Maybe I’ve misunderstood but in my humble opinion, and limited experience, forecasting is just a tiny tiny fraction of good judgement, (maybe about 1% depending on how broad you define forecasting). It can be useful, but somewhat overrated by the EA community.
Other aspects of good judgment may include things like:
Direction setting
Agenda setting
Being conscious of when you change direction part way through a judgement
Understanding the range of factors that are important to a judgement
Knowing how long to spend and how much effort to invest in a judgement
Brainstorming
Creative thinking
Solutions design
Research skills
Information processing
Group dynamics for consensus building or finding challenge
Knowing who to trust
Drawing analogies to other similar situations
Knowing when analagies are likely to be valid
Good intuition
Methords for digging into intuitions
Ability to test and moderate your intuition
Scenario planning (distinct from foresight?)
Horizen scanning (distinct from foresight?)
Foresight and predictions
Robust decion making
A range of models of the world which can inform the judgment
Good heuristics
Systems thinking
Self-awareness
Ability to adjust for unknown unknowns
Seeking evidence that contradicts the way you may want to go
Understanding and counteracting other biases
Understand statistics
Accounting for statistical issues like regression to mean or optimisers curse
Making quantitative comparisons
Weighing up pros and cons
Other generic decision making tools that can be applied, of which there are lots
Specific decion making tools applicable to specific situations
Knowing which of the above is most relevant to a judgement
Ability to bring all of the above together
Speed at bringing all the above together
Preparing for and understating the consequences of having made the wrong judgement
Ability to relearn and update judement later with new evidence
I think it would be clearer to put many of these under different categories than to lump everything under judgement. In my post I also cover the following, and try to sketch how they’re different:
Intelligence
Decision-making
Strategy
I should have maybe mentioned creativity as another category.
I also contrast ‘using judgement’ with alternatives like statistical analysis; applying best practice; quantitative models etc., though you might draw on these in making your judgement.
Thanks a lot for the answer! A lot of the things you put into “other” (which is a very long list, btw!) are things I’d put under “forecasting.” I wonder where the crux is?
Maybe I’ve misunderstood but in my humble opinion, and limited experience, forecasting is just a tiny tiny fraction of good judgement, (maybe about 1% depending on how broad you define forecasting). It can be useful, but somewhat overrated by the EA community.
Other aspects of good judgment may include things like:
Direction setting
Agenda setting
Being conscious of when you change direction part way through a judgement
Understanding the range of factors that are important to a judgement
Knowing how long to spend and how much effort to invest in a judgement
Brainstorming
Creative thinking
Solutions design
Research skills
Information processing
Group dynamics for consensus building or finding challenge
Knowing who to trust
Drawing analogies to other similar situations
Knowing when analagies are likely to be valid
Good intuition
Methords for digging into intuitions
Ability to test and moderate your intuition
Scenario planning (distinct from foresight?)
Horizen scanning (distinct from foresight?)
Foresight and predictions
Robust decion making
A range of models of the world which can inform the judgment
Good heuristics
Systems thinking
Self-awareness
Ability to adjust for unknown unknowns
Seeking evidence that contradicts the way you may want to go
Understanding and counteracting other biases
Understand statistics
Accounting for statistical issues like regression to mean or optimisers curse
Making quantitative comparisons
Weighing up pros and cons
Other generic decision making tools that can be applied, of which there are lots
Specific decion making tools applicable to specific situations
Knowing which of the above is most relevant to a judgement
Ability to bring all of the above together
Speed at bringing all the above together
Preparing for and understating the consequences of having made the wrong judgement
Ability to relearn and update judement later with new evidence
Etc
I think it would be clearer to put many of these under different categories than to lump everything under judgement. In my post I also cover the following, and try to sketch how they’re different:
Intelligence
Decision-making
Strategy
I should have maybe mentioned creativity as another category.
I also contrast ‘using judgement’ with alternatives like statistical analysis; applying best practice; quantitative models etc., though you might draw on these in making your judgement.
Thank Ben super useful.
@Linch I was taking a very very broad view of judgment.
Ben’s post is much better and breaks things done in a much nicer way.
I also made a (not particularly successful) stab at explaining some aspects of not-foresight driven judgement here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/znaZXBY59Ln9SLrne/how-to-think-about-an-uncertain-future-lessons-from-other#Story_1__RAND_and_the_US_military
Thanks a lot for the answer! A lot of the things you put into “other” (which is a very long list, btw!) are things I’d put under “forecasting.” I wonder where the crux is?
Some examples (non-exhaustive) of things I consider to be closer to “forecasting” than “not forecasting.”
I also understand all of these as very important to forecasting.