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I think who can look at things a lot of different ways and I'm not the most adept at it among the forecasters but
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that's definitely my type so I was a good fit but I was also driven because I'm acutely aware of the trouble the
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world is in and I think the as much as they have a dark side us organizations like I ARPA and the intelligence
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community in general that need all the help they can get we are basically the good guys and so so there's plenty of
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you know driving force behind my interest it's painfully clear that the more the
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wiser and more thoughtful and rational you are the better you're going to do
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and so I'm afraid you know that this kind of the same people who would do better a lot of different things that
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require mental effort are the ones that rise to the top and forecasting I think what's special about forecasting is that
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if you're a really natural researcher that can get you quite far and I just completely admire and am grateful to
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those of us who are so good at it and who have you know far-flung connections to decision centers in the world it's
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i'm sort of a free rider in that way so there are two things that are really
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important and so I come from one side of that I'm a person who was a natural for
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computer programming for example but not a natural for writing or researching easy-to-follow tip is do it every day
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and every question that you're forecasting have a look every day to see if anything has changed you when things
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do change it significantly tends to come as a surprise and if you missed that day
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well you blew that forecast for that day the my approach is to try to think through causal mechanisms and and try to
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think of all the influential factors that I can think of and and try to visualize scenarios and and balance
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probabilities among scenarios things like that this is a little different than what I think most of us are led to
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do by the training we've had which is it's not that the training doesn't cover
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probability and that's critical but it's to look at the categories of the
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questions we're forecasting and try to find parallels in the past and look for
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rates of occurrence and try to use those rates I I think that's helpful as a
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starting place but it's not going to get you a very good score if that's all you
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do and I think the difference between you know sort of phoning it in and and getting a good score is understanding
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the situation as well as you possibly can and and that's the what phil has Phil tetlock has called the inside view
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as opposed to the outside view he emphasizes the people neglect the outside view but i think it's the inside
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view that that really matters to get you exceptional forecast that that actually
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could add could give real value anyway that's the inside view become comfortable with researching
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problems have a great interest in what you're forecasting don't hesitate to dig
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right in two you know study something new just get into it don't don't neglect
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if you have any bent at all for statistics and probability bring it into play you know but that's kind of obvious
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anyone who has that choice I guess actually that the this might come up in your last question I didn't forget but
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part of the muscle you want is the muscle you want to strengthen intuitively is the muscle for balancing
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scenarios against each other and sort of averaging out probabilities intuitively
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waiting them properly things like that balancing things against each other intuitively that are things that are
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pointing in opposite directions this is this is something to get better at and feel easier about by practicing
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it's been huge and for first off you get exposed to a lot of wonderful people
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whom you tend to maintain some degree of contact with I've had a couple of of my
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teammates visit me at my house one who's from South Africa the other ones from
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Spain it's true they were on washington for other reasons but that's an example
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and I I'm glad to stay in touch with a lot of the four can factor there have
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been others as well from the DC area anyways I'm glad to stay in touch with these new friends that's that's see
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that's a big thing and just as big is there's nothing like reality focusing on
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reality and how it works out and you tried to see the future and maybe it worked and maybe it didn't end you you
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sort of mentally record it's there's feedback going on that's it's extremely
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good feedback for turning you into a more rational person it's it makes you a
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more balanced person a more rational person easier to live with perhaps I don't know but it's all good it's been
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very rewarding and this doesn't mean that the forecaster shouldn't also be
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rewarded in other ways but this myself is rewarding and I'm and I'm sure that
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the others feel much much the same you