Why Is It So Hard to Predict the Future?

Epstein looks at multi-decade research about forecasting and how specialists constantly can’t predict with any accuracy while generalists manage to do better. In short; people who are broadly curious, and interested in multiple fields, fare better and adjust their models more easily when proven wrong.

Hedgehogs vs. Foxes:

[T]hey identified a small group of the foxiest forecasters—bright people with extremely wide-ranging interests and unusually expansive reading habits, but no particular relevant background—and weighted team forecasts toward their predictions. They destroyed the competition. […] They were “curious about, well, really everything,” as one of the top f... See more

The highly specialized hedgehogs knew “one big thing,” while the integrator foxes knew “many little things.” […] Foxes, meanwhile, “draw from an eclectic array of traditions, and accept ambiguity and contradiction,” Tetlock wrote. Where hedgehogs represent narrowness, foxes embody breadth. […]