Egypt and prediction
Aug. 19th, 2013 10:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nancylebovWhen things blew up in Egypt after the military removed Morsi, I found it tempting to think "what a bunch of idiots. Didn't they know the Muslim Brotherhood wouldn't be good sports about it?"
On the other hand, I don't think I heard a lot of people saying that the military move would be problematic on the ground as well as being anti-democratic in principle, though it's possible I just had the wrong sources.
Tetlock has done research on expert political judgement-- asking pundits to make predictions and say how sure they are they're right. Pundits are awful at prediction, and people generally don't seem to care.
However, whether politicians are good at prediction is a more important question, and I haven't seen discussion of it.
On the other hand, I don't think I heard a lot of people saying that the military move would be problematic on the ground as well as being anti-democratic in principle, though it's possible I just had the wrong sources.
Tetlock has done research on expert political judgement-- asking pundits to make predictions and say how sure they are they're right. Pundits are awful at prediction, and people generally don't seem to care.
However, whether politicians are good at prediction is a more important question, and I haven't seen discussion of it.
