The Hunt

[Seriati]

yoss, I recommend reading the NYT write up on the first stage deal.  They're not Trump fans over there and they cite quite a number of benefits.  But it's important to remember, it's the stage 1 deal, not the final deal.

Most of the tariffs stay in place even after the deal is signed, because it got promises on certain key points that have to be followed through on (like, reform of China's abusive intellectual property practices).

I know, not quite as sophisticated as flying a plane full of cash to Iran in exchange for a deal that barely slows nuclear development and has funded regional wars everywhere in the middle east, but we do the best we can.

[yossarian22c]

yoss, I recommend reading the NYT write up on the first stage deal.  They're not Trump fans over there and they cite quite a number of benefits.  But it's important to remember, it's the stage 1 deal, not the final deal.

Most of the tariffs stay in place even after the deal is signed, because it got promises on certain key points that have to be followed through on (like, reform of China's abusive intellectual property practices).

Okay, I'll take a look. Most of the reports I saw focused on the increased purchase of American goods and said the structural changes (IP and other abusive trade practices) were largely left out. I did know some tariffs were in place but some were reduced a little and no new ones were getting put in place.

But as I said before, I'm on board with Chinese tariffs. I just wish there had been a strong push to get the EU, Canada, and others on board with us.

Chinese trade is the one area I actually largely align with Trump. But I would really like to see him go further in getting congress to pass tariffs (or give tariff authorization to the president) based solely off of labor practices, income, environmental concerns, and other abusive trade practices. Maybe the world descends into a tariff/protectionist fueled recession but I don't think its likely. Our strongest partners wouldn't be affected - maybe we could even get a few on board. Maybe that means prices go up at Wal-Mart but in the long run we'll have a healthier economy.

[Seriati]

yoss, the thing is the World is already a giant morass of aggressive protectionism.  The "secret" lie is that it's not.  The U.S. position to not be protectionist is more unique than we understand.   The idea that a tariff is "wrong" but that a local ownership law or tax law that has 10-20 times the financial impact or more is not "part of a trade war" is a big part of why it's been a mess.

And that was part of the point served by Trump's position.  To fight back against the real trade wars that the press/government has pretended aren't going on.

[TheDrake]

That's an interesting argument.  You seem to believe that a doctorate made them an expert in real world application of business principals, rather than recognizing that a real world business person saw things in a way that apparently didn't show up in the text books all those doctors learned from.

I mean seriously, what percentage of new companies have as a founder a phd in economics?  Some, but far far less than should be the case if that doctorate actually translated to real world success.

It's amusing that you think "running a business" translates into macroeconomic theory, or that somehow people who make it their life's work to study every country, every currency, and every policy are not successful because they don't have boatloads of entrepreneurial cash.

[Seriati]

I think's interesting that you project and reinterpret what I actually said rather than confront it.  I think anyone that's ever graduated can tell you that while they learned useful skills in college much of what they do in the real world was learned outside of school.

[TheDrake]

Not when it comes to theory. Going with your gut doesn't cut it for complex systems. It requires rigorous analysis. Sure, most of my engineering knowledge came from outside school. School taught me how to perform the analysis and apply it to new situations. There are lots of successful entrepreneurs who find something that works for their business, they might know their own niche well. But they wouldn't be able to walk into an entirely different situation and break it down using a systematic approach, they'd have to learn by trial and error all over again.

That's what Trump is doing, and has done. He successfully developed residential and office buildings and thought that would translate into running casinos, redesigning golf courses, producing training programs, and selling steaks. It didn't. Now he's monkeying with fundamental economic forces through a lens of how he did real estate, and it's not good.

[Wayward Son]

Fact is, Trump told you what he was doing and why, and got the results he told you he would get.  I think that means those who continue to pretend he didn't know what he was doing are the ones with the simplistic and naive understanding.

Baloney.

If I said that I raised a yellow flag every morning so that the sun would rise, because the sun follows the flag, you would call it simplistic and naive (not to mention other adjectives ).

