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billswift comments on The Substitution Principle - Less Wrong
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I wish people would quit using this as an example of a fallacy. With the gross uncertainties involved in predicting presidential popularity, "current popularity" is probably the best predictor available.
It was mentioned as an example of a substitution, not necessarily a fallacy. Like I say in the next paragraph, the heuristic does work pretty well most of the time.
Not true. Popularity isn't an efficient futures market.
OK, what would be a better predictor of “popularity six months from now”?
Depends on the situation, but for example the president is reliably much more popular just after his / her election than two years later. To expect current probability just after the election to equal the president's popularity two years later is stupid.
Nor are existing futures markets.
When asked at the beginning of a president's term, when we know he'll be less popular in six months, it is a fallacy.
That's fair, as long as my confidence in that prediction is correspondingly low.
The problem arises when I treat current popularity as predicted value of future popularity with high confidence.
People like Nate Silver do not agree with that at all.
That's a little strong. From this pair of articles, it looks like a President's approval ratings are a poor estimator of their reelection chances when considered 2 years away, but quite a good one when considered 6 months out. The volatility in opinions seems to operate on timescales of several months.
Nate will of course include factors other than current polling averages in his forecasts, but those averages are the main component, even with the uncertainty in a few months' time.