A Tetlock inspired guide to help Pynksters become Super-predictors.
Philip Fletcher | Director & Co-Founder
Super-predicting is as much an Art as it is a Science. Whilst some may be naturally gifted, possessing that ‘special something’ that elevates them above the noise and find clarity, most people simply aren’t. This article offers some tips and advice that we hope will allow you to flourish both on our platform and in your own lives!
My previous article talked about ‘System 1 versus System 2’, and in that I discussed the merits of your subconscious gut feeling against your conscious, reasoned approach. This produced some really interesting results and demonstrated how engaged you all are (which is wonderful).
You should have seen some additional Wisdom Points at some point before the end of Quarter reset as a reward for your participation in that exercise… We noticed you! So thank you!
Moving on…
There are three key points we want to labour on which are derived from the amazing work by Philip Tetlock, the authority on Crowd Wisdom:
- Strike a balance between under and overreacting to evidence
- Bring out the best in each other
- Look for errors in judgement, but don’t keep looking through past performance
So, let’s run through the first one.
Charlie Munger is famously quoted as saying “I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don’t know the other side’s argument better than they do”. We believe this philosophy is completely applicable to your super-forecasting development. Whether you are making a bullish or bearish case, you should fully understand the rationale behind both cases. Being bias towards one or the other means you can’t properly appreciate the multiple dimensions of the arguments proposed by the bull and the bear.
The more informed, the more you can react from a logical perspective rather than one of impulse. That impulse, is often what leads to under or overreacting to evidence.
Belief updating is to good forecasting as brushing and flossing are to good dental hygiene. It can be boring, occasionally uncomfortable, but it pays off in the long term. That said, don’t suppose that belief updating is always easy because it sometimes is. Skillful updating requires teasing subtle signals from noisy news flows — all the while resisting the lure of wishful thinking.
(Tetlock, P. Superforecasting)
Noise. Noise. Noise.
The majority of what you hear is noise. This noise is what confuses your decision making process, and ultimately kills your ability to be both well-informed AND forecast based on your own logical interpretation of the information at your fingertips.
So, you need to learn how to collect information, absorb it, and determine a potential outcome.
Onto the second point, bringing out the best in each other. At Pynk, we have absolutely no interest in Bitcoin fanatics, ‘bagholders’ or ANYONE who mentions moons or Lamborghini’s. It’s tacky.
We are only interested in community development, and global unity. We’re a little tired of people arguing on Twitter about whether Gold is going to $500 or $3000 per ounce. We’re especially tired of people claiming Bitcoin is going to $1,000,000 next week because their chart has some ludicrous fractals predicting it. There’s a random number generator on Google you can use to pick lottery numbers. Those exercises are all the same; futile.
Your biggest gain from Pynk will be a big, open, and informed community. Imagine 5 years down the line a situation in which there are hundreds of thousands of Pynksters who are running their own divisions of the Pynk community, creating companies funded by Pynk, and directing investment into new exciting technologies….that’s our future.
That future is only attainable when we all come together, work together, and believe in our collective vision of a brighter future.
How do we do that? Challenge each other. Debate when humanity will reach Mars, when we will colonise the moon, when cold fusion will be achieved. Debate, enlighten, grow.
Finally, look for errors in your judgement, but not through the rear-view mirror. You know the saying “hindsight is 20/20”. If hindsight were actually valuable to predicting, I’d be on a beach somewhere (still working at Pynk, but anything beats an office:-).
But, the point remains. Hindsight can be useful to understand yourself more, but it provides little to no value in your forecasting development. Be very wary of looking for little shortcuts or tricks to improving, it will not work.
A good thing to do, is to keep a journal of everything. Your predictions, your emotional condition, the market sentiment, how much you were invested at the time, etc. etc… Start to understand how those variables impact you as a person. Once you start to do that, you can start to evaluate your losses and your successes more methodically, and you will be able to adapt and grow accordingly. Treat yourself like a never ending growth project.
I’m super excited for some awesome upcoming updates, and I hope you are too. Until next time, thanks for reading.
PF
Disclaimer: Please bear in mind that this information does not constitute any form of advice or recommendation by Pynk One Ltd. and is not intended to be relied upon by users in making (or refraining from making) any investment decisions. Appropriate independent advice should be obtained before making any such decision. When investing, your capital is at risk and you may recover less than the initial investment.
