I’ve become a bit discouraged by the lack of positive reception for my forecasting newsletter on LessWrong, to which I’ve been publishing it since April 2020. For example, I thought that Forecasting Newsletter: Looking back at 2021 was excellent. It was very favorably reviewed by Scott Alexander here. I poured a bunch of myself into that newsletter. It got 18 karma.
I haven’t bothered crossposting it to LW this month, but it continues in substack and on the EA forum.
Alas, that also makes me sad. I wonder whether this means something is going wrong in the basic attention-allocation system on the site. I’ve enjoyed every newsletter that I read, but I only noticed like 2-3 (and upvoted each of them correspondingly).
Introspecting on my experience, I actually think the biggest difference for me would have been if you had given any of them a more evocative title that had captured the most important thing in that month’s newsletter. I definitely feel a strong sense of boredom if I imagine clicking on “Forecasting Newsletter March 2021” instead of “Nuclear war forecasts & new forecasting platforms (Forecasting Newsletter Mar ’21)”.
Looks like you’re getting decent engagement on substack. Curious if you know where those people come from? I’m not sure to what extent there’s a “forecasting scene”, or who is part of it.
Speaking as a non-forecast-specialized-person – I have a belief that it’s good to have a forecasting scene that is developing tech/skills/infrastructure. But so far, whether rightly or wrongly, I’ve mostly thought of that as something that’s good/virtuous for other people to do. A newsletter feels like something that makes sense to read if I want to keep up with the broad strokes of a field.
It does seem to me that forecasting/prediction should be more integrated into rationalist culture, but I’m not sure how to go about it.
I’m not sure to what extent there’s a “forecasting scene”, or who is part of it.
There is a forecasting scene, made out of hobbyist forecasters and more hardcore prediction market players, and a bunch of researchers. The best prediction market people tend to have fairly sharp models of the world, particularly around elections. They also have a pretty high willingness to bet.
I’ve been thinking for a while that maybe forecasting should have its own LessWrong instance, as a place to discuss and post essays (the way EA Forum and AI Alignment have their own instances); curious to get your thoughts on whether this would improve the forecasting scene by having a shared place to meet, or detract by making it harder for newcomers to hear about forecasting?
I really, really wish crossposting and crosslinking was easier between different ForumMagnum instances...
This isn’t a particularly informed or confident take, but forecasting strikes me as, I’m not sure what the right words are. Important? Useful? Cool? Impressive? But it doesn’t seem to get nearly as much attention as it should. And so I too am sad to learn of the lack of engagement and positive reception.
I just subscribed to the substack because it’s something I’d like to keep my eye on.
Well I liked the looking back post—though I have only just now noticed they are in a running sequence. Query—would you prefer to have engagement here, or at substack?
Also, once again note to myself to be what-feels-from-the-inside like gushingly, disgustingly effusive but-in-fact-is just positive feedback at all.
Huh. I found your forecasting newsletter via LessWrong, and then subscribed to the substack’s RSS feed? Which probably made me less likely to open it/see it in LessWrong? Dunno. Maybe your LessWrong traffic moved to substack? (sample size=1)
I’ve become a bit discouraged by the lack of positive reception for my forecasting newsletter on LessWrong, to which I’ve been publishing it since April 2020. For example, I thought that Forecasting Newsletter: Looking back at 2021 was excellent. It was very favorably reviewed by Scott Alexander here. I poured a bunch of myself into that newsletter. It got 18 karma.
I haven’t bothered crossposting it to LW this month, but it continues in substack and on the EA forum.
Alas, that also makes me sad. I wonder whether this means something is going wrong in the basic attention-allocation system on the site. I’ve enjoyed every newsletter that I read, but I only noticed like 2-3 (and upvoted each of them correspondingly).
Introspecting on my experience, I actually think the biggest difference for me would have been if you had given any of them a more evocative title that had captured the most important thing in that month’s newsletter. I definitely feel a strong sense of boredom if I imagine clicking on “Forecasting Newsletter March 2021” instead of “Nuclear war forecasts & new forecasting platforms (Forecasting Newsletter Mar ’21)”.
That’s sad.
Looks like you’re getting decent engagement on substack. Curious if you know where those people come from? I’m not sure to what extent there’s a “forecasting scene”, or who is part of it.
Speaking as a non-forecast-specialized-person – I have a belief that it’s good to have a forecasting scene that is developing tech/skills/infrastructure. But so far, whether rightly or wrongly, I’ve mostly thought of that as something that’s good/virtuous for other people to do. A newsletter feels like something that makes sense to read if I want to keep up with the broad strokes of a field.
It does seem to me that forecasting/prediction should be more integrated into rationalist culture, but I’m not sure how to go about it.
Sure, see here: https://imgur.com/a/pMR7Qw4
There is a forecasting scene, made out of hobbyist forecasters and more hardcore prediction market players, and a bunch of researchers. The best prediction market people tend to have fairly sharp models of the world, particularly around elections. They also have a pretty high willingness to bet.
I’ve been thinking for a while that maybe forecasting should have its own LessWrong instance, as a place to discuss and post essays (the way EA Forum and AI Alignment have their own instances); curious to get your thoughts on whether this would improve the forecasting scene by having a shared place to meet, or detract by making it harder for newcomers to hear about forecasting?
I really, really wish crossposting and crosslinking was easier between different ForumMagnum instances...
This isn’t a particularly informed or confident take, but forecasting strikes me as, I’m not sure what the right words are. Important? Useful? Cool? Impressive? But it doesn’t seem to get nearly as much attention as it should. And so I too am sad to learn of the lack of engagement and positive reception.
I just subscribed to the substack because it’s something I’d like to keep my eye on.
Well I liked the looking back post—though I have only just now noticed they are in a running sequence. Query—would you prefer to have engagement here, or at substack?
Also, once again note to myself to be what-feels-from-the-inside like gushingly, disgustingly effusive but-in-fact-is just positive feedback at all.
I guess there’s not a lot of clickthrough? Wait, the link is to the EA forum. Okay, still, that’s weird.
Huh. I found your forecasting newsletter via LessWrong, and then subscribed to the substack’s RSS feed? Which probably made me less likely to open it/see it in LessWrong? Dunno. Maybe your LessWrong traffic moved to substack? (sample size=1)