Economics & Marginalia: July 12, 2024
In fact, the actual value for GDP fell outside the economists’ prediction interval six times in eighteen years, or fully one-third of the time. Another study,18 which ran these numbers back to the beginnings of the Survey of Professional Forecasters in 1968, found even worse results: the actual figure for GDP fell outside the prediction interval al
... See moreNate Silver • The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don't
Macroeconomics, for instance, can be nonsense since it is easier to macrobull t than microbull t—nobody can tell if a theory really works.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb • Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life
Higher status for technologists, lower status for journalists; ambiguous changes for teachers. Vox will never live this down. The people most freaked out about COVID-19 were people who pay attention to exponential growth for a living; if you design viral mechanics for apps, you probably have a good idea of how to extrapolate 33% daily growth. The j... See more