Especially the so-called experts:
The idea for the most important study ever conducted of expert predictions was sparked in 1984, at a meeting of a National Research Council committee on American-Soviet relations. The psychologist and political scientist Philip E. Tetlock was 30 years old, by far the most junior committee member. He listened intently as other members discussed Soviet intentions and American policies. Renowned experts delivered authoritative predictions, and Tetlock was struck by how many perfectly contradicted one another and were impervious to counterarguments.
Tetlock decided to put expert political and economic predictions to the test. With the Cold War in full swing, he collected forecasts from 284 highly educated experts who averaged more than 12 years of experience in their specialties. To ensure that the predictions were concrete, experts had to give specific probabilities of future events. Tetlock had to collect enough predictions that he could separate lucky and unlucky streaks from true skill. The project lasted 20 years, and comprised 82,361 probability estimates about the future.
The result: The experts were, by and large, horrific forecasters. Their areas of specialty, years of experience, and (for some) access to classified information made no difference. They were bad at short-term forecasting and bad at long-term forecasting. They were bad at forecasting in every domain. When experts declared that future events were impossible or nearly impossible, 15 percent of them occurred nonetheless. When they declared events to be a sure thing, more than one-quarter of them failed to transpire. As the Danish proverb warns, “It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.”
As it happens, I’ve occasionally taken part in the project as one of the forecasters, although I haven’t even logged in to the system for years. The one time I was moderately active, my team was in second place, although that was largely thanks to one guy who was easily the best in our group. If I recall correctly, I was better than the average forecaster, but not in the top ten percent. I still get emails from time to time asking me about the prospects for a Russian attack on Estonia before September and so forth, but I lost interest in it pretty quickly.
Anyhow, the article is right. Everyone is wrong about the future and most people are actually much more reliable as negative predictors, which I interpret as meaning that events proceed in a non-linear manner that is contrary to normal human expectations. That’s my best guess as to why the future is so hard for everyone to predict, or even anticipate.