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To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (2491)	11/7/2002 12:02:01 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6901

Hi Nadine Carroll; Re: "I presume you will go around LOL'ing all those American commentators who also predicted a 50-50 result for the American elections, and were just as wrong?" The election results were sufficiently close to 50/50 that I haven't LOLed anyone about predicting that it would be 50/50. (I should admit that I've been around long enough to have experienced elections that were *not* close to 50/50, so I can recognize em when I see em. A first clue is that if an election is a landslide, you don't have to wait up all night to find out who has control of the Senate, LOL.) But the fact is that I have LOLed people who thought that the Democrats were going to have a big victory. (Unlike you, I'm an equal opportunity, unbiased LOLer, which is what makes me a better predictor, LOL. In order to predict correctly you first have to lose your biases, and only then gather information in the most general way that you can, from all sources.): Bilow, November 6, 2002, 1:03AM Hi all; Pre election predictions. As usual, people believed what they wanted to believe. ... IMO, the Democrats are gaining significant momentum, are better organized, and may take control of both the House and Senate this November. [LOL!!!] ... #reply-18200063 As I've mentioned before, the only way that people can make themselves into accurate predictor is to first make themselves into an accurate (i.e. completely unbiased) observer. To do that you have to banish all partisanship from your mind. For humans, this is not very easy. Maybe men are slightly better at it as they tend to "compartmentalize" things better than women: Understanding Men in the Workplace Stefanie Coutinho, Women Today Magazine ... Contrast #3: Compartmentalizing Men can work with people they don't like. Women generally can't. This is because men can compartmentalize - work is work. But women naturally make associations (see contrast #1). Joan will find it harder to work with Steve on Tuesday if she witnessed him being needlessly rude to the waiter at the restaurant on Monday night. ... womentodaymagazine.com With me, my prediction stuff is "compartmentalized" (along with my "LOLing"); it has nothing whatsoever to do with my "real" life. This is so my feelings of patriotism, honor, love, righteousness, sympathy, empathy, anger, etc., don't taint my predictions. I'm usually pretty good at this, but every now and then my emotions leak through. Here's another link on compartmentalization; they're all over the web: ... Men can also compartmentalize their feelings better than women. "It's much easier for a man to have a personal problem and still have a good day at work," says Annis. ... baainc.com -- Carl