The goal of this page is to help you understand what you’re aiming for — from the point of view of your members, the forecasting community, and the world; and, of course, from your own point of view. Do note that this is our take, so you should feel comfortable departing from this if you think it’s important.

Your members

Clubs are a great way to build a group of friends and network with the wider world. From the point of view of the members of your forecasting club, their goals are:

• improving my ability to make probabilistic forecasts and update them based on evidence, both:
  • in my own life
  • in the broader world
• connecting to internships, jobs, and other opportunities in and adjacent to the forecasting community (see Connecting to forecasting outside your club).
• helping me apply forecasting techniques to improve my life & my ability to model the world accurately
• learning more about how forecasting & prediction markets work (i.e. not just “getting good at forecasting,” but also “understanding the content of the field”)
• having fun with forecasting — e.g. enjoying the feeling of getting really good at something, messing around on Manifold, etc

The forecasting community

Forecasting clubs are also an effective way to grow & build the forecasting community. From the point of view of the overall forecasting community, their goal is to grow the forecasting community, especially by:

• increasing the number of and improving the experience of people forecasting (e.g. on platforms like Metaculus and Manifold)
• increasing the general awareness & use of forecasting and prediction markets (e.g. for future journalists or policymakers to have access to better judgement about the future)
• building projects, materials, and other infrastructure in & adjacent to forecasting
• diversifying the community beyond its current members and demographics

The world

Ultimately, the goal of good forecasting is to improve the world as much as possible — and forecasting can be really effective in service of that. There are a few different ways that forecasting could potentially be useful, but we’re always on the lookout for other applications:

• improving our ability to do understand and address to important problems like biological weaponry, risks from advanced AI, climate change, nuclear conflict, and more. In particular, forecasting could be useful for improving warning systems for large-scale catastrophic events (see e.g. this proposal for an Early Warning Forecasting Center for global catastrophic risks).
• improving the output of grant-making at philanthropic and governmental institutions. Open Philanthropy — one of OPTIC’s funders, and a strong proponent of forecasting — has described their efforts to improve the accuracy of their judgements and forecasts on grant-making in a blog post.
• more generally, improving the general quality of public discourse. This might look like checking the Base Rate Times instead of reading click-bait news articles, or resolving heated political debates by checking the markets, or even forecasting to put a tax on bullshit.
• This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it ;)