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January 1, 2025

The Basean Loom, and arguing for self-review

We learn how we can combine conditional probabilities into an implied base rate. Separately, we learn that self-review is about as efficient as peer review, although less effective.

Still kind of busy this season. I know some of you have sent me emails I have not yet responded to. I will get around to it. Thank you for your patience!

New articles

The Making of a Forecasting Bot

This past quarter I have had a horse in the Metaculus bot forecasting tournament. It's using a rather odd combination of conditional probabilities to derive an implied base rate. I think the concept is interesting, even if the bot sucks at it.

Full article (5–10 minute read): The Making of a Forecasting Bot

Flashcard of the week

There are many things speaking in favour of peer review, but what about self-review? There are two questions we could ask here, but let's focus on one of them first:

How much more effort does it take to involve a peer in the review process, compared to doing it alone?

Twice as much.

What's odd is that the number of problems uncovered by a peer is also about twice as many as one can find alone. This means self-review is about as efficient with time as peer review, but does not find as many problems.

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