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that goes back to when I was a younger
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man during the first Gulf War in 1991 uh
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I was I'm interested in the military
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military history and a lot of people and
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pundits were making predictions about
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the outcome the manner in which the war
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would be waged and decided as well as
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casualty counts and how long it would
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take and basically everyone was wrong on
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the duration and the and the
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destructiveness well the number of
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casualties suffered by coalition forces
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and that was interesting to me because
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there was one historian I'd like to say
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Trevor Dupree you got it right and I was
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interested in and how he got it right
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like and evidently he had a system in
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just a few years later during the
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nineteen ninety-four midterm elections
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when Bill Clinton lost in a landslide to
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the Republicans the Republicans took the
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Congress for the first time in 40 years
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after that defeat basically every pundit
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on earth was saying that Bill Clinton is
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a one-term president and being a staunch
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Democrat in a Clinton supporter I was
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traumatized by that possibility and
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wondered whether they knew they whether
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they knew what they were talking about
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and at about that time I found a book
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written by another historian Alan Jay
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Lippman um about predicting you know who
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would become the next president and
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evidently he had a system where you
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didn't need to use poles you just look
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at history and using his method I
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realized that actually Bill Clinton was
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in a pretty good shape his his chances
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weren't guaranteed but you know even a
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year before the election um I had a
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pretty good inkling that he had a good
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chance of winning re-election and this
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was against what all the pundits were
00:02:11
saying so based on those two events
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there were probably other events as well
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that's why I became interested in
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forecasting basically the fact that
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everyone you know got thing big thing
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was wrong and I want to know why and
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some people got big things right and I
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wanted to know why and whether I could
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do as well as I could so ever since then
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I was I started you know I'm my own
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forecasting you know the outcomes of
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wars and elections and with mixed
00:02:38
results but you know so but over 20
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years so so that's how that's how I
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became interested
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I don't trust my gut so usually my first
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impression is right about half the time
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so in order to do well in a forecasting
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tournament you have to dig deeper into
00:03:01
the sources if you're predicting
00:03:04
elections for example you know I'm find
00:03:06
out you know what happened in the past
00:03:09
you know which parties were likely to
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win and under what circumstances do your
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research about the electoral system
00:03:19
sometimes you know the electoral system
00:03:23
could lead to a counterintuitive result
00:03:25
you know a party could do very well in
00:03:27
the polls and still lose the election so
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it's just really a matter of doing your
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homework trying to understand the
00:03:36
situation the history behind the event
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and and really working hard at it and I
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would say a second reason would be mmm
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my sense of history so I think that
00:03:54
comes in very handy because most people
00:03:58
