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The author would also conclude: * Collision avoidance systems are terrible at forecasting collisions because they almost never result in a collision. (The poin

by jxf 3y ago

The author would also conclude: * Collision avoidance systems are terrible at forecasting collisions because they almost never result in a collision. (The point of the system is to help you avoid an upcoming collision.) * The prediction that Y2K would happen was a bad one since it didn't happen. (We spent billions of dollars to make sure it didn't.) * The 1978 prediction that the ozone layer would be depleted by 2010 was a bad one since it didn't happen. (Humans took action to reverse CFCs and the ozone layer began to regenerate.) When you make a forecast about an event wherein agents can change the course of the event, the correct evaluation of the forecast is not "did the event happen?" but "would the event have happened but for intervention?". The author seems to miss this larger point.

troupe 3y ago
> The author would also conclude: > The prediction that Y2K would happen was a bad one since it didn't happen. (We spent billions of dollars to make sure it didn't.) I would argue that we don't really know what would have happened had the world not spent all the money on upgrading systems. It appears a very large number of them would have continued to work as expected and it isn't immediately clear if the ones that were replaced would have resulted in a catastrophe.
- snowwrestler 3y ago
  The people who were working on Y2K did know what would happen in many cases. Their work avoided known huge messes in banking, infrastructure, aviation, and healthcare, among others. What they didn’t do, much, is write or blog about their work. A lot of fixes were to commercial or government systems running on commercial or government hardware. Publicly disclosing problems and fixes was not part of those cultures. So it is very hard, today, for members of the public to go back and reconstruct the problems and solutions to “prove” that there were real issues. Which has led some people to believe, incorrectly, that there were not real issues.
  - troupe 3y ago
    I was part of that remediation effort in the healthcare sector. And yes there were things that were fixed that prevented problems. However, given how many things were not fixed, it is amazing how few problems actually happened. (Someone got charged for 100 years of late library fees...) Is that because we found and patched all the systems that would have actually had a problem? Maybe. I'm guessing it is because many of the things that were fixed, wouldn't have actually caused any signifiant problem--at least not at the scale that was being predicted. But as you point out, if there were any systems that would have failed in a catastrophic way, those were evidently fixed.
pixl97 3y ago
It's like saying if you drive tomorrow you're going to get in a fatal accident, no one in their right mind would drive in that case. The only way it can work is if you make the prediction and don't tell those that are affected. But generally in any larger market attempting to capitalize on the future state of the market changes the market and the predicted position.
paulpauper 3y ago
yes, systems are dynamic . predictions are by definition based on things that already happened and cannot account for new information except what was already programmed into the model. outcomes are affected by attempts to change outcomes.

by jxf 3y ago

troupe 3y ago

> The author would also conclude: > The prediction that Y2K would happen was a bad one since it didn't happen. (We spent billions of dollars to make sure it didn't.) I would argue that we don't really know what would have happened had the world not spent all the money on upgrading systems. It appears a very large number of them would have continued to work as expected and it isn't immediately clear if the ones that were replaced would have resulted in a catastrophe.

snowwrestler 3y ago
The people who were working on Y2K did know what would happen in many cases. Their work avoided known huge messes in banking, infrastructure, aviation, and healthcare, among others. What they didn’t do, much, is write or blog about their work. A lot of fixes were to commercial or government systems running on commercial or government hardware. Publicly disclosing problems and fixes was not part of those cultures. So it is very hard, today, for members of the public to go back and reconstruct the problems and solutions to “prove” that there were real issues. Which has led some people to believe, incorrectly, that there were not real issues.
- troupe 3y ago
  I was part of that remediation effort in the healthcare sector. And yes there were things that were fixed that prevented problems. However, given how many things were not fixed, it is amazing how few problems actually happened. (Someone got charged for 100 years of late library fees...) Is that because we found and patched all the systems that would have actually had a problem? Maybe. I'm guessing it is because many of the things that were fixed, wouldn't have actually caused any signifiant problem--at least not at the scale that was being predicted. But as you point out, if there were any systems that would have failed in a catastrophic way, those were evidently fixed.

pixl97 3y ago

It's like saying if you drive tomorrow you're going to get in a fatal accident, no one in their right mind would drive in that case. The only way it can work is if you make the prediction and don't tell those that are affected. But generally in any larger market attempting to capitalize on the future state of the market changes the market and the predicted position.

paulpauper 3y ago

yes, systems are dynamic . predictions are by definition based on things that already happened and cannot account for new information except what was already programmed into the model. outcomes are affected by attempts to change outcomes.