How ordinary people can forecast world events better than spies

20.4.2017

Dan Gardner, a Canadian journalist, lecturer and author of best-selling books on they psychology of decision making, came up with an incredible story of how a group of citizen volunteers changed the way intelligence communities in the US approach analyzing and forecasting future political events.

In 2011, US leaders wanted to evaluate and improve how their intelligence agencies forecast future events. The intelligence community spends a lot of time analyzing information. They want to forecast what’s going to happen – especially geopolitical events.

University-based research teams were formed. One of them recruited thousands of volunteers who provided their forecasts, and some of the volunteers predicted future events with astonishing accuracy – and very consistently.

These were ordinary people, with average IQs and no previous experience of intelligence services, and without access to classified information. Furthermore, all the information they had was possible to find on Google. So why did they perform so well?

Illustration

The addicted2success.com website has three answers.

1. Break down complex problems

Looking at a question as one big issue usually leads to bad predictions. It's better to unpack the question methodically. Divide it into several smaller questions, and then divide each of them again into even smaller questions. Then examine them.

2. Intellectual challenge

The successful forecasters liked to learn. So they picked out quite a few dots which they could connect, like a puzzle.

3. Looking for multiple views

They were extremely open to hearing other people's opinions. They utilized different perspectives and were able to put together ideas from multiple viewpoints and create well-analyzed predictions.

Book

GARDNER, Dan – TETLOCK, Philip E.: Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, Crown Publishers, New York, 2015, 352 p.

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