All of OneLonePrediction's Comments + Replies

I concur, he's not worth taking seriously. However, when he and less-ranty people say the same things all the time and they're aimed at you, it hurts less if you point out (not in any of his spaces, obviously) that he's being irrational and ridiculous. You are correct that engaging with him directly would be a bad idea and writing a thoughtful critique of his ideas would probably be wasted effort. That's why you don't see me commenting on his blogs. I'm just needling here. It's also there for anyone else who's read his stuff and felt insulted, angry or hea... (read more)

Thank you, I've now had time to read your post a second time and parse your other questions. Here are my answers.

(What is counterparty risk, by the way?)

The CDC will be an adequate source for this. I don't know and can't figure out how to find out when they'll next release an estimate of how common ASDs are. If they do it before the DSM-V comes out or shortly after it comes out, then I would wait and take not the next but the one after. If they wait until the DSM-V has been in use for a while, and I'm not sure how long a while should be, then maybe just th... (read more)

5gwern
My general experience with this sort of thing is that the dataset will be rich and include many different ways of slicing the data and with multiple definitions, so it's possible to pick and choose numbers to get what you want. Hence, specifying 'CDC' is better than specifying no source of data at all, but to make a good prediction one should specify the specific metric in the CDC surveys or reports. If you can't give a good probability estimate, then no one here will take you seriously nor will you be able to make or accept bets (so no one outside here will take you seriously either). If you want to learn how to do this, my own opinions can be found in http://www.gwern.net/Prediction%20markets That's Yvain, not me. I read the recent correlative study like everyone else and find it interesting, but I'm not sure how persuasive I find it. If you're really serious about it... What I would've done, if I had this sort of big public statement in mind, is written up a brief precis of why the diagnosis model is right, why I expect diagnosis-driven increases to level off soon (in stock market shorting, they have an expression: 'don't try to catch a falling knife'. When you short a stock, knowing when to start shorting is as important as knowing what is overpriced, because 'the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent'), what my exact metrics will be, what probability I assign over what periods, cryptographically sign my statement, and challenge some prominent anti-diagnosticers to bets on those terms - ideally through LongBets.org for nice round sums like $100, $500, or $1000. Is this a lot of work? Yes! But you are trying to buy credibility, attention, and change minds down the line; you should not expect that to be cheap or easy.
2[anonymous]
The risk that if you lose the bet, you don't pay up. It's relatively high here because a single-purpose account has no reputation to care about.

Then St. Elsewhere, rather than the comic, is problematic and wrong. Thank you; I wouldn't have known that had you not told me.

I'm still glad to have put that up on tumblr because I still don't want people thinking that's an accurate portrayal of autism.

I hereby claim that I am not-allistic on tumblr.

CronoDAS130

Tumblr doesn't let you respond to posts, so I'll do it here:

You discuss a comic in a recent Tumblr post. The scene with the snowglobe is actually a reference I think you missed. Specifically, the last episode of the 1980s-era TV show St. Elsewhere, in which it's suggested that the entire show took place in the imagination of a child whose parents say he is autistic.

From Wikipedia:

"The Last One"

The 1988 final episode of St. Elsewhere, known as "The Last One", ended in a context very different from every other episode of the series. As

... (read more)
0gwern
I have no idea who that is, and googling I just see a bunch of tags. (Also, you didn't answer the other questions.)

Thank you. Yes, this is possible, but the increase in those groups would end up exactly matching the decrease in adult rates from learning coping skills so well as to be undiagnosable and that seems unlikely to me. Why shouldn't one be vastly more or less?

Anyway, I'm going to make the article now. If you want to continue this, we can do it there.

I'm here to make one public prediction that I want to be as widely-read as possible. I'm here to predict publicly that the apparent increase in autism prevalence is over. It's important to predict it because it distinguishes between the position that autism is increasing unstoppably for no known reason (or because of vaccines) and the position that autism has not increased in prevalence, but diagnosis has increased in accuracy and a greater percentage of people with autism spectrum disorders are being diagnosed. It's important that this be as widely-read a... (read more)

7AdeleneDawner
I'm not sure you're right that we won't see any increase in autism prevalance - there are still some groups (girls, racial minorities, poor people) that are "underserved" when it comes to diagnosis, so we could see an increase if that changes, even if your underlying theory is correct. Still upvoted, tho.