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Folamh3  1yr ago (slatestarcodex.com)   3214 thread views

Five More Years | Slate Star Codex

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On this day five years ago, Scott made a list of graded predictions for how the next five years would pan out. How did he do?

He correctly predicted that Democrats would win the presidency in 2020. He correctly predicted that the UK would leave the EU and that no other country would vote to leave. He seemed under the impression that Ted Cruz would rise up to take Trump's mantle, but to my mind the only person in the Republican party who has a meaningful chance of opposing Trump is DeSantis. I think a lot of the technological predictions were too optimistic (specifically the bits about space travel and self-driving vehicles) but I don't work in tech and amn't really qualified to comment.

Near the end of the article, in a self-deprecating moment, he predicts with 80% confidence that "Whatever the most important trend of the next five years is, I totally miss it". To my mind, the most significant "trend" (or "event") of the last five years was Covid, and I think he actually did okay on this front: the second-last section of the article is a section on global existential risks:

Global existential risks will hopefully not be a big part of the 2018-2023 period. If they are, it will be because somebody did something incredibly stupid or awful with infectious diseases. Even a small scare with this will provoke a massive response, which will be implemented in a panic and with all the finesse of post-9/11 America determining airport security.

  1. Bioengineering project kills at least five people: 20%
  1. …at least five thousand people: 5%

Whether you think those two predictions cames to pass naturally depends where you sit on the lab leak hypothesis.

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But still, the rationalist community is really obsessed with forecasting and predicting, yet missed so many of these big things.

"Compared to what?"

All that's required to win the forecasting game is to be somewhat more right somewhat more often than the people you're actually competing with, while also being capable of withstanding the shocks you DON'T see coming.

I don't know of any community in particular that came across as somehow more prescient than the rationalists, and plenty who were less prescient.

All that's required to win the forecasting game is to be somewhat more right somewhat more often than the people you're actually competing with

Sure, if you're playing to win "the forecasting game." If you're playing to win the more general "prediction game" or the even more general game of life, other things like the latter part (being prepared to withstand shocks you don't see coming) matter a whole lot more. I think this article about it is pretty good. In summary the easiest way to be a good predicter is simply to predict that the status quo will remain the same, which will get you a very high forecasting score will rendering you unprepared for all of life's most significant events.

Rationalists are pretty great at this too, but I'd say there are other groups (top government officials, anyone in a cutting-edge tech industry, anyone in a cutthroat business such as hedge fund trading) who are as good or better.

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