Foxes and Hedgehogs

In a post on another of my sites, a prediction of the 2004 election , I reprinted an email I sent to Brian Lehrer's show of my election prediction. I was wrong in multiple ways, not only because I was overly optimistic, hoping that American's would reject the Republican party, but also because I thought the turn away would be based on mass awareness of economic and social injustice. Even if I had been correct, the turning away I predicted would have likely been based on more concrete and less lofty reasons, since it seems that the Republicans' fall from grace seems more based on their inability to win a war, not the humanitarian crisis of the war itself.

The Bloomberg website recently posted an article stating that economists gave the likelihood of a recession at .50, which made me think, since economists are thought to overpredict recessions, that I should lower the likelihood of a recession to .40. Along the same lines, experts will tend to overpredict the likelihood of a positive or negative change, and conversely underpredict the likelihood of no change,

Before creating this site, I had searched for a site that I had used that allowed individuals to predict the likelihood of numerous events, and would provide a 'wisdom of crowds' calculations. When I first signed up, and put in predictions on the likelihood for (1) proof of God and (2) the US attacking Korea, both of which I place at .02 and .10, respectively. No great feat to get these correct though although the Korean estimate might change if Kim-Jong Il falls; I've read that the US and China are making plans to rush in and take over. A pressing concern for myself and the much of the US population is the likelihood of a recession. With so much negativity in the business world, subprime fiascos, potential monoline failures, the war in Iraq, increasing consumer defaults/bankruptcies, and a reduction in consumer spending portends a recession. I don't know whether there is much of an upside, other than increased exports because of the weak US dollar. I'd give th...

As for topics, the following are the most immediate: Likelihood of a US recession Likelihood of an international recession and/or impact Democratic primary winner (between Obama and Hillary) Republican primary winner (it seems forgone that it will be McCain) Military action against Iran Military action against Korea There are many other potential ideas or topics, centered around national and international politics, as well as economic outcomes, and I will aim to take shots at interesting and complex questions, not just the easy ones.

I recently picked up Philip Tetlock's Expert Political Judgment , an insightful analysis of expert opinion. Although there are many factors that might distinguish experts in the ability to predict outcomes, liberal versus conservative, intellectual depth and education, source material, etc., Tetlock found that the best predictor of forecasting accuracy was thinking like a fox, as opposed to the hedgehog, ala Isaiah Singer's essay. Fox thinking is nuanced and composed of many different themes, often conflicting, while hedgehogs tend to believe in one big, overarching idea. This site, and my expected use, is to document my own failures and successes in predicting political and economic futures. The title, Elephant's Memory, alludes to the fox-like tendency, maybe even need, to remember one's own flawed predictions and adjust future reasoning accordingly.