As in 2017, I made a number of predictions about how 2018 would go—fifty predictions, to be exact. Today, we're going to see how well I did.
Predictions left unmarked were correct, those struck through were incorrect. Two predictions are marked in italics because I can't decide how to score them. First, I not scoring my prediction that astronauts would launch from US soil. Virgin Galactic conducted a test flight that reached space by some definitions, but I should have stated clearly what would qualify. Second, I don't know whether the current state of Brexit negotiations indicate that the UK is "on track to leave the European Union"—and I'm not sure anyone else does, either.
I will read 15 books this year: 95%
....20 books: 80%
I will write an average of two blog posts per month: 80%
....three blog posts per month: 70%
....four blog posts per month: 60%
I will not experience a major political/religious/philosophical conversion: 95%
I will write more than 10,000 words of fiction this year: 70%
I will still be using Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr: 90%
I will remain single this year: 60%
I will vote in the 2018 midterm elections: 95%
I will not be hospitalized: 95%
I will not have my wisdom teeth removed: 90%
Jayhawk Rocket Design will begin constructing the hybrid rocket engine: 70%
I will graduate with my degree in aerospace engineering: 95%
....in May: 90%
....with a GPA 3.2 or above: 80%
KU Aerospace will place in at least one AIAA Design Competition: 90%
....two AIAA Design Competitions: 80%
I will either find an engineering job or enroll in grad school by December: 95%
SCIENCE/SPACE
No successful human clones announced: 80%
Falcon Heavy successfully launches this year: 80%
....successfully: 80%
Boeing Starliner test-flown this year: 90%
....successfully: 80%
Astronauts will launch from American soil: 70%
Virgin Galactic tourist flights won't begin this year: 60%
No crewed flights beyond Low Earth Orbit: 90%
No deaths in space this year: 90%
No country leaves the ISS Treaty: 90%
POLITICS/WORLD
Donald Trump will still be President at the end of 2018: 95%
Mike Pence will still be Vice President: 95%
Republicans will lose the House and/or Senate at midterms: 90%
Theresa May will still be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom: 90%
UK will remain on track to leave the European Union: 80%
No additional countries will leave the European Union: 70%
US Nominal GDP will finish ahead of the EU and China: 80%
Bitcoin will end the year valued $500 or above: 80%
....$1000 or above: 70%
Fewer than 10 cases of wild polio will be contracted: 70%
I will remember to score these predictions: 95%
I will have been overconfident in these predictions: 80%
Similar to last year, the last two predictions require me to do some of the analysis before I can actually score them. In theory, these could become subjective tie-breakers, but that isn't what happened this year.
70% predictions: 4 right and 4 wrong, for a score of 50%
80% predictions: 8 right and 3 wrong, for a score of 73%
90% predictions: 9 right and 2 wrong, for a score of 82%
95% predictions: 8 right and 1 wrong, for a score of 89%
Graphed, my results look like this:
Yikes.
This is clearly at lot more overconfident than in 2017, when I at least had a few categories that scored above the orange line. Laying further under the line indicates greater overconfidence, while laying further above the line indicates greater underconfidence. Perfect calibration is ideal, but it's usually better to be underconfident than overconfident.
By category, I did pretty well in Politics/World this year, and okay in Personal/Academic My worst category was surprisingly Science/Space. This seemed to be clustered on launch schedule optimism, which is more of a single-point failure than in any of the other categories.
My overall take-away from these results is that my 2018 predictions were actually a lot riskier than my 2017 predictions, even though I came away from those feeling rather silly. That was my first time trying to project exactly a year into the future, though, so to some degree that's expected.
I wanted to decrease my confidence this year, but it doesn't seem like I really did that. Instead, it seems like I made several less probable predictions and assigned these higher probabilities than they really deserved.
Low sample sizes obviously apply, but 2018 challenges the idea that I should increase the number of predictions for 2019. I'm hesitant to just add more predictions, because it would be easy to simply come up with possibilities I haven't thought about very much, and assign probabilities more-or-less randomly. It might be better to largely recycle the predictions which can be recycled, and try to get the odds better for the next twelve months.
Check back in to see which way I go.