when they would forecast whatever event
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it is would really look to the recent
00:04:02
past draw on their own memories as well
00:04:05
as maybe you know Google search of of
00:04:07
you know the recent news events but I
00:04:10
think having a sense of history that
00:04:13
stretches back far arm can give one a
00:04:18
sense of em possibilities which you know
00:04:23
the recent past might not indicate
00:04:29
okay well along with not trusting my own
00:04:31
gut feelings my first impressions I
00:04:34
don't trust the gut feelings and of
00:04:36
experts and pundits I try to when ever
00:04:41
possible to discover understand what
00:04:45
assumptions underlie their forecasts
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sometimes they're explicit about this
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and other times they aren't they don't
00:04:52
really they'll say you know this event
00:04:54
is likely but not really explain and if
00:04:56
I keep doing my research and find other
00:04:59
pundits you say a certain event is
00:05:00
likely without you know much explanation
00:05:03
at all then that's a signal for me to
00:05:06
really do some deep research and and try
00:05:10
to even if I agree with that assumption
00:05:13
you know sometimes I'll just try to play
00:05:15
the devil's advocate and say well let's
00:05:18
pretend that this silly outcome that's
00:05:20
unlikely to happen you know actually
00:05:22
could happen and kind of play that out
00:05:25
and sometimes you know I'll go back to
00:05:26
my original estimate yeah that's silly
00:05:29
it's not going to happen but you know
00:05:31
often is the case that the silly outcome
00:05:34
is becomes the more likely one so that's
00:05:38
that's one thing I do and others I try
00:05:44
to discover or to find out you know who
00:05:47
has the power in a certain situation who
00:05:51
who is the decider in the words of
00:05:53
george w bush and that's one that keeps
00:05:56
coming back all the time and also you
00:06:01
know in every forecast you want to write
00:06:04
down a list or in your head you know of
00:06:07
all the constraints that would pretend
00:06:08
prevent a certain event from occurring
00:06:12
or slow it down you know make an event
00:06:16
you know an a likely event take longer
00:06:19
to occur then you know what was expected
00:06:21
before so they're just a few things
00:06:29
well one of the things i would recommend
00:06:30
would be to write down a list of all the
00:06:33
things that would that you should be on
00:06:37
the lookout for that might cause you to
00:06:40
change your mind so after you've done
00:06:42
your homework you thought deeply about
00:06:44
you know the event and the likelihood of
00:06:47
of it occurring write down a list of of
00:06:52
things that you know would happen
00:06:55
leading up to the event or signals
00:06:59
markers whatever that would cause you to
00:07:03
change your mind and I'm the reason why
00:07:06
I say write it down is because it's
00:07:10
because you know it's very hard to
00:07:12
change your mind and if you write it
00:07:14
down it might be helped you you know not
00:07:19
try to to fudge things well you know if
00:07:23
it's if it's just in the back of your
00:07:24
head you know mm it becomes a little bit
00:07:27
more difficult to to go against you know
00:07:32
your original original conclusion
00:07:36
because I mean you put a lot of work
00:07:37
into this and you don't want to go back
00:07:40
on it and if there's a natural tendency
00:07:42
not to want to you know waffle or be too
00:07:46
wishy-washy but you know having it down
00:07:48
on paper will just show you well I'm not
00:07:50
being wishy-washy you know events have
00:07:52
changed things have changed and maybe my
00:07:57
initial conclusion was wrong I would say
00:08:02
the third thing would be to play devil's
00:08:04
advocate after immediately after you've
00:08:08
you know come to a conclusion and made a
00:08:10
forecast seek out information that would
00:08:13
prove you wrong you know if anything you
00:08:18
know just to cover all your bases I'd
00:08:21
say my fourth piece of advice would be
00:08:23
to seek a wide variety of sources even
00:08:29
weak and biased sources because
00:08:31
sometimes you can find interest in
00:08:32
information in very flawed sources but
00:08:37
that'll take some work on your part to
00:08:39
determine
00:08:41
you know which part of these you know
00:08:44
particular reports are worth you know
00:08:46
holding on to and which part should be
00:08:48
discarded it's not an easy task but
00:08:50
don't just you know casually disregard
00:08:54
even even bad sources because you never
00:08:56
know from four years as a as a
00:08:59
forecaster in the gjp tournament I can
00:09:03
say that another piece of advice I would
00:09:06
give is to assume that things would take
00:09:09
longer than your initial impression
00:09:12
that's a rule of thumb because it
00:09:15
happens consistently time and time again
00:09:17
that whatever it is a diplomatic
00:09:21
initiative or or or what have you events
00:09:27
often will take a lot longer than then
00:09:30
what what you think you know they will
00:09:32
take or what officials you know the
00:09:35
timetable of officials and and and
00:09:41
that's just been my experience from
00:09:43
doing this for a long time final piece
00:09:45
of advice would be a embrace uncertainty
00:09:49
don't get too hung up on getting things
00:09:52
correct you're never going to get
00:09:53
everything correct you're going to get a
00:09:55
lot of things wrong I would focus more
00:09:58
on assigning viable or realistic
00:10:05
probabilities to events just think of it
00:10:08
in terms of you know if I assignment
00:10:10
seventy percent probability to a
00:10:12
particular event you know I'm going to
00:10:14
be wrong three out of ten times you know
00:10:18
for so if you if you work on being well
00:10:24
calibrated instead of trying to get
00:10:26
everything right I think that's probably
00:10:28
a more fruitful endeavor
00:10:34
I'm not sure that they have all they
00:10:36
probably should having practice at
00:10:40
forecasting geopolitical events maybe I
00:10:43
should start practicing forecasting
00:10:45
events related to my own personal life
00:10:48
maybe that would help me avoid being
00:10:50
unpleasantly surprised by my things but
00:10:54
so I'm not really sure how it's affected
00:10:57
my personal life other than having nice
00:10:59
dinner time conversations with families
00:11:01
and friends
00:11:18
you
