Skip to main content

Raison d'Etre (Reason for Being)


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.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Some Simple Guesses...

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

Foregone Conclusion

I haven't recently written here about the recession, but it seems like there is an seeming consensus that there will be, or currently is, a recession, and that it will long-lasting. No predictions on my part...
Post a Comment
Read more

In Amazon Fight, Progressives Showed What They Want: A New Economic Agenda

In the end, the failure of this deal lays at the feet of Cuomo and De Blasio. It's a deal that should have never been made or should have been done in a way that wasn't filled with one-sided giveaways. As Amy Liu, vice president and director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, describes, Virginia worked with local constituents to address concerns, negotiated a deal that required jobs from Amazon in exchange for incentives, and put more money into developing an education-focused job pipeline, rather than a simple giveaway to Amazon. Many people are going to blame a vocal minority for the failure when the problem was the deal itself. It could have been done to satisfy the critics, or at least mollify them, while still delivering for New York. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/16/business/amazon-economy-taxes.html?comments#permid=30664506
Post a Comment
Read more