Would you mind sharing why you thought this way back then...
Because the question asks about a very specifical technical definition of famine, and I think that the crowd forecasters were anchoring on “things will get bad”, rather than on “this specific technical definition will be met”. I’d appreciate it having more bins. I also looked into the FEWS reports, and none of them forecasted the highest level. Looking into the Our World in Data page on famines, the base rate isn’t high.
I agree that it could be helpful to provide more estimates of the likelihoods of the various scenarios. I’m not sure what to make of a statement like “It is expected that the number of people on the brink of starvation will double from 135 million to 260 million within the next few months”, especially when the WFP quote was “the World Food Programme analysis shows that, due to the Coronavirus, an additional 130 million people could be pushed to the brink of starvation by the end of 2020.” When I see “x could happen”, I don’t understand that to mean “we expect x to happen. Thanks!
Because the question asks about a very specifical technical definition of famine, and I think that the crowd forecasters were anchoring on “things will get bad”, rather than on “this specific technical definition will be met”. I’d appreciate it having more bins. I also looked into the FEWS reports, and none of them forecasted the highest level. Looking into the Our World in Data page on famines, the base rate isn’t high.
I agree that it could be helpful to provide more estimates of the likelihoods of the various scenarios. I’m not sure what to make of a statement like “It is expected that the number of people on the brink of starvation will double from 135 million to 260 million within the next few months”, especially when the WFP quote was “the World Food Programme analysis shows that, due to the Coronavirus, an additional 130 million people could be pushed to the brink of starvation by the end of 2020.” When I see “x could happen”, I don’t understand that to mean “we expect x to happen. Thanks!