Sorry, might clarify - that might be Will's assumption, but I was addressing generally 'campaign choices', which I take to mean generally the choices her campaign made during the race.
Replies
Sure, I mean, same thing then. Buried assumption is that those choices are the driver of the outcome. Did John McCain only lose in 2008 because his campaign made the wrong choices?
may 21, 2025, 10:06 pm • 47 0 • view
Yes. I feel like that's how human choices work. If you attempt to win a contest, and lose against your opponent, your opponent either cheated or played a better game than you. If your opponent (and recall we're talking about Donald Trump) beats you, you did something wrong and need to improve.
may 21, 2025, 10:08 pm • 1 0 • view
Maybe that'll take some radical changes - maybe that is a signal that radical changes are needed. Either way it must prompt at least a little introspection of the choices made.
may 21, 2025, 10:08 pm • 1 0 • view
This is called "results oriented thinking" in game theory, and is considered a fallacy and barrier to critical self improvement. Your argument is true for, like, chess. Where you have one opponent, and the piece always goes where you put it. But, it's inapplicable when there's randomness involved.
may 21, 2025, 10:23 pm • 22 3 • view
No, I don't agree when it comes to contests of real power. Results are all that matters because the alternative is we're going to be dead soon. That, as we plainly see, are the results of power.
may 21, 2025, 10:25 pm • 2 0 • view
Winning power means identifying mistakes. A process that is not helped by a nihilistic insistence that losing means everything was a wrong choice. Is the contra true? Trump won, therefore his campaign was perfect? Kamala should've turned more rallies into awkward Ave Maria dance parties?
may 21, 2025, 10:39 pm • 15 0 • view
And this stuff is largely non-deterministic and stochastic! You make decisions based on what has had the best likelihood of working in the past, not because you have a view into the future and know that it *will* work this time.
may 21, 2025, 10:42 pm • 10 0 • view
Did I say everything was a wrong choice? I said that clearly wrong choices were made. Those wrong choices, whatever they were, resulted in that loss. Thus, the tautology.
may 21, 2025, 10:43 pm • 0 0 • view
It's not tautological though. Because unlucky outcomes and uneven starting positions can mean that after a string of good choices you still lose. It's important to understand why you lost, and how you could've won, but sometimes the answer is your strategy was sound and you need to be luckier.
may 21, 2025, 10:54 pm • 7 0 • view
I think the fundamental error (I went to your TL and saw your posts there about it) is reducing causality in a contest to one participant’s choices. There’s the other participant, there’s the playing field, there’s randomness, there’s conditions that may be more favorable to one than the other, etc.
may 21, 2025, 10:47 pm • 6 0 • view
But, and again I would like to stress I am being sincere hre, why does any of that matter when the results of that loss is that we all face a much higher chance of being murdered by a fascist regime? I...just don't think it does. I think she is responsible for losing. I don't know why she lost,
may 21, 2025, 10:54 pm • 0 0 • view
Or what she should have done differently. Or even what she could have. And I am certainly not a person who has any expertise in figuring that out. But - something went wrong. Because now things are a fascist hellscape. Donald Trump was not ordained by the universe to win the 2024 election.
may 21, 2025, 10:54 pm • 0 0 • view
It is bad poker to shove all in on a pair of two's. That a person can sometimes get lucky and win like that does not retroactively make that a good poker play or them the better poker player. Decisions can be judged as good or bad based on info available and alternative choices at the time.
may 21, 2025, 10:31 pm • 11 0 • view
Okay, maybe this is confusing, but contests are an analogy. Politics is about real power. This is a fundamental difference, when losing is nonexistence.
may 21, 2025, 10:35 pm • 0 0 • view
If the stakes are existential, it behooves you all the more to be able to understand and discuss what tight decision making looks like.
may 21, 2025, 10:42 pm • 2 0 • view
I agree, absolutely.
may 21, 2025, 10:45 pm • 0 0 • view
Sure but the same analysis applies, especially regarding what you could know about what was a good decision at the time.
may 21, 2025, 10:39 pm • 7 0 • view
I really genuinely do not understand the reasoning here. So like if I challenge Simone Biles to a gymnastics contest and she wins, then it’s just because of my choices, not the underlying facts of the contest, the playing field, etc?
may 21, 2025, 10:11 pm • 17 0 • view
I could do the best gymnastics of my life, 10x better than I ever thought myself capable of, and I’m still losing that contest.
may 21, 2025, 10:11 pm • 13 0 • view
Yes. You lost because you were under prepared, you aren't a trained gymnast, you don't have her advantages - those are all reasons why you lost, and that you didn't factor them in when competing means you made a bad decision during the competition.
may 21, 2025, 10:12 pm • 0 0 • view
I feel really lost on what's not following here
may 21, 2025, 10:13 pm • 0 0 • view
this seems relevant, but i DO NOT recommend playing League
may 21, 2025, 10:18 pm • 3 0 • view
I don't like getting called racial slurs so I don't play League
may 21, 2025, 10:19 pm • 0 0 • view
really, it's everything after the word "because" that i thought was relevant i'm sure there's many other paths to that view
may 21, 2025, 10:23 pm • 0 0 • view
No, what you’re saying is that I made a bad decision *entering* that competition because I didn’t have a chance to win it once competing. I could do the best job I could possibly do and still lose.
may 21, 2025, 10:18 pm • 11 0 • view
No, everything that plays into you winning or losing plays into you winning or losing, including the objective facts about you? No?
may 21, 2025, 10:18 pm • 0 0 • view
There are contests I simply cannot win for one reason or another no matter how well I do on my own personal merits. Can we agree on that?
may 21, 2025, 10:20 pm • 9 0 • view
Sure.
may 21, 2025, 10:22 pm • 0 0 • view
Ok this is in direct opposition, then, to your initial post, which said by definition that if she lost her decisions were bad.
may 21, 2025, 10:26 pm • 7 0 • view
The funny thing about this is Kamala didn’t win or lose because of her choices but literally millions of others outside her control. I watched both campaigns, you can’t feel like Trump was winning on his choices, yet he prevailed. His shambolic mess of a campaign brought him back and now we suffer.
may 21, 2025, 10:25 pm • 5 0 • view
let me guess, you're one of those "I could take a set off Serena Williams" guys, aren't you
may 21, 2025, 10:17 pm • 3 0 • view
or maybe better yet, an "I could win a fight against a grizzly bear" guys, seeing as the very concept of a grizzly bear making a "mistake" ascribes a level of conscious intent that a bear may not even be sapient enough to be capable of
may 21, 2025, 10:18 pm • 2 0 • view
No
may 21, 2025, 10:19 pm • 0 0 • view
Don't forget the judges who hate you.
may 21, 2025, 10:30 pm • 1 0 • view