NonProphets

Episode 73 of the NonProphets podcast, in which Robert and Scott interview UC Santa Cruz cosmologist and Metaculus co-founder Anthony Aguirre. We talk to Dr. Aguirre about why he founded Metaculus (01:10); forecasting the far future and catastrophic events (14:08); forecasting the development of AI (21:30); calibrating forecasts (29:25); catastrophic risk and the Future of Life Institute (40:06); and exotic risks, including biotechnology, space weather, and vacuum decay (49:07). As always, you can reach us at nonprophetspod.wordpress.com or at [email protected]. (recorded 3/15/2019)

Episode 72 of the NonProphets podcast, in which Atief, Robert, and Scott interview superforecaster and novelist Dan Mayland. Dan is the author of a series of spy novels set in and around Iran and the Greater Caspian region. We talk to Dan about how he got into writing novels (00:39); what will become of the Iran nuclear deal (08:56); how common conspiracies are in real life (14:05); his forthcoming work set during the siege of Aleppo (20:48); how he researches his books (25:10); the Middle East's prospects (27:16); what other authors have influenced his style (35:58); and what his fans are like (45:54). As always, you can reach us at nonprophetspod.wordpress.com or at [email protected]. (recorded 3/1/2019)

Episode 71 of the NonProphets podcast, in which Atief, Robert, and Scott discuss managing the risks associated with emerging technologies (00:28), what's going on in Venezuela (28:05), whether the UK may require aid in the event of a hard Brexit (32:13), as well as the concepts of a "cheese submarine" (35:09) and a "glass cliff" (35:59). They close with a discussion of the 2020 Democratic presidential field, including the relative likelihoods of electing a president who is an atheist, woman, or homosexual or transgender individual (41:08). As always, you can reach us at nonprophetspod.wordpress.com or at [email protected]. (recorded 2/22/2019).

Episode 70 of the NonProphets podcast, in which Atief, Robert, and Scott forecast listener questions. We discuss who will win Chicago's mayoral election (01:18); whether it makes sense to buy a hybrid or electric car (11:56); and whether the US will pass its own version of the EU's GDPR data privacy law (19:09). We close out the episode by talking about Isaac Asimov's prediction for 2019 (38:03) and David Brooks' prediction for 2019 (42:24), and announcing the winner of our 2018 North Korea summit challenge coin (55:07). As always, you can reach us at nonprophetspod.wordpress.com or at [email protected]. (recorded 1/5/2019)

Episode 69 of the NonProphets podcast, Atief, Robert, and Scott talk to Marc Koehler. Marc is the Vice President of Good Judgment Inc., in charge of government relations and co-head of analytics as well as an accomplished superforecaster. He was simultaneously the top forecaster on the internal Intelligence Community Prediction Market, the Good Judgment Project superforecaster prediction market, and on Hypermind. Marc was formerly in the Foreign Service with postings to the Office of the Vice President, the White House Situation Room, the National Security Council, the Pentagon, and the State Department, and overseas in China, Taiwan, South Korea, Nepal, Hong Kong and Sweden. Marc talks with us about working with Vice President Dick Cheney and Scooter Libby (1:18); the Pentagon Joint Staff and the Office of Net Assessments (4:55); ACE tournament Good Judgment Project and ICPM forecasting—open-source vs. classified information (6:55); how superforecasters think (11:35); how to set up the best predictive intelligence capacity for the US Government (21:50); formulating the right questions (29:27); when the truth is not wanted—North Korean plutonium reactor project in Syria incident (36:42), forecasting Kim Jong-un (39:39); China (47:28); whether we are headed into a Thucydides trap with China? (49:07); the possibility of a new Taiwan Straits Crisis (54:55); and what’s next for Good Judgment (1:00:04). As always, you can reach us at nonprophetspod.wordpress.com or at [email protected]. (recorded 01/04/2019)