous Coward]

All your premises -- publish after, only mention positives -- are invalid. He doesn't make that stuff up in his head as he goes.

Re:When you predict enough, you gotta be right

[madpansy]

Sports picks hotlines also claim to predict the future, and they have to publish well before the results so their customers can place their bets. It's just too bad that every week half of their free picks for first timers are wrong.

Re:When you predict enough, you gotta be right

[Securityemo]

One method is to write the number on different parts of the object containing the answer.

Re:When you predict enough, you gotta be right

[lul_wat]

Nostradamus has prior art

Re:When you predict enough, you gotta be right

[Opportunist]

That's actually a well known scam. Someone stands in front of a casino and tells someone a "secret" in exchange for a cut. He claims that he has a deal with the croupier that he fixed the game so it will land on red more often than on black. Of course, he tells the same story to another sucker, in reverse. And when it's time to cash in, he will of course only contact the one who actually really won...

Re:When you predict enough, you gotta be right

[Oligonicella]

Yes. You got conned into believing him. It was either sleight of hand or pushing. There was no precognition going on.

Re:When you predict enough, you gotta be right

[Anonymous Coward]

no, it must be supernatural powers. jesus fucking christ, how old are you?

I predict

[Crash McBang]

That his 90% hit rate will shrink now that he has the Internetz attention.

Bet he didn't predict *that*...

The future

[wizardforce]

So what of the future? Another of Bueno de Mesquita's recent predictions addresses the future of climate change negotiations up to 2050. Depressingly, he predicts that although the world will negotiate tougher greenhouse gas reductions than in the Kyoto protocol, in practise these are likely to be abandoned as Brazil, India and China rise in power in relation to the European Union and the US.

No word on what we could do to avoid such a fate. It would be interesting to see what if anything could be done to avoid a prisoner's dilemma type situation in the case of AGW mitigation. If the model he's usin could predict such an outcome accurately, it can also predict what could be done to avoid such a negative outcome.

Re:The future

[XanC]

I'm assuming you're talking about the fate where those countries pass us by because we've deliberately shackled ourselves, because we felt guilty about our own success?

Sure. The way to avoid it is to not do that.

Re:The future

[red_blue_yellow]

I do think the Prisoner's Dilemma is a very good model for the global warming situation. If you think of it strictly in those terms, the only way to change the Nash equilibrium is to alter the benefits of the different strategies for all players. This could either mean some type of guaranteed punishment for defectors or some type of guaranteed benefit for cooperators. I think most people instinctively realize this -- but enforcing the benefits/penalties on a global scale is the difficult part.

Re:The future

[wizardforce]

Not everything that is your immediate self interest is in your or your species' long term interest. Thievery, fraud and property destruction being perfect examples of this. So while it may benefit the fossil fuel industries to pretend nothing is our doing, the people that have to live with the consequences of pollution in all its forms surely don't. Even the most hard core libertarians admit that pollution is a form of rights violation; the *only* question are whether high levels of CO2 constitute such a case and the science seems to say "yes." As for how to reduce emissions to avoid such property damage, this is less clear cut.

Re:The future

[wizardforce]

guaranteed benefit for cooperators

That's pretty much what I've been saying about the subject of AGW for quite some time now. China and friends are not going to "do the riht thing" unless there's money in it. Find a way to make meaningful AGW mitigation profitable and the problem largely solves its self.

Re:The future

[TapeCutter]

"As for how to reduce emissions to avoid such property damage, this is less clear cut."

Yes, in the long run the tradgedy of the commons is a more destructive failure of politics than war.

Re:The future

[Lemmy Caution]

Regulation makes it profitable, by making it costly (politically, economically, or otherwise) to fail to mitigate. How do you think you "find a way" to make something like this profitable?

Win 7 SP1

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll bet he predicted Win 7 SP1.

Ahmadinejad

[Anonymous Coward]

He "predicted" that Ahmadinejad wouldn't be reelected to the presidency of Iran, because he's group had no popular support. We all know how that ended.

Re:Ahmadinejad

[SheeEttin]

He "predicted" that Ahmadinejad wouldn't be reelected to the presidency of Iran, because he's group had no popular support. We all know how that ended.

I'm sure he assumed the elections were fair. ;)

In any case, regimes with leaders like that don't need to get reelected. They just declare themselves dictator-for-life.

