2022 Prediction Results

Every year, I make predictions about what's going to happen over the following 365.25 days, and on New Years Eve I come back to see how well I did. At this point, it's the main thing I'm still using this blog for. 2022 has come to an end, so let's see how well I did back in January. Predictions which I got right are left unmarked and predictions which I got wrong are struck-through. For the first time, I didn't end up throwing out any predictions as ambiguous or inconclusive. 

PERSONAL/PROFESSIONAL/ACADEMIC

I will read 15 books this year: 90%
...20 books: 80%
...25 books: 60%
I will read three technical/science/engineering books this year: 70%
I will read more nonfiction books than fiction books this year: 60%
I will write an average of one blog post per month: 90%
...greater than one blog post per month: 60%
My current ideations will not result in a major political/religious/philosophical conversion: 80%
I will still be using Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr: 90%
I will remain single this year: 60%
I will vote in the 2022 midterms: 95%
I will not have my wisdom teeth removed: 70%
I will not be hospitalized this year: 90%
Neither of my parents will be hospitalized this year: 80%
I will compete in either NaNoWriMo proper or the Summer Writing Program: 95%
...and succeed: 90%
My French will improve this year: 60%
I will not begin learning Russian this year: 90%
I will finish my MS degree in aerospace engineering: 95%
I will still be working for SES: 90%
I will still be living in Virginia: 95%
I will move to a new apartment: 80%
I will get involved locally with the Less Wrong/ACX community: 70%
I will get involved with the local Mensa group: 80%
I will attend some sort of Solstice Event (including remote viewing): 60%

SCIENCE/SPACE

No successful human clones announced: 95%
Venusian phosphine continues to not replicate: 90%
No other strong evidence of extra-terrestrial life found: 95%
Both Voyager spacecraft will still be operational: 90%
Hubble Space Telescope will still be operational: 90%
MSL Curiosity will still be operational: 90%
Perseverance will still be operational: 95%
Ingenuity will still be operational: 60%
International Space Station will still be operational: 95%
Boeing conducts Orbital Test Flight 2 successfully: 80%
Boeing does not conduct the Crewed Test Fight: 60%
Europa Clipper still scheduled to launch in 2024: 95%
JUICE still scheduled to launch in 2023: 95%
Artemis 1 launches this year: 90%
Artemis 2 still scheduled to launch on or before 31 December 2024: 70%
Artemis 3 still scheduled to launch on or before 31 December 2025: 60%
Lunar Gateway still scheduled to begin construction in 2024: 60%
Starship will not successfully complete an orbital test flight this year: 60%
Virgin Galactic will begin tourist flights this year: 70%
United States will have more successful orbital launches than China this year: 60%
China will have more successful orbital launches than Russia: 90%
No crewed flights beyond Low Earth Orbit: 95%
No deaths in space this year: 90%
No country leaves the ISS Treaty: 90%
Sci-Hub will remain easily accessible from the United States: 90%

CORONAVIRUS

US cumulative confirmed cases exceed 80 million: 90%
...100 million: 80%
...120 million: 60%
US cumulative confirmed deaths exceed 1 million: 90%
...1.2 million: 60%
Global cumulative confirmed cases exceed 400 million: 90%
...500 million: 80%
Global cumulative confirmed deaths exceed 6 million: 95%
...7 million: 90%
...8 million: 70%
At least 250 million Americans vaccinated: 95%
...fully vaccinated: 70%
At least 6 billion people vaccinated globally: 90%
...fully vaccinated: 70%
At least 150 million Americans receive a booster dose: 80%
The FDA approves a fourth booster dose (either generic or variant-specific): 70%
I will receive a fourth dose of coronavirus vaccine this year: 70%
No additional vaccines approved by the FDA: 80%
I do not experience a confirmed case of COVID-19: 70%
No one in my close extended family dies of COVID-19: 70%
My workplace does not go to full in-office at any point this year: 95%
My workplace does not go fully-remote at any point this year: 80%
I am still wearing face masks in public >50% of the time: 90%
A new variant overtakes Omicron and Delta in the United States: 60%

