2 ms·

Previous responses have given you some great food for thought, but my two cents is that what's being discussed in the article is no different from horoscopes or

by valval 3y ago

Previous responses have given you some great food for thought, but my two cents is that what's being discussed in the article is no different from horoscopes or the old lady in the tent with the crystal ball.

jemmyw 3y ago
I'm inclined to agree with you. Events like China invading Taiwan and a nuclear strike on London cannot be aggregated with other predictions because they are unique. There's no correlation between predictions to allow for it. Showing that you have some accuracy predicting any number of other things does nothing to prove you have accuracy predicting a % chance of a unique event like those ones. Further, if those events happen or not there's no way to validate the prediction. There aren't 100 Chinas ready to invade 100 Taiwans. Even expanding to other invasions of a very broadly similar nature doesn't give enough data points. Looking at historical data is bum too, there's too much geopolitical and technological change since. And that makes the base rates meaningless. All my opinion of course.
- Asraelite 3y ago
  > Showing that you have some accuracy predicting any number of other things does nothing to prove you have accuracy predicting a % chance of a unique event like those ones. When someone has a track record of consistently predicting these "unique" events better than average, then clearly there must be some pattern there that they're picking up on and the events aren't as unique as one would think. At the end of the day, someone who financially invests based on these predictions will eventually end up richer than someone who doesn't, whether you believe that should be possible or not.
  - jemmyw 3y ago
    They are mixing predictions that do allow for accuracy on base rates with ones that don't. There is clearly a bias that this particular group has leveraged rather than them being better at prediction.
  - valval 3y ago
    Proving that this isn't pure chance is impossible.

by valval 3y ago

jemmyw 3y ago

I'm inclined to agree with you. Events like China invading Taiwan and a nuclear strike on London cannot be aggregated with other predictions because they are unique. There's no correlation between predictions to allow for it. Showing that you have some accuracy predicting any number of other things does nothing to prove you have accuracy predicting a % chance of a unique event like those ones. Further, if those events happen or not there's no way to validate the prediction. There aren't 100 Chinas ready to invade 100 Taiwans. Even expanding to other invasions of a very broadly similar nature doesn't give enough data points. Looking at historical data is bum too, there's too much geopolitical and technological change since. And that makes the base rates meaningless. All my opinion of course.

Asraelite 3y ago
> Showing that you have some accuracy predicting any number of other things does nothing to prove you have accuracy predicting a % chance of a unique event like those ones. When someone has a track record of consistently predicting these "unique" events better than average, then clearly there must be some pattern there that they're picking up on and the events aren't as unique as one would think. At the end of the day, someone who financially invests based on these predictions will eventually end up richer than someone who doesn't, whether you believe that should be possible or not.
- jemmyw 3y ago
  They are mixing predictions that do allow for accuracy on base rates with ones that don't. There is clearly a bias that this particular group has leveraged rather than them being better at prediction.
- valval 3y ago
  Proving that this isn't pure chance is impossible.