Respecting Metaculus after reading about a major experiment conducted with U.S. intelligence agencies. S,ubject-matter experts performed no better than chance on multiple-choice questions about the outcomes of major world events. But other people — known as “superforecasters” — reliably outperformed the crowd. The superforecasters often didn’t have impressive expert credentials; they included a retired pipe installer, a filmmaker and a former dancer. What they did have in common was a set of principles and techniques: eschewing vagueness in favor of quantitative estimates, extrapolating from general trends, paying attention to “base rates” and the “outside view.” Owing to these skills, public forecasting sites such as Metaculus — mostly frequented by forecasting hobbyists — were about a month ahead of the curve on predicting that the coronavirus outbreak would turn into a pandemic. Governments could create a forecasting agency staffed by people trained in these skills, delivering quantitative forecasts to other departments. Foresight in politics is a rare art; we could turn it into a science.