And if I came back at you and said, "I told you what I was doing and why, and got the result I told you I would (the sun rising every morning)," you would laugh in my face.

So don't tell me just getting "the results he told you he would get" is anywhere near sufficient to prove that he isn't simplistic and naive.  Correlation does not prove causation, especially when "the results" may not be all he says they are.

[wmLambert]

...He successfully developed residential and office buildings and thought that would translate into running casinos, redesigning golf courses, producing training programs, and selling steaks. It didn't. Now he's monkeying with fundamental economic forces through a lens of how he did real estate, and it's not good.

Incorrect analysis. Anyone who can read architects' plans and the engineers' papers can easily follow them if they know what they are doing - and Trump certainly does. One of the things most relevant here is when he took over the park ice skating rink that the New York politicos were screwing up so badly. Trump immediately went to the best professional ice rink designers to get their input. He simply did what they advised and saved the project way under time and under cost.

I remember when my son was asked to bid on the construction of a new Ferris-wheel type casino in Vegas, that many CMs refused to bid on. He just said, the architects and engineers have all the details down on paper. All you need do is start at the bottom and folow the plan with good subs who know their portion of the job.

To my thinking, that is a great recommendation for a political leader to follow. I remember when Rockefeller was running for President and he was asked why he was so successful. He said he simply surrounded himself with his betters.

[Crunch]

That's an interesting argument.  You seem to believe that a doctorate made them an expert in real world application of business principals, rather than recognizing that a real world business person saw things in a way that apparently didn't show up in the text books all those doctors learned from.

I mean seriously, what percentage of new companies have as a founder a phd in economics?  Some, but far far less than should be the case if that doctorate actually translated to real world success.

It's amusing that you think "running a business" translates into macroeconomic theory, or that somehow people who make it their life's work to study every country, every currency, and every policy are not successful because they don't have boatloads of entrepreneurial cash.

It's noticeable that you're always going to "theory" and "hypotheticals".

[TheDrake]

Yes, theory is important. You can hack a program together and make it work, but if you understand information theory you'll be a lot better at it.

You might be able to play poker using rules of thumb and reading people, but you'll be a lot better at it if you at least memorize the odds. Better still if you can derive where those odds came from, and then you can apply it to all kinds of card and dice games.

To my thinking, that is a great recommendation for a political leader to follow. I remember when Rockefeller was running for President and he was asked why he was so successful. He said he simply surrounded himself with his betters.

This is true. Does it sound like Trump's style though, when he knows more than his generals do?

[Crunch]

Yeah, but when you keep losing money at the tables maybe you should get out of theory and into real world.

[TheDrake]

There's a good reason why I don't play poker, the math doesn't really drive success. I do play blackjack, though, because the theory behind basic strategy and card counting works. There's a reason why it was a bunch of MIT students that broke the game more than anybody else previously.

In macroeconomics, math rules the day.

[ScottF]

There's a good reason why I don't play poker, the math doesn't really drive success.

True, but poker success tends to be more consistent at the tournament level. There are certainly some math/odds rules in play but in general, it's bluff-driven with a healthy dose of luck thrown in.

I learned years ago that there's a secret question you can ask Vegas blackjack dealers if you're ever not sure whether to stay or hit: "what does the book say?"

They can't technically tell you what to do, but blackjack is all math, and they *will* tell you if the math (ie the book) says you should stay on 14 if the dealer is showing a 6. Plus dealers have no free will, which means the math will always be in effect.

Dealers also want you to win, because it usually means more tips for them.

[Seriati]

There's a good reason why I don't play poker, the math doesn't really drive success. I do play blackjack, though, because the theory behind basic strategy and card counting works. There's a reason why it was a bunch of MIT students that broke the game more than anybody else previously.

In macroeconomics, math rules the day.

