At the beginning of every year, I make predictions. At the end of every year, I score them (this year I’m very late). Here are 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018.
And here are the predictions I made for 2019. Strikethrough’d are false. Intact are true. Italicized are getting thrown out because I can’t decide if they’re true or not. All of these judgments were as of December 31 2019, not as of now.
Please don’t complain that 50% predictions don’t mean anything; I know this is true but there are some things I’m genuinely 50-50 unsure of. Some predictions are redacted because they involve my private life or the lives of people close to me. A few that started off redacted stopped being secret; I’ve put those in [brackets].
US 1. Donald Trump remains President: 90% 2. Donald Trump is impeached by the House: 40% 3. Kamala Harris leads the Democratic field: 20% 4. Bernie Sanders leads the Democratic field: 20% 5. Joe Biden leads the Democratic field: 20% 6. Beto O’Rourke leads the Democratic field: 20% 7. Trump is still leading in prediction markets to be Republican nominee: 70% 8. Polls show more people support the leading Democrat than the leading Republican: 80% 9. Trump’s approval rating below 50: 90% 10. Trump’s approval rating below 40: 50% 11. Current government shutdown ends before Feb 1: 40% 12. Current government shutdown ends before Mar 1: 80% 13. Current government shutdown ends before Apr 1: 95% 14. Trump gets at least half the wall funding he wants from current shutdown: 20% 15. Ginsberg still alive: 50%
ECON AND TECH 16. Bitcoin above 1000: 90% 17. Bitcoin above 3000: 50% 18. Bitcoin above 5000: 20% 19. Bitcoin above Ethereum: 95% 20. Dow above current value of 25000: 80% 21. SpaceX successfully launches and returns crewed spacecraft: 90% 22. SpaceX Starship reaches orbit: 10% 23. No city where a member of the general public can ride self-driving car without attendant: 90% 24. I can buy an Impossible Burger at a grocery store within a 30 minute walk from my house: 70% 25. Pregabalin successfully goes generic and costs less than $100/month on GoodRx.com: 50% 26. No further CRISPR-edited babies born: 80%
WORLD 27. Britain out of EU: 60% 28. Britain holds second Brexit referendum: 20% 29. No other EU country announces plan to leave: 80% 30. China does not manage to avert economic crisis (subjective): 50% 31. Xi still in power: 95% 32. MbS still in power: 95% 33. May still in power: 70% 34. Nothing more embarassing than Vigano memo happens to Pope Francis: 80%
SURVEY 35. …finds birth order effect is significantly affected by age gap: 40% 36. …finds fluoxetine has significantly less discontinuation issues than average: 60% 37. …finds STEM jobs do not have significantly more perceived gender bias than non-STEM: 60%38. …finds gender-essentialism vs. food-essentialism correlation greater than 0.075: 30%
PERSONAL – INTERNET 39. SSC gets fewer hits than last year: 70% 40. I finish and post [New Atheism: The Godlessness That Failed]: 90% 41. I finish and post [Structures Of Paranoia]: 50% 42. I finish and post [a sequence based on Secret Of Our Success]: 50% 43. [New Atheism] post gets at least 40,000 hits: 40% 44. [The Proverbial Murder Mystery] post gets at least 40,000 hits: 20% 45. New co-blogger with more than 3 posts: 20% 46. Repeat adversarial collaboration contest with at least 5 entries: 60% 47. [Culture War thread successfully removed from subreddit]: 90% 48. [Culture War new version getting at least 500 comments per week]: 70% 49. I start using Twitter again (5+ tweets in any month): 60% 50. I start using Facebook again (following at least 5 people): 30%
PERSONAL – HEALTH 51. I get the blood tests I should be getting this year: 90% 52. I try one biohacking project per month x at least 10 months: 30% 53. I continue taking sceletium regularly: 70% 54. I switch from [Zembrin to Tristill] for at least 3 months: 20% 55. I find at least one new supplement I take or expect to take regularly x 3 months: 20% 56. Minoxidil use produces obvious progress: 50% 57. I restart [redacted]: 20% 58. I spend one month at least substantially more vegetarian than my current compromise: 20% 59. I spend one month at least substantially less vegetarian than my current compromise: 30% 60. I weigh more than 195 lbs at year end: 80% 61. I meditate at least 30 minutes/day more than half of days this year: 30% 62. I use marijuana at least once this year: 20%
