What kind of data sets can be helpful for predictions? One category of data that often are ignored are the data that you can get by simply asking people - or, as it is sometimes called, "walking about". In a recent article about predicting unemployment, the authors note that this kind of often qualitative data… Continue reading Folk prediction
Ten year horizons – a methodological note
How can we deal with ten year forecasting and planning in an interesting way? The naive approach would be to simply guess what state of the world will be probable in ten years, and then describe that as well as we can. This is akin to a kind of science fiction writing, and can add… Continue reading Ten year horizons – a methodological note
Complementarity (Mental Models XVII)
Niels Bohr proposed that one fundamental insight of quantum physics was that some phenomena or systems could be described in two or more mutually exclusive ways and that it would be a mistake to pick one description as the "right one" - both could be accurate. This violates the logical dictum of the excluded middle,… Continue reading Complementarity (Mental Models XVII)
Capability forecasting
A lot of work has gone into what is sometimes called "technology forecasting" - attempting to understand how semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, proteomics etc will evolve over the coming years. Such research is valuable and interesting - and can be interestingly contrasted with something we could call "capability forecasting". Capability forecasting is focusing not… Continue reading Capability forecasting
Thinking in indices (Mental Models XVI)
The idea of an index in economy is simple: find a way to measure a change in an ensemble of values in a single value, and then track that single value over time. The challenges are many: how do you pick the values in your basket, and do you weight them differently? Do you update… Continue reading Thinking in indices (Mental Models XVI)
Geopolitical races in technology 2.0
Looking back, it is fairly easy to see that the race to the moon was a geopolitical competition, an attempt to use a technological task as a proxy for answering the question of which political system was the most robust, innovative and effective. But was we enter an age of new geopolitical races, it seems… Continue reading Geopolitical races in technology 2.0
Measures and causes of centralization of the Internet
Here is a narrative about the Internet that is getting more and more common: It certainly seems that the Internet is now the realm of a small number of enterprises that dominate this space. This is no longer a diverse, vibrant environment where new entrants compete on equal terms with incumbents, where the pace of… Continue reading Measures and causes of centralization of the Internet
Deep uncertainty(Mental models XV)
The concept of deep uncertainty is intriguing and important - as defined it is: Deep uncertainty exists when parties to a decision do not know, or cannot agree on, the system model that relates action to consequences, the probability distributions to place over the inputs to these models, which consequences to consider and their relative… Continue reading Deep uncertainty(Mental models XV)
Intolerance and polarization as survival strategies
A recent study in PNAS suggests that we can at least start thinking about that through inversion - the study of what intolerance is. By looking at the areas of the brain that activate during polarized responses etc a group of researchers are now arguing that intolerance is strongly correlated with a need for certainty.… Continue reading Intolerance and polarization as survival strategies
The Newsletter “Unpredictable Patterns”
I am now ditching the invite only mode for the newsletter. I feel confident that I have a form for it that I like, and so I would appreciate more readers and think I will learn more from a broader readership. I have now written 20 issues of the letter and I think the form… Continue reading The Newsletter “Unpredictable Patterns”