#11 Read-Watch-Listen

Read

The Signal and the Noise: The Art and Science of Prediction

By Nate Silver

If you’ve watched Moneyball and enjoyed it, you may enjoy Silvers’ writing. Silver came up with the statistical model PECOTA that forecasts baseball players’ performance. This was developed around the same time the Athletics were using statistics to scout and reshape their team as portrayed in Moneyball. The Signal and the Noise looks at things through a scientific lens, as he says - with skepticism and curiosity - and gets the right balance between the two.

The book, as the title indicates is about the science of prediction. The first few chapters go from baseball scouts to predicting the weather, through to natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes. Basically the art and science of prediction - is exactly that: art and science. Which essentially means it’s a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis. It’s a mix of reliable numbers and human observation and intervention. In economic terms, this feels like the same sort of argument for “mixed economies.” I’m quite influenced by publications like The Economist (just look at the Listen for this week) so I already have a strong opinion that what makes the world go round are mixed systems. Meaning, most things work out for the better when you can meet in the middle.

The reason why FiveThirtyEight’s mascot is a fox

Silver borrows an analogy by author Philip Tetlock about hedgehogs and foxes which is based on a book by Tolstoy. It helps you understand Silver’s perspective as a fox and a glimpse of how the rest of the chapters are written.

Watch

Pregnant Alicia Keys Inspired Pregnant Ali Wong’s Stand-up

Alicia Keys, Ali Wong, and Billie Eilish, The Late Late Show

Had I kept playing piano, I wish I would’ve turned out to be like Alicia Keys - on an elevated stand-up piano, singing out my heart and soul and telling the crowd to take their time because we’re just vibing (there is obviously a crowd in this fictitious/hypothetical universe where I am playing the piano like Alicia Keys).

I had no idea about the performance that Ali Wong is talking about in the interview. But, not only do I love the performance, I just love listening to Ali Wong talk about how inspired she is by Alicia Keys.

It was impossible to find (as Wong notes it’s not on youtube anymore) but I managed to track down this bootleg shortcut of Alicia Keys and the reaction shot from Prince and it’s…amazing. It is exactly what I wanted it to be - Prince doing this low key reaction looking from side to side and clutching his friend’s arm like… did that girl just climb on top of that piano? Barefooted!?

oh my god, it’s so good. I can’t.

Listen

Checks & Balances: One Year On

By John Prideaux, Idrees Kahloon, and Jon Fasman, The Economist

This episode has been stuck in my mind since it came out a month ago. They discuss all the topics that resurfaced since George Floyd’s murder a year ago. I think what I like most about it is that they aren’t necessarily talking about the topics themselves, but the shape in which these conversations are happening and the people who have them. There seemed to be a lot of good sound bites, including a comical one where Jon Fasman describes himself as “suspiciously mild mannered” which I think is how the majority of people who work at The Economist probably describe themselves.

They raise some good points in their discussion, specifically around the activism, optimism, and political tensions of the last year. Most notably for me is the discussion on pessimism and optimism. They reflect on how getting the balance is incredibly difficult, and touch on how even Baldwin and De Bois went from being optimistic early on in their careers to very pessimistic towards the end of their life. Optimism is a hard sell. How do you tell someone that the arch of history bends towards justice when a family member was just shot by the police because of the colour of their skin? Who pays the price for people maintaining this optimism?

I probably like this episode because it’s historiographical. The speakers recognise that things have gotten better in the US but admit that the tolerance for inequalities and racial disparities has decreased. They link this to the last 4 years of nativism and white identity politics gripping the republican party increasing tensions and pessimism. They touch on the awareness of unconscious bias and (like many people like me) recognise that training around this can treat the symptoms but not the underlying disease. We can’t train or discuss away systemic issues. The host, John Prideaux at the top of the episode lays it out bluntly: Structural racism is just a fancy way of saying: history matters.