And I think this post is revealing in ways you didn't intend.  Poker and Blackjack are both games created by humans to be simple enough to teach someone while they're playing. They're random enough that even a beginner can win, and complex enough that one can lose even after being an expert.  There's no question you can use math to put the odds relatively modestly  in your favor, and over time that will mean success.

But think about the fact that you favor Blackjack and why you said you favor it, the math drives the success.  What's the big difference?  In Blackjack you're playing against the house and the deck and the statistical probabilities are fixed, the House even has to follow fixed rules.  Sure other player decisions may alter the statistics before your turn, but ultimately you can still know exactly what the best play is when it's your turn.

Poker on the other hand is played against people.  You may know everything about the statistical probabilities of the cards in each players hand, but if you can't read the people playing, or worse yet if they can read you, you're gonna lose big or win much smaller than the straight probabilities.

Now ask yourself, whether the global economy is more like Blackjack, with simple rules and options the "other side's" options openly revealed and limited, or is it more like poker, where the individual player decisions and personalities are often more relevant than the straight math. 

We were in the position we were in because we were playing Blackjack in a poker world.

[LetterRip]

Actually poker can be pure math - with zero need for 'reading your opponent'.  Top professionals and computers can play close to 'game theoretically optimal' (GTO) - where you use a fixed strategy and unless your opponent is also playing GTO, you will win over the long run.

Libratus can beat any poker pro in the world, but it is following a fixed GTO strategy and doesn't vary its play at all based on the opponent - it only considers the current hand action history, board texture, and its own hole cards.

[ScottF]

Actually poker can be pure math - with zero need for 'reading your opponent'.  Top professionals and computers can play close to 'game theoretically optimal' (GTO) - where you use a fixed strategy and unless your opponent is also playing GTO, you will win over the long run.

Libratus can beat any poker pro in the world, but it is following a fixed GTO strategy and doesn't vary its play at all based on the opponent - it only considers the current hand action history, board texture, and its own hole cards.

Hadn't heard about this AI so looked it up real quick. It's interesting. You're actually incorrect when you say it "doesn't vary its play at all based on the opponent". It absolutely observed check/raise/fold patterns of it's opponents and incorporated the psychological patterns it was observing into its decisions.

So while an AI may succeed in factoring math alongside behavior patterns, the idea that poker can be pure math for humans is not true.

[TheDrake]

We were in the position we were in because we were playing Blackjack in a poker world.

So we should just make wild all-in holdem bets and hope nobody calls our bluff? Ouch.

The other way in which the global economy is more like Blackjack is that you don't have to make the other players lose in order to win. Poker is the ultimate zero sum game. You have to make everybody else lose in order to win, and that's not how the global economy functions.

[Seriati]

Actually poker can be pure math - with zero need for 'reading your opponent'.  Top professionals and computers can play close to 'game theoretically optimal' (GTO) - where you use a fixed strategy and unless your opponent is also playing GTO, you will win over the long run.

Libratus can beat any poker pro in the world, but it is following a fixed GTO strategy and doesn't vary its play at all based on the opponent - it only considers the current hand action history, board texture, and its own hole cards.

Lol, but why other than for amusement would they play it?  Is Libratus looking to gain wealth for some purpose?  Or is this an analogy to the terminator style AI  overlords that will control us in the future?

I never said that math and analytics don't have a role.  I said the opinions of economists that are trained on models may leave much to be desired in real world application.  That should be self evident when you get "consensus" opinions based on the math that don't hold up in the real world (almost always because the person who constructed the mathematical model left something out or missed a detail).

In any event, I would suspect a Libratus computer with a true learning AI that had a goal of maximizing US wealth, wouldn't have come up with our prior economic policies, nor would it advocate those the professors endorse. 

Interestingly, we may get to find out, it's pretty clear that the Chinese are absolutely committed to being the first to practical quantum computing and true AI, and since they deliberately blend their military, strategic and commercial interests on a country wide basis (whereas, we ruthlessly separate ours), you can expect them to deploy that tech in service of their global trade goals (which are to supress everyone else).

