Hijacking the thread somewhat; if one could gather huge quantities of people's best guesses/gut predictions at various aspects of the future, would it prove useful? Would the aggregation of hundreds of thousands of predictions tap into some kind of collective subconscious? If not for earthquake prediction and its like, then maybe for events predominantly determined by human action? When Greece will be forced to leave the Euro, for instance?
Or would such a database just deliver muzzy, probably gloomy, generalities?