I think elections tend to have low aleatoric uncertainty, and that our uncertain forecasts are usually almost entirely due to high epistemic uncertainty. (The 2000 Presidential election may be an exception where aleatoric uncertainty is significant. Very close elections can have high aleatoric uncertainty.)
I think Trump was actually very likely to win the 2024 election as of a few days before the election, and we just didn’t know that.
I think some people may have reduced their epistemic certainty significantly and had justified beliefs (not overconfident beliefs) that Trump was ~65-90% likely to win.
I totally am willing to believe that the French whale was not one of those people and actually just got lucky.
But I do think that becoming informed enough to rationally obtain a credence of >65% Trump was practically possible.
I think elections tend to have low aleatoric uncertainty, and that our uncertain forecasts are usually almost entirely due to high epistemic uncertainty. (The 2000 Presidential election may be an exception where aleatoric uncertainty is significant. Very close elections can have high aleatoric uncertainty.)
I think Trump was actually very likely to win the 2024 election as of a few days before the election, and we just didn’t know that.
Contra Scott Alexander, I think betting markets were priced too low, rather than too high. (See my (unfortunately verbose) comments on Scott’s post Congrats To Polymarket, But I Still Think They Were Mispriced.)
I think some people may have reduced their epistemic certainty significantly and had justified beliefs (not overconfident beliefs) that Trump was ~65-90% likely to win.
I totally am willing to believe that the French whale was not one of those people and actually just got lucky.
But I do think that becoming informed enough to rationally obtain a credence of >65% Trump was practically possible.