[LetterRip]

Hadn't heard about this AI so looked it up real quick. It's interesting. You're actually incorrect when you say it "doesn't vary its play at all based on the opponent".

I was refering to 'opponent modeling' where over a series of hands you learn an opponents playing style and weaknesses and seek to exploit their mistakes.

It absolutely observed check/raise/fold patterns of it's opponents and incorporated the psychological patterns it was observing into its decisions.

Reread what I wrote,  "it only considers the current hand action history, board texture, and its own hole cards." and bet sizing.  It doesn't use 'psychological' at all.  It doesn't know anything at all about the opponent except the actions in the current hand.  Any action string describing the hand will give the same probability distribution regardless of the specific opponent or the hand history with that opponent.

So while an AI may succeed in factoring math alongside behavior patterns, the idea that poker can be pure math for humans is not true.

No it doesn't use 'patterns' it is all based on solving extremely large game trees for GTO using purely self play simulation.

Also humans can indeed do so - you can learn an approximate GTO strategy that will beat all but the best of humans, it just won't be good enough to beat a better GTO approximation like Libratus.  (Dom has a GTO training app 'DTO Poker Trainer' for no limit tournament hold'em that is extremely good - https://www.dto.poker/ - note that GTO for tournments is not the same solution as GTO for cash games since in tournments chip value varies with stack size).

Of course GTO isn't as profitable against bad humans as exploitative play based on opponent modeling (ie villain CBets too much on this flop texture, and then folds too many turns - so exploit by floating the flop, then donk the turn).

[Fenring]

We were in the position we were in because we were playing Blackjack in a poker world.

I would alter this. We are in this position because some people think they are playing Blackjack against the house while others are playing poker against them, in a world that is supposed to be a co-op game but since you bought it on Ebay it didn't come with an instruction manual and everyone is trying to figure out the rules with different motives.

[ScottF]

Older thread but just watched this tonight. I thought it was really great. As in thoroughly entertaining. Both left and right were equally portrayed as caricatures and I actually laughed at various times.

Rent/watch this if you’re looking to enjoy some ridiculous (and gory) escapism.

[Crunch]

I actually had tickets for this but the theater was ordered closed down before the show date.

It seemed like it’s been somehow turned into a comedy.

[DonaldD]

It was always a satire - it's just that snowflakes on the internet got hold of it* before people could actually see the movie.

(* "it" meaning their own ideas about the movie, as opposed to the movie itself, of course)

[Crunch]

It was always a satire!  Right.

The Hunt is a 2020 American film, variously described as horror or thriller, directed by Craig Zobel and written by Nick Cuse and Damon Lindelof.

Can't memory hole these things as fast as you'd like it seems.

It was reworked as "satire" in the face of criticism. And now, it looks like it's been reworked into a comedy.

[DonaldD]

It was always a satire!  Right.

The Hunt is a 2020 American film, variously described as horror or thriller, directed by Craig Zobel and written by Nick Cuse and Damon Lindelof.

Hmmm... you quoted the first sentence from Wikipedia, but left out the next 2:

The Hunt is a 2020 American film, variously described as horror or thriller,[a] directed by Craig Zobel and written by Nick Cuse and Damon Lindelof. The film stars Betty Gilpin, Ike Barinholtz, Amy Madigan, Emma Roberts, Ethan Suplee and Hilary Swank. Jason Blum serves as a producer under his Blumhouse Productions banner, along with Lindelof.^[3] Both Zobel and Lindelof have said that the film serves as a satire on the profound political divide between the American left and right.^[4]

Even if you ignore the producers' stated intent, the first sentence does not actually suggest that the movie is not a satire - many, many horror moves are also satirical - for instance, "Dawn of the Dead" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers".

[Crunch]

Let's look at what they were saying last summer.

Time Magazine:

Universal Pictures announced Saturday afternoon that it will cancel the release of its violent thriller movie The Hunt, following the prior decision to pause advertising it.

