As a forecaster: It's fun! It's an interesting way to learn about the world -- rather than gathering inert facts, you're forced to integrate them into a mental model, and then your model is tested for its validity empirically. It's also difficult and competitive, if you like that sort of thing.
As a consumer of forecasts: There's good research that prediction markets and other forecast aggregators are the best technology we have as a society for quantifying uncertainty. Not everyone will listen to them, just like not everyone eats their veggies, but c'est la vie.
I don't think there's too much risk of self-defeating forecasts (where a low forecast lulls decision makers into a false sense of security) - at least not yet. They're still pretty niche.
As a forecaster: It's fun! It's an interesting way to learn about the world -- rather than gathering inert facts, you're forced to integrate them into a mental model, and then your model is tested for its validity empirically. It's also difficult and competitive, if you like that sort of thing.
As a consumer of forecasts: There's good research that prediction markets and other forecast aggregators are the best technology we have as a society for quantifying uncertainty. Not everyone will listen to them, just like not everyone eats their veggies, but c'est la vie.
I don't think there's too much risk of self-defeating forecasts (where a low forecast lulls decision makers into a false sense of security) - at least not yet. They're still pretty niche.