Re:Ahmadinejad

[wizardforce]

We all know how that ended.

Well technically, he probably wasn't wrong on that point. It is quite possible, if not likely, that Ahmadinehad wasn't actually elected by the people of Iran but remained in power because the elections were rigged and didn't really matter anyway.

Re:Ahmadinejad

[mgvrolijk]

He probably should have toggled the Cheating Bastard check box.

Re:Ahmadinejad

[WillDraven]

Yeah picking on him for missing that prediction is like harping on somebody for predicting Nancy Kerrigan would win the 1994 US Skating Championship.

Spanish-speaking cannibals

[Anonymous Coward]

I predict that if Bruce ever get eaten by cannibals, he would taste good barbecued with mesquite.

Not "the Future"

[plasticsquirrel]

He doesn't claim to be able to simply "predict the future." Accurate information is only given in situations where a limited number of people are making a decision, and where accurate information is available on them for input. The key is basically that it assumes that serious decisions are made primarily according to the players' own interests (a reasonable assumption). Given the limited problem set, it doesn't seem too unrealistic to believe that one could make a very simple, basic model with some level of accuracy. Even without elegant theories, if accurate inputs and outputs from past events were available, a statistical model could probably be generated automatically.

I wonder if eventually every government will spend significant time consulting these machine-oracles? It reminds me of the various mathematical methods of prediction that still exist in China and India. Some of the Chinese models still require a significant amount of abacus shuffling, and a large set of reference books for all the possibilities. These were probably formed from similar basic methods of trying to gather data, compare it, and map inputs to outputs.

Re:Not "the Future"

[madpansy]

I wonder if eventually every government will spend significant time consulting these machine-oracles?

It's certainly not new. I remember reading about John von Neumann's interest in game theory and some of his work at RAND developing it for use in analyzing international relations. For example, it was the RAND corporation that used game theory to support the strategy of mutually assured destruction as a nuclear deterrent.

Re:Not "the Future"

[mugurel]

Right! And if he were to predict the future, we would stop calling it future. What use is a future if you can predict it?

I predict...

[Anonymous Coward]

I predict that the people who pay attention to geo-politics and have a decent grasp of historical parallels can make an awful lot of money accurately forcasting the future by pretending to rely on mysterious and magical/scientific means.

We've never seen this sort of thing in history *cough cough astrology cough cough* have we?

Care to buy my "game theory"? I can give you 90% accuracy, just ask my "independant" buddies at the CIA... after all, what do they know about future political events? ;)

What's he predicted?

[Mr. Freeman]

I can believe a 90% hit rate. I can predict the future, and so can you, with 90% accuracy. See, if you don't claim to be able to predict EVERYTHING then you can easily "predict" obvious things.

I predict that tomorrow someone will die in the world.
I predict that tomorrow at least one person will spend $100 on a TV somewhere in the US.
I predict that tomorrow the temperature will be higher than 32 deg F in California.

Tomorrow look up these details and see how many I get right. I CAN PREDICT THE FUTURE!!

This guy claims to be able to predict "only certain things" which really means he's predicting things obvious even if it's not obvious that they're obvious. For example, he claims to be able to predict foreign policy. Did he predict foreign policy, or did he just watch the news and make some predictions based off of what all the political analysts are saying?

From TFA "These [predictions] include whether or not North Korea's supreme leader, Kim Jong II, would dismantle his nation's nuclear arsenal" How stupid do you have to be to believe that he "predicted" this? Everyone and their fucking aunt is watching the news, everyone is reporting on it, the government is doing fucking insane amounts of research and analysis as to what foreign leaders' views are regarding nuclear weapons. It's not that hard to make a guess as to what's going to happen when you have that much information available to you.

Re:What's he predicted?

[Anonymous Coward]

Predictions are of course possible.

But it's all based on probability, so what it does, is give an indication of what to come. You can reach very high levels of probability as well, but unless you have all the data of the universe (and a machine to process it), it will be a qualified guess.

I think its a good prediction, if you, through a model and a few billion pieces of information, a few days of processing and pattern search, can predict the effect on a segment on people, even if only 70% actually do as predicted. It's still a huge help. You can detect all kinds of disasters through this kind of prediction, detect coming diseases in people so that tests can be made in good time etc. In other words, it's not just fancy magic. It's mathematics that truly helps in a plethora of things, where you want to prevent or react on possible future events.