Variety:

Universal Pictures has canceled the release of its upcoming thriller “The Hunt.” The film was previously set to hit theaters Sept. 27.

Indiewire:

A group of wealthy elites kidnap people and hunt them for sport in a new horror from the mind of "The Leftovers" creator Damon Lindelof.

Rolling Stone:

Watch Elites Stalk Strangers for Sport in Wild New Trailer for 'The Hunt'. Horror film stars Hilary Swank, Emma Roberts, Ike Barinholtz, country musician Sturgill ...

If you want it to be a satire, go for it. It can be anything you want, even a slapstick comedy or a romantic chick-flick. I'll just go with what the majority of pop culture references we at the time. It's weird you care so much that it now be a comedy.

[DonaldD]

It's not a comedy.  It's a horror and a satire.  I don't at all wonder why you are so invested in continuing to characterize it as a hit job by leftist Hollywood  on  rightists, but it is funny that you don't realize that the satire is so on point to your reaction and your need to make the movie itself into another example of your current partisan internecine war.

As an aside, l expect you do realize that most of those quotes don't actually support your position, and that regardless, a magazine's reaction to a trailer says little about the content of a movie.

[cherrypoptart]

I thought it was hilarious. Almost all the jokes hit at least for me. Thanks for the recommendation. They're right that it was making fun of liberals more than anyone. If you like that you might like Tucker and Dale Versus Evil. People are so often just misunderstood. And the violence is so over the top it's just comedic, like Hot Shots Part Deux.

[Seriati]

Honestly not a movie I intend to see.  And not because of the politics, just don't really enjoy gore for it's own sake anymore. 

I think there's probably a good discussion hiding in what messages Hollywood really projects.  Overwhelming left politics, yet virtually all their movies have heros and other characters that violate the left's norms and are rewarded for it.  Oh they say the right words, but then they act contrary to those words.  You can see it with how they use guns and take the law into their own hands (in virtually every movie) rather than disarm and let the police handle it.  Or how, the hero is still rewarded for surprise kissing (ie, no affirmative consent) or even ignoring the heroine's mild protests and kissing her anyway, which - unless used as an object less - always leads to her melting into a relationship.

I don't know if anyone is watching HBO's Avenue Five, but I was struck by what one of the characters said (set in the future).  One of the male characters said, "I'm going to get me some sweet, sweet consent tonight."  Clearly playing off the enlightened left position of consent, yet actually still objectification in the way the character said it, and worse the character was effectively the punchline to be contrasted directly to the female character who was far more crass, direct and actually sexually active.  What's the message there?  That in the future wimps will be talking about consent?  Or is it just enough that the character socialized the concept, even if the message about it was mixed, to put the idea in the public mind (after all the female character is also designed to be mocked)? 

[Crunch]

Honestly not a movie I intend to see.  And not because of the politics, just don't really enjoy gore for it's own sake anymore. 

But it's a comedy. Look right upthread, you'll see. It always was, DonaldD has proven that.

[DonaldD]

Interestingly, the only two people posting on this thread who have seen the actual movie describe it as either satirizing liberals as much as conservatives, or satirizing liberals more than conservatives.

[wmLambert]

...But it's a comedy.

Being a comedy does not make a bad movie good.

My parents' generation always talks about how the dialog was so much better in their day. There's something to that. Since that day, the equation for making profitable films has moved toward action, gore, and sex. Me, I prefer a great film like, "They Might Be Giants," the George C. Scott and Joanne Woodward 1971 movie with some of the greatest character actors in Hollywood. Then there are the great musicals, like "The Music Man," "The Sound of Music," "Singing In The Rain," or "Calamity Jane."

Being somewhat in the industry for 17 years as an Animation Director and Producer, I saw every new release that came out for many years, with the point of view of production values and craftsmanship. I would sit in the right place in the theater to take advantage of the cinematographer's favored lens. Some of the most vaunted films were pretty bad. But that must be another thread.