Say how much, not more or less versus someone else

Abstract

The author argues that using comparative language such as “overrated” or “underrated” is a poor substitute for direct assessments of the value of something. He proposes that instead of saying “forecasting is underrated”, one should directly state how good forecasting is, for example, by giving it a score out of ten. He argues that this approach is more precise and avoids the ambiguity inherent in comparative language. For example, two people might agree that forecasting is underrated, but they may be disagreeing on how good forecasting is and on how other people rate it. The author concedes that direct assessments are more difficult to formulate and require more effort, but ultimately yield a more concrete and nuanced understanding of the topic at hand. – AI-generated abstract.