Confession about a failed forecast

Larry Kummer, Editor

13 years ago

Summary: Time to check the score for the FM website. 2,400 posts, 4.1 million pageviews, 28 thousands comments. Many forecasts, mostly accurate. One very important forecast that was very wrong.

A series about America

Confession about a failed forecast
A third try: The first step to reforming America
The bad news about reform: time is our enemy

Content of this post

Forecasts about many things
A diagnosis of America
For More Information

(1) Forecasts about many things

Consider the predictions of the FM website. The accurate ones appear in the Past Predictions page; the wrong ones appear on the Smackdowns page. (ones with the wheel still spinning appear here). The record is remarkably good, mostly due to careful selection of experts on which to rely. I should spend more time telling you about these successful predictions.

I don’t think much about the hits because the misses seem more important. Perhaps keeping track of failed analyses and obsessing about them accounts in part for the good overall score. It makes me more careful about making predictions, and about their language (riddled with “perhaps”, “probably”, and “guesses”).

But there’s a larger story here. The accurate forecasts concern important subjects, such as outcomes of wars and onset of recessions. But these are less important than the subject of the big wrong call. I said that the Republic was dying — but the speed of the decay exceeds my worst nightmares. My descriptions of the Republic’s strengths were delusionally optimistic. My proposed reforms (listed below) now read like nonsense written by Dr. Pangloss.

Posts on the FM website typically consist of closely reasoned logic, lavishly supported (each takes hours to write). Many of the those posts about America were criticized by people who now look prescient. I replied at the time (and still believe) that many of those people appeared to have deep biases against the USA. Like Oldskpetic.

But the results have come in. They were right; I was wrong.

Diagnosis of America

I have thought about the reason for this large error, and now see that it resulted from violation of my own analytical procedure. How often I stressed the importance of diagnosis! To use a medical metaphor, forecasts of the illness’ course and successful treatment both build upon an accurate diagnosis. Yet I wrote forecasts and recommendations knowing that I lacked an adequate explanation for the causes and nature of the Republic’s illness.

Only slowly has my thinking converged in the past year upon an answer that matches the facts. It explains much that happened since 9-11, and allows forecasts of the future (allowing its validation or disproof).

Unfortunately that answer is so dark as to shake my soul.

Tuesday’s post will discuss this diagnosis, and a possible path to a cure.