I'd say go for it. The better we can guess about tomorrow, the better we can prepare.

Re:What's he predicted?

[lordlod]

From TFA "These [predictions] include whether or not North Korea's supreme leader, Kim Jong II, would dismantle his nation's nuclear arsenal" How stupid do you have to be to believe that he "predicted" this? Everyone and their fucking aunt is watching the news, everyone is reporting on it, the government is doing fucking insane amounts of research and analysis as to what foreign leaders' views are regarding nuclear weapons. It's not that hard to make a guess as to what's going to happen when you have that much information available to you.

It's easy to write someone off to match your view but it's worth looking at what he actually does and the level of detail he goes into.

Another example from his blog was looking at the nuclear situation in Iran, very similar to North Korea. He looks at the latest offering from the international community and predicts if it will be accepted or not. He predicts that it won't be accepted but he goes further and explains why, he also explains the kind of offer that would be accepted. Now the won't be accepted view is the common one (though clearly someone making the offer thought it might be accepted), but it's the level of detail and analysis that differentiates him.

Predicting international relations is a common field but 90% is a very good hit rate. Classical IR theory is quite flawed and wouldn't be nearly that successful.

This method is NOT 'future seeing'

[nido]

From the /. story headline (emphasis added):

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita Uses Games To See the Future

Having read the fine links, it seems Mr. de Mesquita doesn't actually "see the future". He gathers data and throws it into his computer, which applies game rules to determine the most likely outcome. To me, "seeing the future" implies predicting the unpredictable - assasinations, a meteor taking out a major area, the abdication of a king (so he could marry his American sweetheart), etc.

Indeed, here's a quote from the New Scientist article:

According to political scientist Nolan McCarty of Princeton University, this is the real strength of the approach. "I suspect the model's success is largely due to the fact that Bueno de Mesquita is very good on the input side; he's a very knowledgeable person and a widely respected political scientist. I'm sceptical that the modelling apparatus adds as much predictive power as he says it does."

Methinks Mr. de Mesquita's method works because he meticulously gathers excellent data. If his data was sloppy, his rate of successful "predictions" would be much lower than it is.

Sometimes events which are 'unpredictable' happen. In retrospect we say, 'oh yes, this event was the only logical event to have taken place'. But such an event is typically unthinkable before it happens. Mr. deMesquita's model doesn't allow for the unpredictable, and is therefore NOT 'future seeing'.

I have a book on seeing the future. Here's a quote from the first couple pages that I typed up for a 2008 election prediction poll on K5 a while back:

Your Nostradamus Factor, by Ingo Swann

Chapter 1: Jumping The Time Barrier

Like many others, I've had good reasons during my life to assume that the future can be seen. But if I had any doubt it would have vanished as a result of an astonishing forty-five seconds when I found myself in Detmold, then in West Germany, in the spring of 1988.

Detmold is near the beautiful Teutoburger Forest and a famous pre-Christian shrine, Horn-Externstein, which is a pile of towering rocks riddled with sonorous caves. Until the time of Charlemagne it is said that Nordic kings came to Horn-Externstein to consult seers about the future.

I was invited to Detmold by Herr Manfred Himmel in April 19988 to give a series of lectures about psi research. This was Herr Himmel's fifth "esoteric" conference, and it was well attended by several hundred people. Herr Himmel was ardent about psychic matters, and the talks of his other speakers were interesting to me. Some of these speakers were also practicing psychics who were busy giving individual "readings" and making predictions about the future.

I was billed as the famous American superpsychic who had "astonished scientists" since my first formal laboratory experiments in 1970. But I have never given individual "readings," and I never made predictions about the future.

Many of Herr Himmel's conference attendees were visibly disappointed that I did not give the expected readings and did not foresee the future. Although I had studied "prophecy" and predicting for many years and had even experienced some novel insights about it, I was well aware that most predictions turn out to be wrong. I felt I had a scientific reputation to protect, which would be damaged if I accumulated a list of erroneous predictions. Moreover, I didn't view myself as a future-seer in any professional sense, and I though that predicting should be left to those who were or at least tried to be.