PERSONAL – PROJECTS 63. I finish at least 10% more of [redacted]: 20% 64. I completely finish [redacted]: 10% 65. I finish and post [redacted]: 5% 66. I write at least ten pages of something I intend to turn into a full-length book this year: 20% 67. I practice calligraphy at least seven days in the last quarter of 2019: 40% 68. I finish at least one page of the [redacted] calligraphy project this year: 30% 69. I finish the entire [redacted] calligraphy project this year: 10% 70. I finish some other at-least-one-page calligraphy project this year: 80%
PERSONAL – PROFESSIONAL 71. I attend the APA Meeting: 80% 72. [redacted]: 50%73. [redacted]: 40% 74. I still work in SF with no plans to leave it: 60% 75. I still only do telepsychiatry one day with no plans to increase it: 60% 76. I still work the current number of hours per week: 60% 77. I have not started (= formally see first patient) my own practice: 80% 78. I lease another version of the same car I have now: 90%
PERSONAL – HOUSE 79. I still live in my current house with no specific plans to leave: 80% 80. I set up a decent home library: 60% 81. We got a second trash can: 90% 82. The gate is fixed with no problems at all: 50% 83. The ugly paint spot on my wall gets fixed: 30% 84. There is some kind of nice garden: 60% 85. …and I am at least half responsible: 20% 86. I get my own washing machine: 20% 87. There is another baby in my house: 60%88. No other non-baby resident (expected 6+ month) in my house who doesn’t live there now: 70% 89. No existing resident moves away (except the one I already know about): 80% 90. No other long-term (expected 6+ month) resident of my subunit who doesn’t live there now: 80%91. [Decision Tree House] is widely considered a success: 70% 92. …with plans (vague okay) to create a second one: 20%
PERSONAL – ROMANCE 93. I find a primary partner: 30% 94. I go on at least one date with someone who doesn’t already have a primary partner: 90% 95. I remake an account on OKCupid: 80% 96. [redacted]: 10% 97. [redacted]: 20% 98. [redacted]: 20% 99. [redacted]: 20% 100. [redacted]: 20% 101. [redacted]: 30% 102. [redacted]: 10% 103. [redacted]: 30% 104. [I go on at least three dates with someone I have not yet met]: 50% 105. [redacted]: 10% 106. [redacted]: 50%
PERSONAL – FRIENDS 107. I am still playing D&D: 60% 108. I go on a trip to Guatemala: 90% 109. I go on at least one other international trip: 30% 110. I go to at least one Solstice outside the Bay: 40% 111. I go to at least one city just for an SSC meetup: 30% 112. [redacted] is in a relationship: 40% 113. [redacted] still has their current partner: 50% 114. [redacted] is at their current job: 20% 115. [redacted] is still at their current job: 80% 116. I hang out with [redacted] at least once: 60% 117. I hang out with [redacted] at least once: 60% 118. I am in [redacted] Discord server: 80%
Calibration chart. The red line represents perfect calibration, the blue my predictions. The closer they are, the better I am doing.
Of 11 predictions at 50%, I got 4 wrong and 7 right, for an average of 64% Of 22 predictions at 60%, I got 7 wrong and 15 right, for an average of 68% Of 17 predictions at 70%, I got 5 wrong and 12 right, for an average of 71% Of 37 predictions at 80%, I got 6 wrong and 31 right, for an average of 83% Of 17 predictions at 90%, I got 1 wrong and 16 right, for an average of 94% Of 5 predictions at 95%, I got 0 wrong and 5 right, for an average of 100%
50% predictions are technically meaningless since I could have written them either way. I’ve lightened them on the chart to indicate they can be ignored.
It was another good year for me. Unlike past years, where I erred about evenly in both directions, this year I was about 4% underconfident across the board. I’m not sure how much I should adjust and become more confident. In past years I’ve been burned by major black swan events that affect multiple predictions and made me look overconfident. In 2019 I tried to leave a cushion for that, but nothing too unexpected happened and I ended up playing it too safe. My worst failures were underestimating Bitcoin (but who didn’t?) and overestimating SpaceX’s ability to launch their crew on schedule. I didn’t check formally, but there doesn’t seem to be much difference in my calibration about world affairs vs. my personal life.
I forgot to make predictions for 2020 until now, which in retrospect was the best prediction I’ve ever made. I’ll probably come up with some later this month.