From: Robin Hanson (hanson@hss.caltech.edu)
Date: Mon Apr 07 1997 - 14:47:28 MDT
CurtAdams@aol.com writes:
>Well, discussion would help, but discussion is generally with highly selected
>groups. You'd want people to know what other people, in the aggregate, are
>deciding, and surveys are far better for that.
Yes you want wide participation in the discussion, but surveys are not
necessily better. Consider the wide use of "focus groups" in marketing.
>Another big problem with forecasting or discussion is that people often
>change their minds about what they want. It's difficult for a 20-year-old in
>college who's never worked anything more than part-time casual work and who's
>never had a significant relationship or children (an awful lot of
>20-year-olds these days) to really have any good idea what they will want at
>40.
Yes, but our predictions about aggregates may be better than our
predictions about individuals.
>Surveying, planning, and discussion are all good things, but even
>ideal application of the above (unlikely) will leave us with a lot of
>uncertainty.
This is hard to argue with.
Robin D. Hanson hanson@hss.caltech.edu http://hss.caltech.edu/~hanson/
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