[davidclark]

The correctness of 8%, 16%, and 90% are all equally unknown since we only have one timeline, no?

[navane]

That's why you have to let these people make predictions about many things. Than you can weigh the 8, 16, and 90 pct and see who is talking out of their ass.

[sigmoid10]

That's just the frequentist approach. But we're talking about bayesian statistics here.

[lblume]

If one is calibrated to report proper percentages and assigns 8% to 25 distinct events, you should expect 2 of the events to occur; 4 in case of 16% and 22.5 in case of 90%. Assuming independence (as is sadly too often done) standard math of binomial distributions can be applied and used to distinguish the prediction's accuracy probabilistically despite no actual branching or experimental repetition taking place.

[cellis]

This is probably the best thing I’ve ever read about predictions of the future. If we could run 80 parallel universes then sure it would make sense. But we only have the one [1]. If you’re right and we get fast takeoff it won’t matter because we’re all dead. In any case the number is meaningless, there is only ONE future.

[hyghjiyhu]

You can make predictions of many different things though. Building a quantifiable track record. If one person is consistently confidently wrong then that says something about their ability and methodology