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2 comments

[–] CountHonorius 1 points (+1|-0)

There used to be a woman called "Faith Popcorn" who predicted trends in the 80s - early '90s. Not sure what her accuracy rate was.

[–] CDanger 1 points (+1|-0)

That's one of the shortest articles I've seen in a while.

The difference, according to the 20-year study, is that people who dabbled in a bunch of different fields learned from their errors. Meanwhile, the more narrowly-focused experts doubled down on their worldviews, often blaming some small unpredictable variable for their inaccuracy and becoming increasingly confident in their beliefs.

As Philip Tetlock, the scientist behind the 20-year study, wrote at the time, “There is often a curiously inverse relationship between how well forecasters thought they were doing and how well they did.”

These are interesting observations and good guidance for yourself when thinking about systems, but it really doesn't match the title at all. And that's a full 1/3 the article. Not sure why they had to go with the clickbait title instead of just making a reasonable article and title about the merits of being a generalist vs specialist.