I have a question for you as a master gamer. Let's say you and I disagree on whether there was meaningful Russian hacking in the US election and wanted to make a bet with one another. How could we formally express winning conditions? With the election itself, for example, there is a declared winner and thus I was able to collect on my bets that Trump would win. I'm extremely skeptical the Russian government hacked the DNC or Podesta or were responsible for handing over documents to Wikileaks, but how would such a bet get resolved to the satisfaction of honorable men?
I don't think we could determine whether the hacking was meaningful. Polling wasn't accurate enough to determine the underrepresented Trump vote and with the electoral college just one vote in a swing state could mean victory or loss. Personally I think the Russians probably interfered with the election, but I doubt it would have turned out differently if they hadn't. Because of prior "slam dunks", I think the only way for two honorable men to resolve the bet is too see the actual intelligence and the methodologies used to gather it. Fat chance of that happening.
Unfortunately, I wasn't clear. By *meaningful*, I didn't mean meaningful to the outcome of the election, I meant meaningful as in substantial, non-trivial. Poor choice of words. I'm sure the Russians influenced the election, for some value of influenced. What I don't believe, and am interested on betting on, is that the Russian government had an instrumental role in the email leaks of John Podesta and/or the DNC, and getting them to WikiLeaks. The problem is, I don't know what constitutes a definitive answer, unlike say the election, where it's "official" that Trump won.
So the latter part of my response is what is appropriate. I don't know what I don't know about intelligence gathering other than the fact that it has failed in the past. So I don't think it's possible for two reasonable people to agree on what's definitive unless they have access to the intelligence and the methodologies. Even then, rather than definitive in most cases I think you'd have to go with reasonably likely. The problem with this specific case is that there's so many plausible scenarios for who was involved in getting the email leaks and passing them on. I certainly wouldn't bet anything painful to lose on the fact that the Russians had an instrumental role rather than an opportunistic one.
I think the odds are pretty high that there's some criminal, unethical, or idiotic behavior that Trump doesn't want uncovered, but I don't think it's collusion. However, by Trumpian protocol, I will only concede that there is no collusion a few months before his term ends.
I have a question for you as a master gamer. Let's say you and I disagree on whether there was meaningful Russian hacking in the US election and wanted to make a bet with one another. How could we formally express winning conditions? With the election itself, for example, there is a declared winner and thus I was able to collect on my bets that Trump would win. I'm extremely skeptical the Russian government hacked the DNC or Podesta or were responsible for handing over documents to Wikileaks, but how would such a bet get resolved to the satisfaction of honorable men?
ReplyDeleteI don't think we could determine whether the hacking was meaningful. Polling wasn't accurate enough to determine the underrepresented Trump vote and with the electoral college just one vote in a swing state could mean victory or loss. Personally I think the Russians probably interfered with the election, but I doubt it would have turned out differently if they hadn't. Because of prior "slam dunks", I think the only way for two honorable men to resolve the bet is too see the actual intelligence and the methodologies used to gather it. Fat chance of that happening.
DeleteUnfortunately, I wasn't clear. By *meaningful*, I didn't mean meaningful to the outcome of the election, I meant meaningful as in substantial, non-trivial. Poor choice of words. I'm sure the Russians influenced the election, for some value of influenced. What I don't believe, and am interested on betting on, is that the Russian government had an instrumental role in the email leaks of John Podesta and/or the DNC, and getting them to WikiLeaks. The problem is, I don't know what constitutes a definitive answer, unlike say the election, where it's "official" that Trump won.
DeleteSo the latter part of my response is what is appropriate. I don't know what I don't know about intelligence gathering other than the fact that it has failed in the past. So I don't think it's possible for two reasonable people to agree on what's definitive unless they have access to the intelligence and the methodologies. Even then, rather than definitive in most cases I think you'd have to go with reasonably likely. The problem with this specific case is that there's so many plausible scenarios for who was involved in getting the email leaks and passing them on. I certainly wouldn't bet anything painful to lose on the fact that the Russians had an instrumental role rather than an opportunistic one.
DeleteWould you agree at this point that the odds of Trump/Russia collusion is approximately nil?
ReplyDeleteI think the odds are pretty high that there's some criminal, unethical, or idiotic behavior that Trump doesn't want uncovered, but I don't think it's collusion. However, by Trumpian protocol, I will only concede that there is no collusion a few months before his term ends.
Delete> However, by Trumpian protocol, I will only concede that there is no collusion a few months before his term ends.
ReplyDeleteThis one went over my head...
Trump only conceded that Obama was born in the U.S. a few months before his term ended.
Delete