It's 2017 and I'm reading some of my old posts thinking, "I was way-off base with my predictions and beliefs."
One of the key concepts I've learned in the past 2 years is the futility of predictions. Nobody can predict with any accuracy more than a year into the future. The system is too complex (good YouTube series on complex systems here). I made a page about failed economist predictions that I haven't updated with the outcome but you can see for yourself what they were thinking and how wrong they were.
Rather than go into a long blog post about why and how predictions fail, I'll direct you to a book that summarises the evidence better than I can. That book is Superforecasting by Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner. I encourage anyone who is interested in predictions to give it a read.
Another key understanding that has become stronger in the last few years is letting go of strong ideological beliefs and particularly beliefs that are part of your identity. These beliefs will make it very difficult to view evidence and information on its merits without confirmation bias coming into play. I wrote an article in late 2014 about this very concept and I think it is very beneficial to any critical thinkers.
I will be posting random blog posts about things I want to document and share publicly for entertainment and general interest purposes. I think the next blog post will be a list of finance and trading movies that I've watched.
As always I can be contacted on twitter: @ShervinD
One of the key concepts I've learned in the past 2 years is the futility of predictions. Nobody can predict with any accuracy more than a year into the future. The system is too complex (good YouTube series on complex systems here). I made a page about failed economist predictions that I haven't updated with the outcome but you can see for yourself what they were thinking and how wrong they were.
Rather than go into a long blog post about why and how predictions fail, I'll direct you to a book that summarises the evidence better than I can. That book is Superforecasting by Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner. I encourage anyone who is interested in predictions to give it a read.
Another key understanding that has become stronger in the last few years is letting go of strong ideological beliefs and particularly beliefs that are part of your identity. These beliefs will make it very difficult to view evidence and information on its merits without confirmation bias coming into play. I wrote an article in late 2014 about this very concept and I think it is very beneficial to any critical thinkers.
The blog going forward
I don't intend to write detailed blog posts simply because most information is already out there on the internet and I would just be rehashing it with my own interpretation.I will be posting random blog posts about things I want to document and share publicly for entertainment and general interest purposes. I think the next blog post will be a list of finance and trading movies that I've watched.
As always I can be contacted on twitter: @ShervinD
