It doesn’t. I simply don’t believe in Reference Class Tennis. Experiments show that the Outside View works great… for predicting how long Christmas shopping will take. That is, the Outside View works great when you’ve got a dozen examples that are no more dissimilar to your new case than they are to each other. By the time you start trying to predict the future 20 years out, choosing one out of a hundred potential reference classes is assuming your conclusion, whatever it may be.
How often do people successfully predict 20 years out—let alone longer—by picking some convenient reference class and saying “The Outside View is best, now I’m done and I don’t want to hear any more arguments about the nitpicky details”?
Very rarely, I’d say. It’s more of a conversation-halter than a proven mode of thinking about that level of problem, and things in the reference class “unproven conversation halter on difficult problems” don’t usually do too well. There, now I’m done and I don’t want to hear any more nitpicky details.
Economics growth and resource shortages. Many times it’s seemed like we’re imminently going to run out of some resource (coal in the 1890s, food scares in the 60s, global cooling, peak oil) and economic growth would grind to a halt. The details supported the view (existing coal seams were running low, etc.) but a reference class of other 20 year periods after 1800 would have suggested, correctly, that the economy would continue to grow at about 2-3%.
Alternatively, politics. Periodically it seems like one party has achieved a permanent stranglehold on power- the republican revolution, Obama a year ago, the conservatives in 1983, Labour in 1945, 1997 – but ignoring the details of the situation, and just looking at other decades, we’d’ve guessed correctly that the other party would rise again.
Recessions. While going into a recession, it always appears to be the Worst Thing Ever, and to signal the End of Capitalism; worse than 1929 for sure. Ignoring the details and looking at other recessions, we get a better, more moderate prediction.
These all seem like good examples of Outside-View-based long-term forecasting, though they could well have been somewhat cherry-picked. That is, you are citing a group of cases where things did in fact turn out the same way as last time.
Suppose we consider nuclear weapons, heavier-than-air powered flight, the Cold War, the Cold War’s outcome, the moon landing, the dawn of computers, the dawn of the Internet, &c. What would the Outside View have said about these cases? How well did smart Inside Viewers like Nelson or Drexler do on “predicting the rise of the Internet”, or how well did Szilard do on “predicting nuclear detente”, relative to anyone who tried an Outside View? According to TAW, the Outside View is “that’s never happened so it never will happen”, and honestly this is usually what I hear from those formally or informally pleading the Outside View! It also seems to have been what Szilard heard as well. So while Nelson or Drexler or Szilard should have widened their conference intervals, as I advocate in “The Weak Inside View”, they did better than the so-called Outside View, I’d say.
None of those inventions were big enough to change our larger reference classes: flight didn’t push up trend GDP growth, nuclear weapons didn’t change international relations much (a country is more powerful in proportion to its GDP, spending on military and population), the end of the cold war didn’t bring world peace. Rather, the long run trends like 3% growth and a gradual reduction in violence have continued. All the previous game-changers have ended up leaving the game largely unchanged, possibly because we adapt to them (like The Lucas critique). If all these inventions haven’t changed the fundamentals, we should be doubtful FAI or uploads will either.
In short: the outside view doesn’t say that unprecedented events won’t occur, but it does deny that they’ll have a big change.
A better counter-example might be the industrial revolution, but that’s hardly one event.
WTF?!? Nukes didn’t change international relations? We HAVE world peace. No declarations of war, no total wars. Current occupations are different in kind from real wars.
Also, flight continued a trend in transport speeds which corresponded to continuing trends in GDP.
Compare now to Pax Britannia or Pax Romana. The general trend towards peace has continued, and there are still small wars. Also, I hardly think the absense of a declaration is particularly significant.
Exactly- flight continued a pre-existing trend; it didn’t change history.
Perhaps. But I am far more annoyed by people who know better throwing around absolute terms, when they also know counterexamples are available in literally 3 or 4 seconds—if they would stop being lazy and would just look.
(I’m seriously considering registering an account ‘LetMeFuckingGoogleThatForYou’ to handle these sorts of replies; LW may be big enough now that such role-accounts are needed.)
(I’m seriously considering registering an account ‘LetMeFuckingGoogleThatForYou’ to handle these sorts of replies; LW may be big enough now that such role-accounts are needed.)
