Barbara Mellers, PhilipTetlock, and Hal R.Arkes claim that they would.
We explore the power of an emerging methodology, forecasting tournaments, to encourage clashing factions to do something odd: to translate their beliefs into nuanced probability judgments and track accuracy over time and questions. In theory, tournaments advance the goals of “deliberative democracy” by incentivizing people to be flexible belief updaters whose views converge in response to facts, thus depolarizing unnecessarily polarized debates. We examine the hypothesis that, in the process of thinking critically about their beliefs, tournament participants become more moderate in their own political attitudes and those they attribute to the other side.
Pointer from Tyler Cowen.
I have my doubts.
1. People who hold polarized beliefs are not interested in making probability statements. It’s like asking a religious fanatic to give the probability that he is mistaken. It probably would be easy to steer people to rational thinking about politics if politics were about policy. But it’s not.
2. The interesting forecasts are conditional forecasts. As Scott Sumner put it, “(Unconditional) prediction is overrated.”
If there is strict gun control, will that reduce gun violence? We can argue about that, and we can even make empirical arguments, but we cannot run the controlled experiment that allows forecasts to be tested.
Strong social and commercial forces active to polarize. Like the relentless hunt for clicks.
Also, making a forecast for, say, how global warming will turn out 50 years after you’re dead … isn’t really satisfying to anyone.
Far too complicated a process for most people. Educated lay people don’t grapple with probabilistic statements very well. So many examples available; too many to list here. Of course, even with the examples, I prove nothing; my claim I merely probabilistic.
That’s “is merely,” not “I merely…”
I share your skepticism, and for the same reasons, but I could imagine a culture change where these principles of empiricism, if not forecasting tournaments specifically, were considered standard if certain institutions supported them. What if the standard in media and the academy were for “adversarial collaborations?” What if every sponsored debate or cable news panel ended with a mandatory bet between parties, conditional if need be, with public reconciliation of results by the moderators? What if every proposed law or regulation had a series of appended predictions or goals, and if not met by a certain time frame, the law/regulation was null and void? I think these are in the same spirit as forecasting tournaments, but would be much more valuable.
We are more delusional about more remote government, due to government fatigue. This is definitely true in California with four layers of government from city to Swamp. Likely half of our voters have not even had instruction in federal government, it is simply a far away place.
On the other hand, the local city issues in my hometown are well understood and specifics of policy debated with the city councilman in our local streets.
It is not efficient for voters to track four levels of government in California, so we don’t. Instead we immunize ourselves with state policy as a buffer, but the state system out here is not well understood. The most common solution in California is to hire an income tax specialist, and that is sufficient to manage our relationships with the Swamp.
Although I am sympathetic to the goal of reducing polarization, I am not not so much taken with the goal of convergence. “Incentivizing people to be flexible belief updaters whose views converge in response to facts, thus depolarizing unnecessarily polarized debate” appears to ignore the importance of people’s differing values. Many political disagreements involve values for which any change in evidence can be interpreted in multiple ways, as aptly illustrated in The Three Languages of Politics. Why converge on specific values?
Why not just acknowledge individual preferences for different tradeoffs. There is also something to be said for pluralism. The forecasting tournament seems to justify the more winner-take-all/most paradigm. In that model evidence
The method of addressing polarization that seems most appealing to me are the tactics for decentralizing power addressed in the third chapter of Unchecked and Unbalanced. Giving indviduals skin in the game and the option to choose among a wide variety of alternatives would appear to be the best answer to polarization. Diffusing what is at stake in any election, makes politics less polarizing. In decentralized systems of power, your vote has less impact upon my life, so I can ignore your politics. When your vote has more consequence for me personally, the more likely I am to wish you dead. Forecasting tournaments cannot overcome this reality. Unchecked and Unbalanced seems perenially relevant and deserves an ongoing evidence since it seems to synthesize so much from Hayek, Ostrom, Arrow and others in a highly readable and persuasive manner.
