If you look at prediction datasets like PredictionBook or GJP or other calibration datasets (or even prediction markets with their longshot biases), which cover a wide variety of questions (far wider than most policy or political debates, and typically with neutral valence such that most predictors are disinterested), it seems like people are generally uncalibrated in the direction of extremes, not 50%.
So that’s evidence against people actually holding beliefs which are biased to be too close to 50%, and suggests something else is doing on, like topic filtering or attempting to appear rhetorically reasonable / nonfanatical. (The second definitely seems like a concern. I notice that people seem to really shy away from publicly espousing strong stands like when we were discussing the Amanda Knox case, or putting a 0/100% on PB even when that is super obviously correct just from base rates; there’s clear status/signaling dynamics going on there.)
On things like PredictionBook, is it easy to compare predictions of the question-asker and others? It seems like the sort of thing where I want to predict facts that I’m ~50% on, but outsiders are more extreme (because I’m more likely to be unusually confused about the question), but I’m not sure how that compares to other effects (like general overconfidence).
If you look at prediction datasets like PredictionBook or GJP or other calibration datasets (or even prediction markets with their longshot biases), which cover a wide variety of questions (far wider than most policy or political debates, and typically with neutral valence such that most predictors are disinterested), it seems like people are generally uncalibrated in the direction of extremes, not 50%.
So that’s evidence against people actually holding beliefs which are biased to be too close to 50%, and suggests something else is doing on, like topic filtering or attempting to appear rhetorically reasonable / nonfanatical. (The second definitely seems like a concern. I notice that people seem to really shy away from publicly espousing strong stands like when we were discussing the Amanda Knox case, or putting a 0/100% on PB even when that is super obviously correct just from base rates; there’s clear status/signaling dynamics going on there.)
On things like PredictionBook, is it easy to compare predictions of the question-asker and others? It seems like the sort of thing where I want to predict facts that I’m ~50% on, but outsiders are more extreme (because I’m more likely to be unusually confused about the question), but I’m not sure how that compares to other effects (like general overconfidence).