I gave several lectures and workshops at the conference, as well as the keynote address. I had worked hard at preparing this address, entitling it "Revising Psychic Research Methods and Expectations in the New Age," and even gave the opening statements in German before continuing

Re:This method is NOT 'future seeing'

[Anonymous Coward]

Very often "unthinkable" is the same thing as "unaware." In other words you just simply lack all the information.

Re:This method is NOT 'future seeing'

[SharpFang]

Chaos Theory Suggests Otherwise(tm)

more points from the fine article

[nido]

The last few paragraphs of the fine article validate my post above. Here's a quote:

So what of the future? Another of Bueno de Mesquita's recent predictions addresses the future of climate change negotiations up to 2050. Depressingly, he predicts that although the world will negotiate tougher greenhouse gas reductions than in the Kyoto protocol, in practise these are likely to be abandoned as Brazil, India and China rise in power in relation to the European Union and the US.

One 'black swan' that Bueno de Mesquita's prediction dosen't take into account are technological developments which solve the energy problem.

Suppose a backyard inventor develops a thermodynamics-compliant engine/transmission that gets 3x better fuel economy with 1/100 as many parts (conventional reciprocating piston engines have 1000's, this invention has 25 or so), and allows for mechanical storage of 95% of a stop's kinetic energy in a hydraulic pressure tank.

Or what if there is a worldwide surge of volcanic activity in the 2030's, which makes human production of CO2 insignificant?

I, for one, am Not impressed. 'tis time for me to go to bed - maybe I will have some prophetic dream tonight.

Oh ? Prediction beats logic now?

[freaker_TuC]

Apparantly Bruce seems to use logic to predict ... so do predictions beat logic now ?

Re:Irrelevent - English is dead

[Jedi Alec]

Oh, a kingdom for the option to mod a post ironic, no matter how irrelevant it may be.

better: predict the opposites

[roman_mir]

If you predict the opposites you can be 99% correct.

If I write 2 opposite predictions for an event that could really only have 2 outcomes (with a very small chance of something else happening altogether) and then in the future I show everyone one of the two, the one that ended up happening, I'd be almost 100% successful at predicting 'the future'.

Re:better: predict the opposites

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh really?! Talk about screwing up statistics... If you make two opposite predictions for an event with a yes/no kind of possibility then only one of the two will be right. And in that case you'll have at best a 50% success rate.

Re:better: predict the opposites

[roman_mir]

dumb ass. I will have a prediction success rate that is very close to a 100% based on many yes/no predictions because there is a possibility that a very remote third thing will happen that I may not even know about, but you missed the whole point.

I make 2 contradicting predictions, make sure that there is a proof of the date when I make the predictions and then based on the outcome of the event I select the prediction that actually happened.

Example: will a stock go up or down? I say it goes up in the envelope A, I say it goes down in the envelope B.

Why is it possible that none of the above things happen? Because a stock maybe blocked or delisted, a company can disappear, a terrorist may strike or a meteorite may take out a city with the company in it. Those are the remote 3rd possibility.

If the stock goes up, I show my prediction A, if the stock goes down, I show my prediction B.

Re:Irrelevent - English is dead

[rve]

English no longer belongs to native speakers, get used to it.

Bible Predictions

[allcaps]

This seems a lot like the Bible Code by Michael Drosnin. Turned out his method could be used to predict famous assassinations from the pages of Moby Dick (something Michael said would be silly). http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/moby.html

Re:Irrelevent - English is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

If not Him, then who?
or Hoo!

Re:Irrelevent - English is dead

[dbIII]

Odd that you reply that way to a post about why a lose/loose mistake doesn't matter at all.

Re:Irrelevent - English is dead

[dbIII]

So who else is using "Predictioneer" then?
Convince me that it's not just dumbed down bullshit to take advantage of the poorly educated and you'll have a point.

Re:Irrelevent - English is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

You really need to read the "lose/loose" post again.

Re:Irrelevent - English is dead

[Sulphur]

If not Him, then who?
or Hoo!

Dr. Hu

NY Times story, Daily Show, TED

[Eharley]

Great article last year in the NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/magazine/16Bruce-t.html?pagewanted=all

Daily Show

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-september-28-2009/bruce-bueno-de-mesquita

TED Talk

http://www.ted.com/talks/bruce_bueno_de_mesquita_predicts_iran_s_future.html

Re:Irrelevent - English is dead

[HungryHobo]

http://www.google.ie/search?q=predictioneer

Results 1 - 10 of about 57,900 for predictioneer.

