[extropy-chat] Inside Vs. Outside Forecasts

[Adrian Tymes]

--- "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" <sentience at pobox.com> wrote:
> Moral 1:  The outside view always wins.

But only so long as the outside view uses relevant data.

Example: predicting personal computing, back in the '60s and early
'70s.  Citing a large and growing number of industrial computing users,
each and every one requiring a support staff dedicated solely to
keeping their computers up, industry leaders felt confident in
predicting that computers small yet functional enough for a private
citizen to use, without said support staff, would never come to be.
I'm typing this on an example of that prediction's failure.