[extropy-chat] Futures Past

[Robin Hanson]

At 10:40 PM 10/9/2005, Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>In fact, I am not interested in SF much at all for prediction 
>purposes.  My real interest is whether transhumanists have been 
>better at predicting the future than mainstream predictors.

If this is your interest there is really no practical substitute for 
the sort of data analysis I proposed earlier today.  You need to 
collect predictions by transhumanists and by others and look at the 
coefficient on TRANSHUMANIST? when accuracy is the dependent 
variable.  I know it is more fun to flame and bait, selectively 
recalling the predictions one got right and others got wrong, and 
making a few new predictions one hopes to selectively recall at a 
future date.  But for a real lasting contribution on this issue, we 
need scholarship.



Robin Hanson  rhanson at gmu.edu  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Associate Professor of Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326  FAX: 703-993-2323