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If you apply the same statistically model to many discrete events, you can evaluate its accuracy. Intuitively, High confidence + Correct answer > Low confidence correct answer > low confidence wrong answer > high confidence wrong answer.

Burning my roulette wheel after winning doesn't invalidate the fact that there was a 1/38 chance of doing so.




> If you apply the same statistical model

You can stop there. Does 538 have a single model that never changes and never receives human tweaking? Does it in turn rely on third-party polls that also never change their methodology? No, of course it doesn't.

The last sentence illustrates why people's concept of probability is so off. Cards, dice, and roulette wheels are not a model for human events.




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