In the case of the 2008 crisis, specific knowledge of the timing could matter for buying or selling a house.
In the case of technological predictions, specific knowledge of the timing could affect whether you want to take a university program in a given field or join a certain company.
If a predictor can’t help with picking stocks or making big decisions, then what are these predictions for, entertainment? Actually an HN comment on Dan Luu’s post about futurists really did suggest that futurists are practically entertainers.
Likewise if you're signing a 30 year mortgage, knowing vaguely that the housing market is precarious is still valuable even if you don't know if it'll collapse tomorrow or in 6 years: you'll be on the hook either way if you sign today
Not sure how you constructed that specific sentence from my message.
My point was that most big decisions aren't that sensitive to small timing changes, like stock market can be. Your examples highlight that point: few would change their university choices depending on the knowledge that a future event will happen one year earlier or later.
Fair enough, I didn’t.
> most big decisions aren't that sensitive to small timing changes
That makes sense for a single year at least.
It's also way harder, and the added value isn't that great, if you're not interested in playing the stock market.
As an example, explaining why the 2008 crisis was structurally bound to happen is probably more valuable to a policymaker than knowing whether it would start in august or september.