Top all-time · #553
Nate Silver
Personal blog · natesilver.netpoliticsdata
Nate Silver writes Silver Bulletin, a personal blog at natesilver.net about politics and data. Since 2023, 107 different Hacker News readers have linked it 195 times, most often “Social media has become a freak show”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-02, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 2 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Nate Silver's blog for its polling and pollster analysis, election forecasts, and jobs-data pieces, usually as support for a point about US politics or the economy.
- Recommended for · 2 comments
- one commenter recommends a post on free speech polling; one tells readers to read his writing on the 'Indigo Blob'
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Essays and analysis about elections, media, sports, poker, and all the other things I care about. Click to read Silver Bulletin, a Substack publication with hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
Most-linked posts?
- /p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-silver-bulletin12 people · 18 mentions · first linked 2025-03-19
- Social media has become a freak show8 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2026-04-06
- What Is Blueskyism?6 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2025-09-05
- Jobs data denialism won't fool anyone5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2025-08-03
- Twitter, Elon, and the Indigo Blob5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2023-07-31
- Elon Musk and Spiky Intelligence5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2025-02-26
- The Ivy League and other elite private colleges are losing esteem5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2024-04-23
- The sad and self-inflicted decline of the Washington Post, in one chart4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2026-01-27
- How popular is Elon Musk?4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2025-08-09
- Why does everyone hate data centers?3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2026-08-17
What Hacker News says?
That's true, lacking confidence is less of a failure than confidently getting it wrong. But they weren't actually saying "we don't know". They were predicting a split election. Do pollsters even have a way to report that they lack enough confidence to give a prediction? I rarely see CIs on reported poll results so presumably they'd have to just refuse to publish any prediction at all, which clearly, they weren't doi…
Comment linking /p/theres-more-herding-in-swing-state
on “Trump wins presidency for second time”Submitted A few words about FiveThirtyEight as a story · 140 points
HN discussionIt's still almost an even split in the US - https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-sil...
Comment linking /p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-silver-bulletin
on “U.S. bombs Iranian nuclear sites”Submitted Google abandoned "don't be evil" – and Gemini is the result as a story · 83 points
HN discussionThen I recommend you have a look at the polling numbers on free speech presented here: https://www.natesilver.net/p/free-speech-is-in-trouble
Comment linking /p/free-speech-is-in-trouble
on “Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act”Submitted Jobs data denialism won't fool anyone as a story · 74 points
HN discussion> I want something a little more significant than "we asked around the newsroom, and 35% of fox news reporters approve of the current administration". Cool, thanks, but that's not helpful or even a useful datapoint. The state of the art (which confirms this ~35% approval number) is far more rigorous than that. Start with a meta-review of historical accuracy and transparency, eg: https://www.natesilver.net/p/pollster…
Comment linking /p/pollster-ratings-silver-bulletin
on “Canada will match US tariffs 'dollar for dollar' as trade talks break down”Submitted Diesel prices could crush Republicans in the heartland as a story · 67 points
HN discussionThe 'political repercussions' case is pretty flimsy [0]. Bigger picture - this disagreement seems fundamentally rooted in conflicting political philosophies, as alluded to above. More facts are not going to change that. An example... "'Realpolitik' is not a defense complicity in genocide." Says who? I mean I agree with you on the face of things, but who gets to decide what genocide means? And what does it mean for i…
Comment linking /p/your-friends-are-not-a-representative
on “ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrants against Sinwar and Netanyahu for war crimes”Submitted The Ivy League and other elite private colleges are losing esteem as a story · 58 points
HN discussion> Public review is a blight on the democratic process. Instead of having a set of democratically established laws and regulations that apply fairly to everyone, a small handful of noisy people with too much time on their hands can stop anyone they don't like from doing something that is perfectly legal. We're talking about data centers, which are deeply unpopular with just about everyone. It's laughable to suggest t…
Comment linking /p/why-does-everyone-hate-data-centers
on “The EPA is planning to scrap public review rules for data center pollution”Submitted Friends are not a representative sample of public opinion as a story · 34 points
HN discussionBut the polls weren't wrong [1]. This was a normal polling error. If we expect polls to give us pinpoint accuracy, it's our expectations that are wrong. [1] https://www.natesilver.net/p/the-model-exactly-predicted-the...