POLITICS/WORLD

Joe Biden will still be President of the United States: 95%
Kamala Harris will still be Vice-President of the United States: 95%
Nancy Pelosi will still be Speaker of the House: 95%
Chuck Schumer will still be Senate Majority Leader: 90%
A bill with the title "Build Back Better" passes: 60%
The Expanded Child Tax Credit is not renewed: 80%
No form of federal carbon tax is passed in the US: 90%
Democrats will maintain control of the House at midterms: 70%
Democrats will maintain control of the Senate at midterms: 60%
At least one major Republican (current or former Governor, Senator, or Representative) announces a Presidential bid: 70%
Donald Trump does not announce a new Presidential bid this year: 80%
Biden approval rating above 40% per FiveThirtyEight: 80%
United States will not go to war with a nuclear power: 90%
United States will not enter a major new war (>100 US casualties): 70%
Boris Johnson will still be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom: 90%
Justin Trudeau will still be Prime Minister of Canada: 95%
Emmanuel Macron will still be President of France: 60%
Vladimir Putin will still be President of Russia: 95%
No additional countries will opt to leave the European Union: 90%
North Korean government will not be overthrown or displaced: 95%
North Korean government will not begin major liberal reforms: 95%
Fewer than 100 cases of wild polio this year: 60%
Fewer than 1000 cases of vaccine-derived polio this year: 60%

META

I will remember to score these predictions: 95%
I will be overconfident in these predictions: 70%
I will be less overconfident in my predictions than in 2021: 60%

How does that add up? The short answer is: really poorly.

The long answer, as always, involves some math. Breaking the results out by confidence level:

60% predictions: 11 right and 10 wrong, for a score of 52%

70% predictions: 10 right and 6 wrong, for a score of 63%

80% predictions: 8 right and 6 wrong, for a score of 57%

90% predictions: 20 right and 7 wrong, for a score of 74%

95% predictions: 20 right and 2 wrong, for a score of 91%

About the nicest thing I can say about my performance is that I managed to be more right than wrong in all the ranges, though it was a close thing. There's no totally egregious bands like in some previous years, but I was consistently overconfident across the board and by considerable margins.

Graphed, the results look like this:

What can I learn from this, besides to listen to that niggling feeling of doubt even more than I already do? For that, I find breaking it down by category helps.

My two worst categories this year were Personal/Professional/Academic and Coronavirus, where I scored 56% and 50%, respectively. This makes a certain amount of sense. My life changed a lot in 2022, to the tune of switching jobs and moving to a new state. A lot of my academic and professional goals, as well as my personal habits, were necessarily disrupted. To an extent that's a one-time thing, but it also highlights how much these things can change and therefore to take little stock in them continuing—especially at my age and life stage. Coronavirus, on the other hand, fell by the wayside more than I predicted in the post-Omicron world. There was no renewed vaccine push, efforts to vaccinate people in underdeveloped nations fell through, and people stopped getting tested as much so the number of confirmed cases and deaths dropped accordingly. Given that this was a new and dynamic situation, I'm not to cut up about my predictions being wrong. At this point things are probably fairly stable and I don't think I'll even include this category for 2023.

Science/Space did very well for a change at 92% accuracy. Schedule slips were actually fairly small this year, and I'd dropped my confidence accordingly. I'll probably be dropping my confidence even lower next year, despite this year's success.

Politics/World also did fairly well at 78%. I got a few things wrong, but with the exception of Boris Johnson's departure, none of those were particularly high-confidence predictions. For the most part, the world behaved the way I broadly expected. That said, if I'd had any predictions about Ukraine on there, I probably would have been wildly wrong. I suspect that category will be a lot more interesting to score next year.

My overall accuracy was 69%. For this set of predictions the closet I could get to perfect calibration would have been 80% at the top-level. This is my worst result since 2018, which I scored 65% accuracy overall. I think that was my worst result since I started doing these, so 2022 was my second-worst year of predictions on record.

Clearly there is still room to improve and I will be continuing to make these annual predictions. Last year I floated the idea of shorter-term sets, and I think that may be necessary to improve my calibration. In the meantime, update your confidence in my object-level claims accordingly.

Morale in the Moral Equivalent of War

It's no real secret that I'm a long-time SLS critic, but watching its fans react with joy after Artemis I launched was so much more pleasant than listening to the haters. I felt the same way when Falcon Heavy went up, but I was a fan of that rocket all along.

I suspect I'll feel the same way about Neutron, Vulcan, Starship, Ariane 6—I have no reason to suspect otherwise. Even a mess like the Shuttle is still more fun to watch than complain about. There's important lessons in what went wrong in creating an expendable shuttle-derived heavy-lift launch vehicle, but the point is to learn that lesson and apply it as we push forward into the universe. I want to see us succeed, and even an expensive success if preferable to failure.

There's a shallower aspect, of course. For all my posturing, I'm an insufferable optimist at heart. I want things to work, I want things to go right, and I expect it. I complain because I know it can be better, I can see it, the path's right there, why are we taking it? I'm always talking about what could go wrong because avoiding it is easy. And it's so very much more satisfying when things go right.