The absolute terms were appropriate, referring as they did only to my personal experience. It was only intended as a weak, throwaway comment. I suppose you might be annoyed that I think such anecdotes are worthy of mention.
Edited to add: If you’d quoted instead “Seems to who?” I wouldn’t have found your comment at all objectionable.
Anyone who predicts a stranglehold on politics lasting longer than a decade is crazy. Not that it doesn’t happen, but you can’t possibly hope to see that far out. In 1997 I thought Labour would win a second term, but I wasn’t confident of a third (which they got) and I would have been mad to predict a fourth, which they’re not going to get. I don’t think there were very many people saying “the Tories will never again form a government” even after the 1997 landslide.
I predict that after the 2010 elections, someone will predict that whichever party came out on top will now have a stranglehold on power. My reference class is the set of post-election predictions after every US election I’ve watched.
“Very rarely, I’d say.” I think with a little more effort put into actually investigating the question, we could find a better measure of how often people have made successful predictions of the future 20 years in advance or longer using this method.
Check a source of published predictions, and you’ll find some nice statistics on how well entertainers selling Deep Wisdom manage to spontaneously and accidentally match reality. My guess is that it won’t be often.
It also depends on which aspects of the future one is trying to predict… I’ll go out on a limb here, and say that I think the angular momentum of the Earth will be within 1% of its current value 20 years out.
Even that is by no means certain if there are superintelligences around in 20 years, which is by no means impossible. The unFriendly ones especially might want to use Earth’s atoms in some configuration other than a big sphere floating in space unconnected to anything else.
Good point—I’d thought that physical constraints would make disassembling the Earth take a large fraction of that time, but solar output is sufficient to do the job in roughly a million seconds, so yes, an unFriendly superintelligence could do it within the 20 year time frame.
Downvoted because I wanted to hear more about why it belongs in that reference class.
It doesn’t. I simply don’t believe in Reference Class Tennis. Experiments show that the Outside View works great… for predicting how long Christmas shopping will take. That is, the Outside View works great when you’ve got a dozen examples that are no more dissimilar to your new case than they are to each other. By the time you start trying to predict the future 20 years out, choosing one out of a hundred potential reference classes is assuming your conclusion, whatever it may be.
How often do people successfully predict 20 years out—let alone longer—by picking some convenient reference class and saying “The Outside View is best, now I’m done and I don’t want to hear any more arguments about the nitpicky details”?
Very rarely, I’d say. It’s more of a conversation-halter than a proven mode of thinking about that level of problem, and things in the reference class “unproven conversation halter on difficult problems” don’t usually do too well. There, now I’m done and I don’t want to hear any more nitpicky details.
Economics growth and resource shortages. Many times it’s seemed like we’re imminently going to run out of some resource (coal in the 1890s, food scares in the 60s, global cooling, peak oil) and economic growth would grind to a halt. The details supported the view (existing coal seams were running low, etc.) but a reference class of other 20 year periods after 1800 would have suggested, correctly, that the economy would continue to grow at about 2-3%.
Alternatively, politics. Periodically it seems like one party has achieved a permanent stranglehold on power- the republican revolution, Obama a year ago, the conservatives in 1983, Labour in 1945, 1997 – but ignoring the details of the situation, and just looking at other decades, we’d’ve guessed correctly that the other party would rise again.
Recessions. While going into a recession, it always appears to be the Worst Thing Ever, and to signal the End of Capitalism; worse than 1929 for sure. Ignoring the details and looking at other recessions, we get a better, more moderate prediction.
These all seem like good examples of Outside-View-based long-term forecasting, though they could well have been somewhat cherry-picked. That is, you are citing a group of cases where things did in fact turn out the same way as last time.
Suppose we consider nuclear weapons, heavier-than-air powered flight, the Cold War, the Cold War’s outcome, the moon landing, the dawn of computers, the dawn of the Internet, &c. What would the Outside View have said about these cases? How well did smart Inside Viewers like Nelson or Drexler do on “predicting the rise of the Internet”, or how well did Szilard do on “predicting nuclear detente”, relative to anyone who tried an Outside View? According to TAW, the Outside View is “that’s never happened so it never will happen”, and honestly this is usually what I hear from those formally or informally pleading the Outside View! It also seems to have been what Szilard heard as well. So while Nelson or Drexler or Szilard should have widened their conference intervals, as I advocate in “The Weak Inside View”, they did better than the so-called Outside View, I’d say.
