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Oscar_Cunningham comments on Generalizing from One Trend - Less Wrong Discussion

14 Post author: katydee 18 January 2013 01:21AM

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Comment author: Oscar_Cunningham 18 January 2013 08:40:12AM 4 points [-]

luckily, his policies were not adopted, as they would have resulted in mass starvation in the countries suddenly deprived of aid.

Ironic to see an untestable prediction in the middle of a post about the difficulty of prediction.

So my advice to those who would predict the future is simple. Don't generalize from one trend or even one group of trends. Especially beware of viewing evidence that seems to support your predictions as evidence that other people's predictions must be wrong-- the notebook of rationality cares not for what "side" things are on, but rather for what is true. Even if the trend you're relying on does end up being the "next big thing," the rest of the world will have a voice as well.

So what can we do?

Comment author: aelephant 18 January 2013 10:35:50AM 3 points [-]

Accept that randomness is a fact of life & that prediction is basically impossible in any kind of complex system. Make sure that your position is either resilient to big negative unpredictable events or better yet, antifragile. (Yes I've been reading a lot of Nassim Taleb recently.)

Comment author: JoshuaZ 19 January 2013 07:40:02PM 0 points [-]

Ironic to see an untestable prediction in the middle of a post about the difficulty of prediction.

In context, the prediction in question is not controversial. It is very hard to see cutting off aid in that context would not have resulted in the immediate starvation of many people in those countries. There simple would not have been enough food.

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