Comment linking /p/the-model-exactly-predicted-the-most
on “Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals”Submitted I don't buy 538's new election model as a story · 32 points
HN discussionStephen Colbert shutting down was explained otherwise when it happened. [1] https://www.natesilver.net/p/why-colbert-got-canceled
Comment linking /p/why-colbert-got-canceled
on “U.S. investors, Trump close in on TikTok deal with China”Submitted Eliminating Daylight Savings Time would make the average American’s life darker as a story · 28 points
HN discussionNate Silver has a previous analysis of this data https://www.natesilver.net/p/trumps-jobs-data-denialism-wont... The monthly revisions are historically all over the place, up and down. My 2024 count says six months were revised up and six were revised down.
Comment linking /p/trumps-jobs-data-denialism-wont-fool
on “U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier”Submitted Silicon Valley's gamble on Trump isn't paying off as a story · 25 points
HN discussionNot the GP, but here is an analysis of the BLS data arguing the opposite[0]. Short answer, BLS data gets revised all the time and the supposedly smoking gun revision that was used to justify firing the BLS head was not even in the top 50 most extreme corrections. https://www.natesilver.net/p/trumps-jobs-data-denialism-wont...
Comment linking /p/trumps-jobs-data-denialism-wont-fool
on “U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier”Submitted What explains the liberal-conservative happiness gap? as a story · 24 points
HN discussionHe's not the final word on the matter, but Nate Silver writes... > I've worked a lot with data produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and other federal agencies. In fact, an economic index based on a half-dozen of these statistics is part of our presidential election forecast, so we’ve pulled this data all the way back to World War II.3 > And I consider it to be of very high quality. When BLS data is revised as…
Comment linking /p/trumps-jobs-data-denialism-wont-fool
on “U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier”Submitted Always. Be. Blogging as a story · 19 points
HN discussionIt's a thing specially on that website. This post explains it: https://www.natesilver.net/p/what-is-blueskyism
Comment linking /p/what-is-blueskyism
on “Where it's at://”Submitted Elon Musk and Spiky Intelligence as a story · 18 points
HN discussionThe right managed to succeed with their electoral reforms. Gerrymandering is legal, and the president is now above the law. The left should use the same tactics: Focus on state and local elections then use those positions to fix elections so that the national majority of voters decide who runs the federal government (instead of the current 25-30% of voters). Doing this is completely legal now that the Supreme Court…
Comment linking /p/democrats-can-win-the-redistricting
on “EPA Seeks to Eliminate Critical PFAS Drinking Water Protections”Submitted What Is Blueskyism? as a story · 14 points
HN discussion"yet does not lose support" Trump is losing support at unprecedented levels. Typically new presidents have a honeymoon period for the first ~6 months or so were they actually go up a little bit in support. Trump has been losing support from day 1. https://www.natesilver.net/p/how-low-is-trumps-popularity-fl...
Comment linking /p/how-low-is-trumps-popularity-floor
on “Airline demand between Canada and United States collapses, down 70%+”Submitted Did Las Vegas get too greedy? as a story · 12 points
HN discussionLots of people don't care about "progress" in an absolute sense, eg longer healthier lifespans for all. They only care about it in a relative sense, eg if cop violence against minorities goes down, they feel anxiety and resentment. They really really want to be the biggest fish in the little pond. That's how a caste system works, it "makes a captive of everyone within it". Equality feels like a demotion [1]. That's…
Comment linking /p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-silver-bulletin
on “The Gentle Singularity”Submitted You don't have to say something about every terrible thing as a story · 12 points
HN discussion