None of those inventions were big enough to change our larger reference classes: flight didn’t push up trend GDP growth, nuclear weapons didn’t change international relations much (a country is more powerful in proportion to its GDP, spending on military and population), the end of the cold war didn’t bring world peace. Rather, the long run trends like 3% growth and a gradual reduction in violence have continued. All the previous game-changers have ended up leaving the game largely unchanged, possibly because we adapt to them (like The Lucas critique). If all these inventions haven’t changed the fundamentals, we should be doubtful FAI or uploads will either.
In short: the outside view doesn’t say that unprecedented events won’t occur, but it does deny that they’ll have a big change.
A better counter-example might be the industrial revolution, but that’s hardly one event.
WTF?!? Nukes didn’t change international relations? We HAVE world peace. No declarations of war, no total wars. Current occupations are different in kind from real wars.
Also, flight continued a trend in transport speeds which corresponded to continuing trends in GDP.
“We HAVE world peace”—I get your meaning, but I think we should set our standards a bit higher for “peace.”
Compare now to Pax Britannia or Pax Romana. The general trend towards peace has continued, and there are still small wars. Also, I hardly think the absense of a declaration is particularly significant.
Exactly- flight continued a pre-existing trend; it didn’t change history.
Seems to who? I’ve never noticed anyone taking this opinion.
http://www.google.com/search?q=permanent%20republican%20majority
http://www.google.com/search?q=permanent+democratic+majority
Hmm. I think I would have preferred to italicize “noticed” rather than what you did.
Perhaps. But I am far more annoyed by people who know better throwing around absolute terms, when they also know counterexamples are available in literally 3 or 4 seconds—if they would stop being lazy and would just look.
(I’m seriously considering registering an account ‘LetMeFuckingGoogleThatForYou’ to handle these sorts of replies; LW may be big enough now that such role-accounts are needed.)
Sockpuppetry considered harmful.
“Considered Harmful” Considered Harmful
The absolute terms were appropriate, referring as they did only to my personal experience. It was only intended as a weak, throwaway comment. I suppose you might be annoyed that I think such anecdotes are worthy of mention.
Edited to add: If you’d quoted instead “Seems to who?” I wouldn’t have found your comment at all objectionable.
Already done: JustFuckingGoogleIt
You can link to searches with Let Me Google That for You
I’ve seen Arnold Kling, GMU economics blogger (colleague of Robin Hanson, I think), argue something like that.
This was the example that first sprung to mind, though recently he’s admitted he’s not so sure.
Anyone who predicts a stranglehold on politics lasting longer than a decade is crazy. Not that it doesn’t happen, but you can’t possibly hope to see that far out. In 1997 I thought Labour would win a second term, but I wasn’t confident of a third (which they got) and I would have been mad to predict a fourth, which they’re not going to get. I don’t think there were very many people saying “the Tories will never again form a government” even after the 1997 landslide.
I predict that after the 2010 elections, someone will predict that whichever party came out on top will now have a stranglehold on power. My reference class is the set of post-election predictions after every US election I’ve watched.
“Very rarely, I’d say.” I think with a little more effort put into actually investigating the question, we could find a better measure of how often people have made successful predictions of the future 20 years in advance or longer using this method.
Check a source of published predictions, and you’ll find some nice statistics on how well entertainers selling Deep Wisdom manage to spontaneously and accidentally match reality. My guess is that it won’t be often.
It also depends on which aspects of the future one is trying to predict… I’ll go out on a limb here, and say that I think the angular momentum of the Earth will be within 1% of its current value 20 years out.
Even that is by no means certain if there are superintelligences around in 20 years, which is by no means impossible. The unFriendly ones especially might want to use Earth’s atoms in some configuration other than a big sphere floating in space unconnected to anything else.
Good point—I’d thought that physical constraints would make disassembling the Earth take a large fraction of that time, but solar output is sufficient to do the job in roughly a million seconds, so yes, an unFriendly superintelligence could do it within the 20 year time frame.