Mike Bishop 🇨🇦🇺🇸
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thatmikebishop.bsky.social
Mike Bishop 🇨🇦🇺🇸
@thatmikebishop.bsky.social
140 followers 160 following 40 posts
AI, forecasting, policy, social science
Loves: humility, kindness, high decouplers
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thatmikebishop.bsky.social
People often say that being good at poker requires reading tells and psychological insight, but this is mostly false.

Poker AIs destroy humans despite not seeing physical tells, and with a very limited model of individual players.

@clearerthinking.bsky.social @spencrgreenberg.bsky.social
podcast.clearerthinking.org - transcript BARRY: And where the features that are relevant are easily quantified. It's easy to decide what bets to make at a casino. It is and should be formulaic. It's not so easy to decide how to play poker, because it isn't just about probabilities. You have to understand the people you're playing against and try to, in effect, see through the backs of their cards. So that adds some complexity, but you can still calculate expected values. You know that staying in on some hands is bad, chasing the odds are so far against you, and on other hands, you almost certainly have the best hand at the table. You can calculate that just by knowing the odds of various cards in a deck. But that doesn't make you a winner at poker. That's a precondition. If you can't do that, you'll never be a winner at poker. If you can do that, you at least have a chance to be a winner at poker. Because especially as that kind of calculation gets more and more automatic, you can devote yourself to trying to read the other people at the table. And my
November 4, 2025 at 2:19 PM
Reposted by Mike Bishop 🇨🇦🇺🇸
ryancbriggs.net
I think this is kind of neat and I don't think anyone else has noticed it (I've looked and I can't find anyone who has) osf.io/preprints/so...

Maybe I should back off "justification" language, but it's at least a remarkable coincidence. I still think someone else *must* have noticed it...
Title: A Justification for 80% Power Abstract: Cohen’s heuristic reason for choosing 80% power (balancing Type I and TypeII errors) conveniently arrives at approximately the same number as an approachwhere one maximizes the marginal gain in power per standard error reduction. Ihave yet to see someone point this out, and this is interesting because it providesa non-arbitrary justification for 80% power. a derivation of the result
October 24, 2025 at 12:23 PM
thatmikebishop.bsky.social
Making normies care about something is a great skill/vocation.

Sadly this isn’t the skill/vocation that gets politicians elected, nor does it lead to writing popular op-eds.
jamellebouie.net jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 18d
"normies do not care about this thing and so it is no use raising a stink" is imho just an excuse for not doing politics, which is the job of making normies care about something
October 24, 2025 at 1:04 PM
thatmikebishop.bsky.social
Why no polls in BlueSky?
October 23, 2025 at 4:43 PM
thatmikebishop.bsky.social
Wondering if anyone on this site wants to comment on this from @ctulocal1.bsky.social
September 27, 2025 at 7:44 PM
Reposted by Mike Bishop 🇨🇦🇺🇸
ryancbriggs.net
The pretty draft is now online.

Link to paper (free): www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10....

Our replication package starts from the raw data and we put real work into making it readable & setting it up so people could poke at it, so please do explore it: dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtm...
The social sciences face a replicability crisis. A key determinant of replication success is statistical power. We assess the power of political science research by collating over 16,000 hypothesis tests from about 2,000 articles in 46 areas of the discipline. Under generous assumptions, we show that quantitative research in political science is greatly underpow- ered: the median analysis has about 10% power, and only about 1 in 10 tests have at least 80% power to detect the consensus effects reported in the literature. We also find substantial heterogeneity in tests across research areas, with some being characterized by high power but most having very low power. To contextualize our findings, we survey political methodologists to assess their expectations about power levels. Most methodologists greatly overestimate the statistical power of political science research.
September 10, 2025 at 5:25 PM
thatmikebishop.bsky.social
Suggestion for authors: go back to forecasters now and ask them if they’d like to update their 2030 forecasts.
research-fri.bsky.social Forecasting Research Institute @research-fri.bsky.social · Sep 2
The International Mathematical Olympiad results were even more surprising.

AI systems achieved gold-level performance at the IMO in July 2025.

Superforecasters assigned this outcome just a 2.3% probability. Domain experts put it at 8.6%.
September 4, 2025 at 4:11 PM
thatmikebishop.bsky.social
Charts comparing BlueSky to X would be appreciated. Almost all comparisons are of interest to me including the obvious big two categories:
- user demographics
- post topics
September 2, 2025 at 6:10 PM
Reposted by Mike Bishop 🇨🇦🇺🇸
dynarski.bsky.social
Statement from the largest economics association about the BLS firing

As context: AEA approximately never makes such public statements

This is a big deal
August 1, 2025 AMERICAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION Committee on Economic Statistics and Committee on Government Relations Statement from the American Economic Association on the Dismissal of the BLS Commissioner Leaders of the American Economic Association express their grave concern over the dismissal of the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) earlier today. The independence of the federal statistical agencies is essential to the proper functioning of a modern economy. Accurate, timely, and impartial statistics are the foundation upon which households, businesses, and policymakers make critical decisions. Undermining the independence or credibility of these agencies threatens the integrity of the information that markets, institutions, and the public rely on every day. Measuring the vast and dynamic U.S. economy in real time is inherently challenging. It is standard practice for statistical estimates to be revised as more complete and higher-quality data become available. These revisions reflect the commitment of statistical agencies to accuracy, transparency, and methodological rigor-not failure or bias. The BLS has long had a well-deserved reputation for professional excellence and nonpartisan integrity. Safeguarding this tradition is vital for the continued health of the U.S. economy and public trust in our institutions. We call upon elected officials to respect and preserve the independence of the nation's statistical infrastructure. Lawrence Katz President, American Economic Association Katharine Abraham President-Elect, American Economic Association Karen Dynan Chair, American Economic Association Committee on Economic Statistics Kenneth Troske Chair, American Economic Association Committee on Government Relations
August 2, 2025 at 8:13 PM
Reposted by Mike Bishop 🇨🇦🇺🇸
woessmann.bsky.social
❓Why do the Nordics & Dutch speak English so much better than the Germans, Italians & French?

