Meet the winner of the Q3 2024 “Right!” said FRED Challenge

The winner of the Q3 2024 “Right!” said FRED Challenge, Julio Vieiro, is a retired geologist with two decades’ experience in the oil industry as well as an investor, photographer, and painter. Known on GJ Open as JAVL, in this interview he discusses his interest in forecasting, his diverse hobbies, and his tips for fellow forecasters. He lives in Argentina.

GJO: Could you please tell us about yourself and your background?

Hi. I was born and live in Argentina. Professionally, I’m a geologist, and I have also studied biology and engineering. I worked almost two decades in the oil industry, and I’m currently retired. Additionally, I’ve been a photographer and painter for many years. Nowadays I dedicate my ever-scarce time to personal investments in the stock market, artistic activities, and a two-year program to become a professional sommelier. I enjoy mountains, the outdoors, sports, reading, and barbecues with my partner, my two adult children, and close friends. I’m interested in diverse topics.

GJO: How did you first become interested in forecasting? What brought you to GJ Open specifically?

During my professional development, I was always involved in the forecasting of technical parameters such as hydrocarbon saturation, mineralized thickness, porosity, pressure, etc. In this context, I was often curious why many highly trained professionals had an unconscious tendency to “fall in love” with their own ideas or models, or to expect results mainly according to their desires or what they thought someone expected, wrongly allocating resources or expectations. Frequently, people were more accurate evaluating their peers’ projects than their own.

In my case, Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow was very revealing. It allowed me to give shape to the intuition that humans have evolved not to develop accurate objective explanations of reality but to generate quick, plausible explanations in order to effectively operate in our original environment, which is not the current one. The way I see it, many times our minds tend to take shortcuts that seem reasonable and/or comforting instead of doing the hard work of looking for evidence. This characteristic would not always help us understand complex situations, especially if we are emotionally involved.

Regarding GJ Open, during the pandemic I read Philip Tetlock’s Superforecasting and found it captivating. I decided to join GJ Open as a fun challenge to test in a non-subjective way my abilities to predict results of complex situations.

GJO: You had some tough competition in the Q3 2024 “Right!” said FRED Challenge. In your opinion, what helped you top the leaderboard?

I’m sure there’s always a dose of luck, some randomness. On the other hand, I try to pay attention to economic data. There is a great availability of information and projections, and it’s difficult to weigh which variables are really relevant and which have little or no impact. I also try to understand the probabilities of future events that could change the observed trends.

GJO: What types of forecasting questions do you enjoy the most? What topics would you like to see more of on the platform in 2025?

I’m more interested in some topics, such as economics, technology, space, sports. I tend to focus on what I enjoy most and what I’m interested in learning about. Evaluating the possible results helps understanding and stimulates the search for information. I prefer questions with data available, not just opinions. I also prefer questions where possible outcomes are expressed in ranges with multiple probabilities rather than yes/no or single probability answers.

I would like to have more questions related to the Latin American reality. In particular, my country is currently going through a complex and interesting economic and political process with still uncertain results.

GJO: What tips could you offer beginner forecasters on GJ Open?

I’m not sure what the best advice is, and I suppose there are many things that could be said. In any case, what I try to do is understand the question very well, not give an opinion on things that I am totally unaware of, look for reliable information and sources of data with frequent updates, and discriminate the relevant factors among the multiple ones that could influence a result.

What I find most important, however, is to find the point at which doubt or uncertainty makes us start to feel uncomfortable with the probabilities we assign. In my experience, people tend to feel too confident or secure. In many of these cases, something important could be missing. On the contrary, I often tend to overextend the alternatives to ensure I don’t err. I try, then, to force myself to rethink the problem in a different way or, more thoroughly, look for more information, or review what I have, to adjust the answer until I feel unsure. It’s not usually easy. Logically, at some point there are cases that are mathematically defined or where the probabilities seem to me less than 1/1000. Another exercise that I find useful is to assign a higher likelihood to those outcomes that don’t match the one that I prefer.

GJO: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

It seems to me that the exercise of making forecasts accustoms us to confronting our ideas with reality and trains us to make decisions with probabilistic logic, which I consider very important for both professional and personal life. It is also a very fun activity, a game where one competes against others and against oneself. Many thanks to Good Judgment for the enjoyment.

See the latest forecasting challenges on GJ Open and try your hand at forecasting!