At the beginning of every year, I make predictions. At the end of every year, I score them. This year I’m really late. So here are a hundred plus for 2021.
Rules: unless otherwise stated, all predictions are about what will be true on/by January 1, 2022. Some predictions about my personal life, or that refer to the personal lives of other people, have been redacted to protect their privacy. I’ve tried to avoid doing specific research or looking at prediction markets when I made these, though some of them I already knew what the markets said.
This isn’t about me being an expert on these topics and getting them exactly right, it’s about me calibrating my ability to tell how much I know about things and how certain I am. I’m also moving towards trying to learn to predict shorter-term and more specific events as they happen - you can see my log here.
US/WORLD
1. Biden approval rating (as per 538) is greater than 50%: 80%
2. Court packing is clearly going to happen (new justices don't have to be appointed by end of year): 5%
3. Yang is New York mayor: 80%
4. Newsom recalled as CA governor: 5%
5. At least $250 million in damage from BLM protests this year: 30%
6. Significant capital gains tax hike (above 30% for highest bracket): 20%
7. Trump is allowed back on Twitter: 20%
8. Tokyo Olympics happen on schedule: 70%
9. Major flare-up (significantly worse than anything in past 5 years) in Russia/Ukraine war: 20%
10. Major flare-up (significantly worse than anything in past 10 years) in Israel/Palestine conflict: 5%
11. Major flare-up (significantly worse than anything in past 50 years) in China/Taiwan conflict: 5%
12. Netanyahu is still Israeli PM: 40%
13. Prospera has at least 1000 residents: 30%
ECON/TECH
14. Gamestop stock price still above $100: 50%
15. Bitcoin above 100K: 40%
16. Ethereum above 5K: 50%
17. Ethereum above 0.05 BTC: 70%
18. Dow above 35K: 90%
19. ...above 37.5K: 70%
20. Unemployment above 5%: 40%
21. Google widely allows remote work, no questions asked: 20%
22. Starship reaches orbit: 60%
COVID
23. Fewer than 10K daily average official COVID cases in US in December 2021: 30%
24. Fewer than 50K daily average COVID cases worldwide in December 2021: 1%
25. Greater than 66% of US population vaccinated against COVID: 50%
26. India's official case count is higher than US: 50%
27. Vitamin D is not generally recognized (eg NICE, UpToDate) as effective COVID treatment: 70%
28. Something else not currently used becomes first-line treatment for COVID: 40%
29. Some new variant not currently known is greater than 25% of cases: 50%
30. Some new variant where no existing vaccine is more than 50% effective: 40%
31. US approves AstraZeneca vaccine: 20%
32. Most people I see in the local grocery store aren't wearing a mask: 60%
COMMUNITY
33. Major rationalist org leaves Bay Area: 60%
34. [redacted]: 20%
35. [redacted]: 20%
36. [redacted]: 20%
37. [redacted]: 30%
38. No new residents at our housing cluster: 40%
39. No current residents leave our housing cluster: 60%
40. [redacted]: 40%
41. [redacted]: 50%
42. [redacted]: 30%
43. [redacted]: 20%
44. [redacted]: 50%
45. [redacted]: 70%
46. [redacted]: 30%
47. [redacted]: 70%
48. [redacted]: 50%
49. [redacted]: 80%
50. [redacted]: 60%
51. [redacted]: 30%
52. [redacted]: 30%
53. At least seven days my house is orange or worse on PurpleAir.com because of fires: 80%
PERSONAL
54. [redacted]: 60%
55. [redacted]: 20%
56. [redacted]: 10%
57. [redacted]: 10%
58. [redacted]: 5%
59. [redacted]: 20%
60. There are no appraisal-related complications to the new house purchase: 50%
61. I live in the new house: 95%
62. I live in the top bedroom: 60%
63. I can hear / get annoyed by neighbor TV noise: 40%
64. I'm playing in a D&D campaign: 70%
65. I go on at least one international trip: 60%
66. I spend at least a month living somewhere other than the Bay: 50%
67. I continue my current exercise routine (and get through an entire cycle of it) in Q4 2021: 70%
68. I meditate at least 15 days in Q4 2021: 60%
69. I take oroxylum at least 5 times in Q4 2021: 40%
70. I take some substance I haven't discovered yet at least 5 times in Q4 2021 (testing exempted): 30%
71. I do at least six new biohacking experiments in the next eight months: 40%
72. [redacted]: 30%
73. The Twitter account I check most frequently isn't one of the five I check frequently now: 20%
74. I make/retweet at least 25 tweets between now and 2022: 70%
WORK
75. Lorien has 100+ patients: 90%
76. 150+ patients: 20%
77. 200+ patients: 5%
78. I've written at least ten more Lorien writeups (so total at least 27): 30%
79. [redacted]: 70%
80. [redacted]: 80%
81. [redacted]: 60%
82. [redacted]: 40%
83. [redacted]: 60%
84. I have switched medical records systems: 20%
85. I have changed my pricing scheme: 20%
BLOG
86. ACX is earning more money than it is right now: 70%
87. [redacted]: 10%
88. [redacted]: 50%
89. [redacted]: 20%
90. There is another article primarily about SSC/ACX/me in a major news source: 10%
91. I subscribe to at least 5 new Substacks (so total of 8): 20%
92. I've read and reviewed How Asia Works: 90%
93. I've read and reviewed Nixonland: 70%
94. I've read and reviewed Scout Mindset: 60%
95. I've read and reviewed at least two more dictator books: 50%
96. I've started and am at least 25% of the way through the formal editing process for Unsong: 30%
97. Unsong is published: 10%
98. I've written at least five chapters of some non-Unsong book I hope to publish: 40%
99. [redacted] wins the book review contest: 60%
100. I run an ACX reader survey: 50%
101. I run a normal ACX survey (must start, but not necessarily finish, before end of year): 90%
102. By end of year, some other post beats NYT commentary for my most popular post: 10%
103. I finish and post the culture wars essay I'm working on: 90%
104. I finish and post the climate change essay I'm working on: 80%
105. I finish and post the CO2 essay I'm working on: 80%
106. I have a queue of fewer than ten extra posts: 70%
META
107. I double my current amount of money ($1000) on PredictIt: 10%
108. I post my scores on these predictions before 3/1/22: 70%
Share this post