There are moments in life where it seems as though everything is riding on one important decision. If only we had a crystal ball to see the future, we could make those decisions with greater confidence. Fortune-telling aside, there are actually methods to improve our predictions—and our decisions. In this episode of Choiceology with Katy Milkman, we look at what makes some people “superforecasters.” In 2010, the United States government had been looking for Al Qaeda leader and perpetrator of the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden, for nearly a decade. Years of intelligence gathering all over the world had come up short. It seemed every new tip was a dead end. But one small group of CIA analysts uncovered a tantalizing clue that led them to a compound in Pakistan. Soon, the president of the United States would be faced with a difficult choice: to approve the top-secret mission or not.
We will hear this story from two perspectives. Peter Bergen is a national security commentator and author of the book The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden. He interviewed Osama bin Laden in 1997. Former CIA director Leon Panetta led the United States government’s hunt for bin Laden and describes the night his mission came to a dramatic conclusion.
Next, Katy speaks with Barbara Mellers about research that shows how so-called superforecasters make more accurate predictions despite facing uncertainty and conflicting information. You can read more in the paper titled “Identifying and Cultivating Superforecasters as a Method of Improving Probabilistic Predictions.” Barabara Mellers is the I. George Heyman University Professor of both marketing at the Wharton School and of psychology at the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.
Turns out, smartphones and sugary foods do have something in common with drugs: They trigger surges of a neurotransmitter deep inside your brain called dopamine. Although drugs cause much bigger spikes of dopamine than, say, social media or an ice cream cone, these smaller spikes still influence our behavior, especially in the long run. They shape our habits, our diets, our mental health and how we spend our free time. They can also cause much conflict between parents and children.
While it’s probably a short term meteorological phenomena with the blocking low off the Maine coast funneling all the Canadian wildfire smoke, it’s probably no coincidence that we are getting dumped on with a ton of wildfire pollution the year of Canada’s worse wildfires.
We used to think of wildfires and smoke they produce as mostly a western problem. It sucks to be them, we told ourselves. We all enjoy watching a freak show until it hits us personally. The truth is that is mostly a short term nuisance for most of us, except for those who have cardiac arrest and are hauled off in the meat wagon to never return.
The real question is this a one on phenomena that occurs every few decades like last happened locally in 2002, though this event probably was more serious with many air pollution meters pegged at their maximum setting, in what is being called the worse Canadian wildfire season ever. But humans have short term memory, and reporting and sensing of pollution has never been better.
It’s hard to dispute climate change is making wildfires more common, and that’s not just an activist talking point. Last summer and the year before we seemingly had a record number of gray summer days from high in the atmosphere wildfire smoke – and some brilliant sunsets to boot. But maybe because we are noticing it more from increased reporting in the press.
The fire department came and checked things out but it seems like all the smoke from the outside air pollution has been getting sucked into the building all day, and it caused the alarm to go off on certain floors. It has stunk of smoke at times all that wildfire smoke outdoors.
Kind of like those Facebook Live videos, I have added an “expiration” date to maps, photos and other contents I upload to the blog, so that certain things that make sense in short term but expire — like weather forecasts or maps will automatically be deleted after a certain date. That keeps me less worried about cluttering things up, knowing old content will automatically deleted after a set date if I so desire.