➡️ New Working Paper:

Out-of-School Learning: Subtitling vs. Dubbing and the Acquisition of Foreign-Language Skills
w/ F. Baumeister & E. Hanushek

www.nber.org/papers/w33984

A 🧵 1/12
July 7, 2025 at 6:33 AM
Reposted by Mike Bishop 🇨🇦🇺🇸
ryanlcooper.com
NYC experimented with new window heat pump models in some public housing units. in winter, "The window unit-heated apartments used a whopping 87% less energy than the rest of the building’s steam-heated apartments did, cutting energy costs per household in half."

heatmap.news/sustainabili...
Window Heat Pumps Could Change the Game
A new report from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy has some exciting data for anyone attempting to retrofit a multifamily building.
heatmap.news
July 14, 2025 at 2:12 PM
thatmikebishop.bsky.social
Happy Fête de la Fédération to those who celebrate! @franceculture.fr
July 14, 2025 at 2:14 PM
thatmikebishop.bsky.social
Most social scientists have never reflected on the epistemic virtues of forecasting.
July 7, 2025 at 9:59 PM
thatmikebishop.bsky.social
Better late than never!
July 6, 2025 at 1:58 AM
Reposted by Mike Bishop 🇨🇦🇺🇸
maxroser.bsky.social
My chart on the history of three infectious diseases — smallpox, polio, and measles — before and after a vaccine was available.
June 26, 2025 at 9:40 PM
thatmikebishop.bsky.social
NYC mayor race needs conditional prediction markets:

If [Mamdani / Cuomo] wins,
what results in 2026-2027?
- new housing starts
- population growth
- high net worth population change
- rent change
- student test scores
- crime
- police budget

@manifoldmarkets.bsky.social @metaculus.bsky.social
June 20, 2025 at 2:34 AM
Reposted by Mike Bishop 🇨🇦🇺🇸
albrgr.bsky.social
Great New Yorker story on the development of a new non-opioid painkiller www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...
The Radical Development of an Entirely New Painkiller
The opioid crisis has made it even more urgent to come up with novel approaches to treating suffering. Finally there’s something effective.
www.newyorker.com
June 15, 2025 at 9:40 PM
Reposted by Mike Bishop 🇨🇦🇺🇸
adambonin.bsky.social
Should we deport people who have lived here for many years without committing any crimes? 61% no, 24% yes.

Should we should deport people as quickly as possible even if it means more mistakes, or do our best to make no mistakes even if it takes longer?

Quickly: 19%
Minimize mistakes: 74%
June 15, 2025 at 4:14 PM
thatmikebishop.bsky.social
Learn about Canada’s movement to delay kids’ smartphone adoption #UnpluggedCanada @alexmunter.bsky.social www.cbc.ca/listen/live-...
© CBC/Radio-Canada 2025. All rights reserved.
www.cbc.ca
June 11, 2025 at 6:13 PM
Reposted by Mike Bishop 🇨🇦🇺🇸
alexmunter.bsky.social
BREAKING: Overwhelming support for letting doctors and nurses move freely around the country to care for Canadians:
angusreid.org/interprovinc...
#CDNpoli #CDNhealth
March 21, 2025 at 1:32 PM
thatmikebishop.bsky.social
I agree with @kateadamala.bsky.social
Don’t make mirror life.

Great conversation with @nathanlabenz.bsky.social

pca.st/episode/46dea5…
https://pca.st/episode/46dea5…
June 10, 2025 at 2:24 AM
Reposted by Mike Bishop 🇨🇦🇺🇸
carlbergstrom.com
Very smart, high ROI initiative from the Spencer Foundation.

Providing bridge funding for canceled NSF grants:

1) directs funds to projects already screened by a top-noch review process.
2) avoids imposing proposal prep costs on researchers.
3) ameliorates the disruption from GOP sabotage.
Rapid Response Bridge Funding Program
In the face of recent abrupt shifts in federal funding for education research, including large-scale terminations of National Science Foundation (NSF) research grant awards, we have developed a rap...
www.spencer.org
June 6, 2025 at 11:09 PM
Reposted by Mike Bishop 🇨🇦🇺🇸
gordpennycook.bsky.social
Recent research shows that AI can durably reduce belief in conspiracies. But does this work b/c the AI is good at producing evidence, or b/c ppl really trust AI?

In a new working paper, we show that the effect persists even if the person thinks they're talking to a human: osf.io/preprints/ps...

🧵
May 15, 2025 at 3:54 PM
thatmikebishop.bsky.social
"On the right end, they don’t want renters in the neighborhood. On the left, they don’t want landlords in the neighborhood. They agree that we shouldn’t approve rental housing." @kevinerdmann.bsky.social
March 25, 2025 at 2:30 PM
thatmikebishop.bsky.social
For those new to Superforecasting, looking for a good podcast introduction, you can find it here: @TomChivers @StuartJRitchie
The Studies Show podcast episode 66
March 6, 2025 at 1:40 PM