Re:Irrelevent - English is dead

[chilvence]

Don't be so high and mighty. The English language owes all of its current fame to flexibility. At one point in its history it completely resembled German through and through, and then various cultures had their way with it, expanding the vocabulary and refining or simplifying the pronounciation. English scholars of that era liked that so much, they even developed their own habit of coining new words from foreign languages, which is probably one of the secret reasons why even after it was long dead, Latin was still being taught religiously in England until last century - it gave us a handy source of vocabulary to draw on when our own ran out. All the languages of the world are made from other languages, and new words come into existence every single day, surviving for as long as other people recognise their use and intelligability, sometimes even by accident as foreign learners introduce words that make logical sense, but had not been in use for whatever reason.

  One can only hope that those un-indoctrinated people will use their initiative, and finally break the back of our pompous, contrived, third rate and ridiculously incongruous spelling system for us, the worst in modern Europe, ridiculed by people in countries that have half our literacy rate , since all we can do is stand up on high and piss all over anyone who doesn't give it 100% respect.

Didn't read the article?

[plasticsquirrel]

1. He doesn't make predictions himself, the program does, given input data about the players involved.
2. The issues being predicted are non-obvious, such as surprise outcomes in Indian politics, made for the CIA.
3. The issues are not arbitrary, but rather limited to rational decisions made by a number of people, but this may be in the hundreds.

This is really about going beyond educated guessing, and the number of factors that a human mind could consider. It is about predicting group behavior, and relies on large amounts of accurate input data. It is not something that can be gleaned just from watching the news.

It's obvious from your post that you didn't even bother to glean the article in question, so I shouldn't have expected much. How you got "5 insightful" is beyond me, but I assume it is due to the "know-it-all" factor on Slashdot, where any geek expressing the popular opinion can remain ignorant and feed off popular sentiments. In some cases this can work, and comments can still be insightful and relevant, but an article such as this is not one of those cases. Your comment might as well be addressing Uri Geller or a local fortune teller. It has nothing to do with this methodology or its underlying ideas, which are more related to mathematics and sociology.

Re:Irrelevent - English is dead

[dbIII]

Notice the one name that keeps occurring - Bueno de Mesquita.

Butterfly effect

[gmuslera]

He could have 90% accuracy in pretty close events, but can't predict what will do small groups of people (i.e. 9/11, spanish inquisition) or interferences of events not caused by people (recent eartquakes, katrina, yellowstone caldera, etc). In Foundation you had a (spoiler alert) second foundation to keep things going when "accidents" happen (/spoiler alert), here you only have mass media to try to correct trends in the "right" path. So predicting a month or a year ahead could end having much less than 90% accuracy.

And, of course, there is the little factor that is that by knowing the future (specially, knowing what people will do) you can change it (i.e. predicting that some market shares will fall and then selling all of them in a hurry will actually make that shares to rise) and probably isnt the future anymore.

Re:Irrelevent - English is dead

[dbIII]

I never said it was about spelling - notice that this came out of the lose/loose thing. It's about getting buried under a pile of disposable buzzwords that shift in meaning so often as to be completely useless in any sort of communication.
It's not about being high and mighty either. There's a good reason why "philosopher" was seen as too difficult a word in a childrens book title by US publishers but the remainder of the English speaking world didn't.
My biggest problem is with the utter arseholes that decide to take existing words and pretend to change the meaning of them in mid conversation just to win an argument - they can get away with it if they are surrounded by the poorly educated. You get communication problems as if you were talking to a ten year old - but yes they can spell all right, they just might not have a fucking clue what they are reading or writing.

Re:Bruce Bueno de Mesquita predicted this first po

[kv9]

tagged as hariseldon, psychohistory. finally!

Re:Irrelevent - English is dead

[HungryHobo]

And?
How do you think words enter a language?
Someone uses it in a coherent manner and others follow.

This is news?

[DaveV1.0]

There is nothing new in this. People have been using game theory to make predictions for decades.

In fact, it is one way that Japan screwed up in WW2. They gamed out different strategies for the Battle of Midway during which an admiral arbitrarily lowered Japanese casualties. The results of the changed games showed an easy win for Japan, but when the arbitrary changes were removed, the results of the gaming exercises reflected the Japanese losing the battle.

