OnTheOtherHandle comments on "Stupid" questions thread - Less Wrong

40 Post author: gothgirl420666 13 July 2013 02:42AM

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Comment author: OnTheOtherHandle 21 July 2013 02:27:03AM 1 point [-]

I'd like to use a prediction book to improve my calibration, but I think I'm failing at a more basic step: how do you find some nice simple things to predict, which will let you accumulate a lot of data points? I'm seeing predictions about sports games and political elections a lot, but I don't follow sports and political predictions both require a lot of research and are too few and far between to help me. The only other thing I can think of is highly personal predictions, like "There is a 90% chance I will get my homework done by X o'clock", but what are some good areas to test my prediction abilities on where I don't have the ability to change the outcome?

Comment author: gwern 21 July 2013 03:52:29AM 2 points [-]

Start with http://predictionbook.com/predictions/future

Predictions you aren't familiar with can be as useful as ones you are: you calibrate yourself under extreme uncertainty,and sometimes you can 'play the player' and make better predictions that way (works even with personal predictions by other people).