Budgets based on prediction

[Being]

Passe, at least they should be. Unless they embrace something other than patisanship such as

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/op...-fox.html?_r=0

Most important, participants were taught to turn hunches into probabilities. Then they had online discussions with members of their team adjusting the probabilities, as often as every day. People in the discussions wanted to avoid the embarrassment of being proved wrong.

In these discussions, hedgehogs disappeared and foxes prospered. That is, having grand theories about, say, the nature of modern China was not useful. Being able to look at a narrow question from many vantage points and quickly readjust the probabilities was tremendously useful. The Penn/Berkeley team also came up with an algorithm to weigh the best performers. Let’s say the top three forecasters all believe that the chances that Italy will stay in the euro zone are 0.7 (with 1 being a certainty it will and 0 being a certainty it won’t). If those three forecasters arrive at their judgments using different information and analysis, then the algorithm synthesizes their combined judgment into a 0.9. It makes the collective judgment more extreme.

This algorithm has been extremely good at predicting results. Tetlock has tried to use his own intuition to beat the algorithm but hasn’t succeeded.

[agamemnus]

Interesting. I registered on their site as a forecaster...

[Aimless]

It would be fun to see how our pundits here on the site would fare

I also wonder how this sort of task and setup compares to eg. prediction in business and finance.

How do you sensibly deal with/assess prediction ability based on probabilistic predictions about singular events? Do you look at eg. whether or not their 0.7-ers occur about 7 times out of 10? Whether or not their 0.2-ers occur about 2 times out of 10?

It'd also be interesting to see how the results of the creme de la creme, the elite group of 60, compare to the results of individual members of that group working with a similar methodology. Dramatically improved or just marginally improved and an expression of a narrower spread with less noise? Are their individual abilities better in the elite group than they are in the more diverse groups?

[Being]

Interesting. I registered on their site as a forecaster...

Let us know how you do.

[Dreadnaught]

Too bad Intrade shut down.

[Being]

Too bad Intrade shut down.

Don't believe we are talking about the same thing here. Rule 12?

[GGT]

Most important, participants were taught to turn hunches into probabilities.

It's still using mathematics and statistics to legitimize a form of gambling for profit. Didn't we learn a lesson when Math Quants were hired by the Financial/Banking industry for the same reasons...that nearly blew up the International Economy?

Might as well consult Sports Bookies, the Farmer's Almanac, or Punxsutawney Phil.

[Being]

It's still using mathematics and statistics to legitimize a form of gambling for profit. Didn't we learn a lesson when Math Quants were hired by the Financial/Banking industry for the same reasons...that nearly blew up the International Economy?

Might as well consult Sports Bookies, the Farmer's Almanac, or Punxsutawney Phil.

These are NOT math quants.

How did they make such accurate predictions? In the first place, they identified better forecasters. It turns out you can give people tests that usefully measure how open-minded they are.

Math quants are anything but open minded.

[GGT]

It's still prognosticating.

[Loki]

It's still using mathematics and statistics to legitimize a form of gambling for profit. Didn't we learn a lesson when Math Quants were hired by the Financial/Banking industry for the same reasons...that nearly blew up the International Economy?

Might as well consult Sports Bookies, the Farmer's Almanac, or Punxsutawney Phil.

How does it feel fearing everyone and everything you don't understand?

As for the original post: many issues in politics are distributional. Prediction has no role in telling us whether it's better to give money to group X or group Y. Neither does it help with setting priorities; after all, there's no way to test whether efficiency is better than equality. In general, it can be useful to have "market" information available about certain types of events. These are events that happen frequently and have a lot of publicly available information out in the open. For other types of events, you're risking black swans and idiosyncratic events.

[GGT]

How does it feel fearing everyone and everything you don't understand?

Apparently, you feel it's okay to troll, using those types of accusations.

As for the original post: many issues in politics are distributional. Prediction has no role in telling us whether it's better to give money to group X or group Y. Neither does it help with setting priorities; after all, there's no way to test whether efficiency is better than equality. In general, it can be useful to have "market" information available about certain types of events. These are events that happen frequently and have a lot of publicly available information out in the open. For other types of events, you're risking black swans and idiosyncratic events.

Budgets reflect priorities. "Markets" reflect trends. If anything, our predictive models have downplayed the systemic effect of black swan events, and how dangerous it can be to ignore the long tail. Mixed-animal metaphors aside, it's increasingly difficult to predict the future, let alone create budgets based on those predictions. They are political components that act as drivers.

In the fighting ring: on one side, we have heavy weight fossil fuels, championed by the oil industry. On the other side, we have welter weight/feather weight alternative fuels, championed by renewable resource industries. Wind turbines and solar are competing with corn and sugar industries, even algae farms. Combined, they don't match the oil industry, or oil-producing nations power.

[agamemnus]

Let us know how you do.

I have to be selected first... first come first serve, I think. No emails so far.

[GGT]

How does it feel fearing everyone and everything you don't understand?

As for the original post: many issues in politics are distributional. Prediction has no role in telling us whether it's better to give money to group X or group Y. Neither does it help with setting priorities; after all, there's no way to test whether efficiency is better than equality. In general, it can be useful to have "market" information available about certain types of events. These are events that happen frequently and have a lot of publicly available information out in the open. For other types of events, you're risking black swans and idiosyncratic events.

Something strange is happening. What was originally posted under Loki's username now appears under Ziggy's?

[agamemnus]

Only for you...

[Loki]

We are all Ziggy.

[GGT]

<I'll post in this thread, since it's still on the front page. >

Regarding budgets based on predictions, political 'distributions' and black swan events.....how about that U Mass grad student who de-bunked the "math" on public debt and economic growth?

Meet the 28-Year-Old Grad Student Who Just Shook the Global Austerity Movement

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...-movement.html

[Dreadnaught]

They had also excluded data from Canada, New Zealand, and Australia — all countries that experienced solid growth during periods of high debt and would thus undercut their thesis that high debt forestalls growth.

All three countries that experienced substantial debt-to-GDP reduction from 2000 - 2008 and two of whom experienced a resource boom.

This whole fight seems as silly as the way the media views and describes "austerity".

[Loki]

This is a paper that was not published in a peer-reviewed journal and didn't even use passable statistics. Are people attacking it just because it's an easy target? I'm sure there are numerous actual academic papers on this topic.

[agamemnus]

I was invited to participate. The initial questionnaire asks just mostly facts about the world and includes two videos I skipped through. It looks like there are many a hundred questions, and I quit about 30% of the way through.

[Being]

I was invited to participate. The initial questionnaire asks just mostly facts about the world and includes two videos I skipped through. It looks like there are many a hundred questions, and I quit about 30% of the way through.

So you are not going to participate? Post the questionaire for us.

[agamemnus]

It's not in a format that is easily posted. Each question is loaded from the server, one at a time.

An example of a question that I remember is.. "was [some guy] (mayor of Moscow) Putin's mentor?"... then go to google and it says "[some guy] was regarded as Putin's mentor"...