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Comment by grzm

8 years ago

Accurate speculation, which prediction is, is a skill that can be practiced and improved. This has benefits as it makes one better at estimating outcomes. Posting it online also helps keep people accountable. Yeah, there might be some promotion going on as well, but that can be true for anything one posts on line. If you find someone's post valuable, great. If not, that's fine, too.

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grzm

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klenwell  8 years ago

I agree here and would underscore this point: in the hands of public experts, media talking heads, and many types of charlatan, predictions can be immensely powerful and have tremendous influence over public policy and social behavior. So I consider assessing them for accuracy and holding prediction-makers accountable a public good.

For a compelling book-length treatment of this question, see Philip Tetlock's Superforecasting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superforecasting

This project was spun off from the book and is my favorite online forecasting site:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Judgment_Project