Of course some people have stubborn attachments to centralized power. It would be difficult for me to pass a Turing test in supporting centralized power. Maybe, the problems faced are too great to be addressed at more localized government. Or, there is empirical evidence that local jurisdictions acting in their own interest produce less optimal outcomes than would a benevolent centralized power. Or maybe, one world government is the only way to prevent war, resolve global immigration needs, and respond to climate change. Unfortunately I can’t help but lose respect for anyone who would actually admit to believing in the benevolent promise of centralized authority.
The reality just seems so obvious that greater authority produces less optimal outcomes than empowered local governance. There is a reason that small countries like Singapore, The Netherlands, and others seem to prosper reasonably well while their citizens enjoying greater autonomy and resulting happiness.
For this reason polarization may not be entirely bad. If greater polarization leads to greater dissatisfaction, perhaps both sides will concur in granting each other the right to exit. The opportunity for this bargain is passing fast though. We appear to be passing into an era of the complete subjugation of non-urban populations by urbanites. Nothing good will come of this.
I could imagine this working in K-12. An annual tourney where opposing commentators see randomized trial designs before they begin. Typical timeline is perhaps 4 years. Each year you could pair, say, 5 “progressive” studies/theses with 5 “traditional” ones….
People who hold polarized beliefs are not interested in making probability statements.
I have and hold polarized beliefs.
I am interesting making probability statements.
The “not interested” judgement applies to some, but possibly not even most of those who hold polarized beliefs; tho possibly to the vast majority of normal polarized believers.
Making probability statements seems a good way to reduce arguments about what is right or true, to a question of “what will the future facts show”.
For Climate Change, as an example, I’d be very interested in a Tournament about future average temps at London or New York. I’m now pretty sure that in 5 years, 2023, we will be much colder than this year.
https://tomgrey.wordpress.com/2018/11/26/global-cooling-to-dominate-climate-in-2020-solar-physicist-v-zharkova/
I imagine that my true-believer Climate Change friends might be willing to make some bet, or be in some tournament, in which future facts are discussed today, with the acceptance that nobody “wins” today, but the facts determine the winner in 5 years.
The problem with such tournaments is not so much the probability estimates, as the future “facts” which will confirm one set or another of the polarized beliefs, and the reasonable time frame. With climate change, it is among the most objective of temperature measures in a “fairly short” time frame — of 5 years (maybe now as little as 3 years).
Will Trump get re-elected in 2020? That’s an easy one to be betting one way or another, and is clear, objective, and soon — yet is not much the subject of polarized belief. SHOULD he get elected is where the disagreement is.
However, for those who want to be rational, yet perhaps are less rational in practice than they believe about themselves, I can imagine some Trump-haters looking at a belief like: Unemployment will go back up. The Stock Market will drop. The median wage won’t go up. Such “numbers” might be used to get a basket of different polar beliefs and tournaments might help get some who hate or love Trump to see some different, objective numbers in the future which help them be less polarized.
I’d be interested in other, more open to the public tournaments so there are more clear examples of what is being talked about, including specific questions. I was in a prediction market before, but lost interest for awhile — too many small specific issues. Yet polarized beliefs or not didn’t seem to be an issue; the goal was to see if crowdsourced predictions with “money” are better than most “experts” (yes, usually).
If I could bet (or be in a tournament), I’d bet that pre- and post-tournament surveys would indicate some small but significant (10-20%) reduction in polarization of those who take the survey, for prediction questions designed to reduce polarization (rather than trying to find better predictions of important future events).
Nah. First of all you have no Climate Change friends. Second, small areas are totally unimportant to even bother with.
Finally, many real scientists believe changes in the gulfstream and other currents could lead to local atmospheric temp declines in the short term. Course, they also understand that such is caused by the heat sinks taking up most of the globe.
Interesting topic which requires more research and analysis.