Re:Irrelevent - English is dead

[chilvence]

But everyone understood what he meant, just like everybody got the meaning of your word, 'doubleplusungood'. Spontaneously created words aren't the sole domain of famous English authors, neither are they inherently lacking in meaning. Predictioneer may be a kludge of a word, but its also quite obvious what the guy meant. It may catch on, it may not. As can be shown by your OTT reaction, language is self cleaning. At least things like this stand to signify that the language we use isn't set down in concrete, and we don't get to decide anything. If we try to control the language too pedantically, people will lose intrest because at that stage, it is impossible to make it 'your own' - it devolves into the constant strain of trying to please die hard grammar nazis that dont have anything encouraging or constructive to say.

One of the best things about English is it doesn't have a trumped up 'Acadamie Anglaise' to bleach out any foreign influence, replace it with new words that only mean anything to ourselves, and then try to tell us all we don't know how to speak properly!

Sorcery!

[codepigeon]

They better not try this in Saudi Arabia. They could end up on death row. http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/03/19/saudi.arabia.sorcery/index.html?hpt=T2

Re:Bruce Bueno de Mesquita predicted this first po

[pha7boy]

he also predicted, in one of his early articles, that "countries go to war if they think they can win." Score 1 for predictive theories.

Re:Irrelevent - English is dead

[dbIII]

You've missed the point - time to put it simply.
This "Predictioneer" thing is a scam to gild bullshit and sell to the clueless.
Many are falling for it because their bullshit detectors are substandard due to a failure of education.
Now do you see what I mean? It's not about spelling, grammar or anything like that it's about COMMUNICATION. Bullshit words like "Predictioneer" are a DELIBERATE barrier to communication designed to SELL THINGS.

Re:Irrelevent - English is dead

[dbIII]

Leave your own baggage out of this - I'm not the strawman you think I am and agree with you on the point above.
However here it's nothing but attempting to look like a "pioneer" by making up another bullshit buzzword to con people and sell books.
You may have not have noticed but my post was a reaction to the ridiculous situation of people caring about spelling in a discussion of a bullshit buzzword fabricated by a confidence trickster telling people he can magically predict the future. Lose or loose doesn't really matter.
The education standards comment is about the fact that this thing has a market at all. It's not about IQ like someone implied, it's about the majority being given the basics so slime like Mesquita get laughed out of town when they try to pull a fast one.

Re:Irrelevent - English is dead

[dbIII]

just like everybody got the meaning of your word, 'doubleplusgood'

Oh fuck you are showing what I mean about education slipping - it's only one of the more famous parts of "1984". Start reading "1984" and you'll soon get to the bit about NewSpeak and you'll get a bit of insight about bullshit buzzwords being used to manipulate people.

Re:Irrelevent - English is dead

[chilvence]

You mean like Scientology? You'll have to forgive me then, but I thought schemes like that were ten a penny. They are unfortunate but can't simply be tackled head on because the social conditions that allow for them and the momentum they can gain from that are far greater than any single scam or individual, its part of the weave of society itself.

I put it to you a different way - people have been conditioned so strongly to blindly accept the word of the educated, that they are defenceless against people who have mastered the simple art of looking and sounding clever. You can't hate the huckster, despicable though he is, because the conditions that allow him to thrive are the true enemy.

The barriers to becoming 'educated' themselves are too high. We are in a state of intellectual apartheid just by acknowledging the fact that one can be educated or not - it is logistically impossible for the entire world to be educated to one standard, and even if it were, individuals would overtake that standard and others would lag behind.

We are to blame for people allowing themselves to be misled, because we have created a world were no one is allowed to be sure of what they think unless they have been told it's true - by simplifying something so indefinable and incredible as human intelligence into an endless parade of 'stupid until proven clever'. We have become so tranfixed with the mission of 'educating' everyone we don't even notice how pathetic the standard of that education has to sink in order to reach that noble goal. That is the dirty soul of the western education system.

People were smart or stupid long before mass education became a right of civilised countries. The only difference now is there are more informed smart and stupid people, but since the information all comes generally from a central authoritarian source that is liable to corruption, even the value of that information is dubious. What about the horrifying propaganda that was taught in childrens schools before the world wars?

