Strongly upvoted, very interesting. Here is a scenario under which you might be wrong:
Not making forecasts a. is easier, and b. doesn’t expose you to accusations of being overconfident, uncalibrated and clueless. It is possible that this was the driving force for abandoning forecasts, and ideological justification came afterwards. This would happen through mechanisms like those outlined in Unconscious economics
It is still possible that they have uncovered some useful tools, but the assertion “the best way to maximize expected utility is to not think in terms of probabilities” just sounds really suspicious.
I’m not sure I agree with that comment anymore; the original post has grown on me over the past months. For example, when thinking about funding ALLFED, an EV calculation is just really noisy.
Strongly upvoted, very interesting. Here is a scenario under which you might be wrong:
Not making forecasts a. is easier, and b. doesn’t expose you to accusations of being overconfident, uncalibrated and clueless. It is possible that this was the driving force for abandoning forecasts, and ideological justification came afterwards. This would happen through mechanisms like those outlined in Unconscious economics
You can see this dynamic going on really clearly in this Wall Street Article: Travel CFOs Hesitant on Forecasts as Pandemic Fogs Outlook , or in this model by Deloitte, whose authors, when contacted, refused to give a confidence interval.
It is still possible that they have uncovered some useful tools, but the assertion “the best way to maximize expected utility is to not think in terms of probabilities” just sounds really suspicious.
I’m not sure I agree with that comment anymore; the original post has grown on me over the past months. For example, when thinking about funding ALLFED, an EV calculation is just really noisy.