Nobody in this so called uneducated group is buying into any particular scheme, they just want a quick fix to this amazing world changing power that education apparently radiates from every orifice. They are the lost of the education system that the rest of society has given up on, but wont set free. In effect, the smarter members of society are indirectly herding them into this unnesscesary self flagellation by putting book learning, instead of raw wit, on such a high pedestal that to appear stupid in any way is worse than death.

We bludgeon the need for simple human common sense, Thus there is a market for deranged self help schemes and the like, or anything to lift the depression of everyday live even momentarily. They won't solve anything for anyone, but they aren't exactly a threat to your own intelligence. And if they do exist, we only have ourselves to blame for not knowing how to foster a society where the demand for optimistic cure all bullshit is nil.

Re:Irrelevent - English is dead

[dbIII]

It was never about "smart or stupid". It's about giving neither the sort of education that will stop them falling for obvious scams or even make them employable.
Raw wit? Raw wit didn't save illiterate Montezuma when Cortez used tactics 1500 years old that he's read about. Education is about taking the "raw wit" of many so you don't have to make the same mistakes they did. Cortez had a lot of detailed written wisdom to fall back on while Montezuma and everyone with him only had a bit of oral history and recent experience. Europeans were able to dominate the rest of the world because they had millions of "here's one I prepared earlier" situations they could read about and apply.

The Game

[Anonymous Coward]

I've just lost the game

Re:Irrelevent - English is dead

[chilvence]

I know it is, I have read it - but it doesn't change my point: "Spontaneously created words aren't the sole domain of famous English authors" (by which I meant George Orwell, although I didn't realise I had to spell it out). Now think about anyone who hasn't read Orwell. Do they understand the word? I would say more than likely, in context, yes, because newspeak is a system that actually makes logical sense.

I also don't really agree with Orwell, newspeak is a bit of a fantasy that can't become a reality. It is possible to introduce a new catchphrase that washes over people, eg 'The War on Terror' (instead of terrorism or terrorists or something that isn't an intangible emotional state), but only if it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb. That's just erosion that is happening all around us, it's why we speak modern english instead of olde englisc, why italians speak italian instead of latin.

I can't remember if I said it already, but dictionaries follow the people, not the other way round, look at the recent action of the Real Acadamia Espanola to acknowledge all forms of Spanish across the world as legitimate in their own right, or the continuous inclusion in the Oxford dictionary of new slang. Dictionaries aren't a prescription of how to speak in the first place, they are a tool to find meaning of a word the user doesn't know. They are too basic and clumsy to be anything BUT that. As a resource of actual vocabulary to use every day, they are 100% useless, because it's all out of context, listed in an arbitrary form based on the spelling rather than the meaning or subject matter, a method designed for easy and quick lookup rather than in depth and detailed study. Try learning a foreign language by sitting down and reading the dictionary and see how far you get!

So the continuously revised newspeak dictionary wouldn't have any real effect anyway unless forced on people at gunpoint - in which case it would be the guns doing the dumbing down, not the vocabulary.

Re:Irrelevent - English is dead

[dbIII]

Sorry, I took the "your word" bit at face value.
For the rest of your comment you are preaching to the choir and I agree with you.
However here we have a confidence trickster making up buzzwords. There is no substance - it's just salting a claim.
Back to education, it's clearly declined to a point where the cream of English education in high school is seen as a spelling bee. The spelling obsession of many on this site demonstrates that even though it DOESN'T MATTER on an International forum. Those people were let down and never made it is far as a little bit of Shakespear to get that spelling obsession beaten out of them with good writing where spelling is optional (let alone little chunks of Cantebury Tales or Beowulf).
What does matter is communication. Buzzword bingo from some slimeball in a parking lot/PR organization for a political party is a deliberate barrier to communication.
It's the same at the other end of the political spectrum. I heard a radio interview a while ago with an American academic that was saying that pornography always hurts women - every single time. When the interviewer pushed for detail it turned out the academic had redefined pornography to literally mean "sexual images that lead to harm". They were not even speaking the same language as everyone else that speaks English - it was a nasty confidence trick to play on the poorly educated. You can't even hold a conversation with such idiots. Then there's the guy that talked about 37 senses because he didn't know what the word means.
That's the road we are going down because people have to make up shit when they get nothing but watered down Ebonics at school instead of English and then only read one book a year. That's not the people who do the menial work, that's the people that are running businesses now.