The first SLS is gone; the boosters at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, the core at the bottom of the Indian, and the upper stage out in solar orbit, never to return. Artemis is just beginning. How big a role the SLS will end up playing remains to be seen. Even as an engineer working on human deep space exploration, my influence on those high-level procurement policy decisions is miniscule. For now, why not focus on doing the best job I can do, and enjoy the success of so many other engineers who are working hard towards the same basic vision of humans living on other worlds?

We can debate the specifics of strategy at length. Let's not mistake disagreements in how for differences in what. I'm happy to discuss how we could be doing better, but I'd rather that conversation be amiable than acrimonious. We have a long way to go on the path to the planets. Joy and celebration will do more than internecine hatreds to get us there.

Predictions for 2022

Every January, I make predictions about what will happen in the coming year, to be scored on New Year's Eve. These are my predictions for 2022.

PERSONAL/PROFESSIONAL/ACADEMIC

I will read 15 books this year: 90%
...20 books: 80%
...25 books: 60%
I will read three technical/science/engineering books this year: 70%
I will read more nonfiction books than fiction books this year: 60%
I will write an average of one blog post per month: 90%
...greater than one blog post per month: 60%
My current ideations will not result in a major political/religious/philosophical conversion: 80%
I will still be using Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr: 90%
I will remain single this year: 60%
I will vote in the 2022 midterms: 95%
I will not have my wisdom teeth removed: 70%
I will not be hospitalized this year: 90%
Neither of my parents will be hospitalized this year: 80%
I will compete in either NaNoWriMo proper or the Summer Writing Program: 95%
...and succeed: 90%
My French will improve this year: 60%
I will not begin learning Russian this year: 90%
I will finish my MS degree in aerospace engineering: 95%
I will still be working for SES: 90%
I will still be living in Virginia: 95%
I will move to a new apartment: 80%
I will get involved locally with the Less Wrong/ACX community: 70%
I will get involved with the local Mensa group: 80%
I will attend some sort of Solstice Event (including remote viewing): 60%

SCIENCE/SPACE

No successful human clones announced: 95%
Venusian phosphine continues to not replicate: 90%
No other strong evidence of extra-terrestrial life found: 95%
Both Voyager spacecraft will still be operational: 90%
Hubble Space Telescope will still be operational: 90%
MSL Curiosity will still be operational: 90%
Perseverance will still be operational: 95%
Ingenuity will still be operational: 60%
International Space Station will still be operational: 95%
Boeing conducts Orbital Test Flight 2 successfully: 80%
Boeing does not conduct the Crewed Test Fight: 60%
Europa Clipper still scheduled to launch in 2024: 95%
JUICE still scheduled to launch in 2023: 95%
Artemis 1 launches this year: 90%
Artemis 2 still scheduled to launch on or before 31 December 2024: 70%
Artemis 3 still scheduled to launch on or before 31 December 2025: 60%
Lunar Gateway still scheduled to begin construction in 2024: 60%
Starship will not successfully complete an orbital test flight this year: 60%
Virgin Galactic will begin tourist flights this year: 70%
United States will have more successful orbital launches than China this year: 60%
China will have more successful orbital launches than Russia: 90%
No crewed flights beyond Low Earth Orbit: 95%
No deaths in space this year: 90%
No country leaves the ISS Treaty: 90%
Sci-Hub will remain easily accessible from the United States: 90%

CORONAVIRUS

US cumulative confirmed cases exceed 80 million: 90%
...100 million: 80%
...120 million: 60%
US cumulative confirmed deaths exceed 1 million: 90%
...1.2 million: 60%
Global cumulative confirmed cases exceed 400 million: 90%
...500 million: 80%
Global cumulative confirmed deaths exceed 6 million: 95%
...7 million: 90%
...8 million: 70%
At least 250 million Americans vaccinated: 95%
...fully vaccinated: 70%
At least 6 billion people vaccinated globally: 90%
...fully vaccinated: 70%
At least 150 million Americans receive a booster dose: 80%
The FDA approves a fourth booster dose (either generic or variant-specific): 70%
I will receive a fourth dose of coronavirus vaccine this year: 70%
No additional vaccines approved by the FDA: 80%
I do not experience a confirmed case of COVID-19: 70%
No one in my close extended family dies of COVID-19: 70%
My workplace does not go to full in-office at any point this year: 95%
My workplace does not go fully-remote at any point this year: 80%
I am still wearing face masks in public >50% of the time: 90%
A new variant overtakes Omicron and Delta in the United States: 60%

POLITICS/WORLD

Joe Biden will still be President of the United States: 95%
Kamala Harris will still be Vice-President of the United States: 95%
Nancy Pelosi will still be Speaker of the House: 95%
Chuck Schumer will still be Senate Majority Leader: 90%
A bill with the title "Build Back Better" passes: 60%
The Expanded Child Tax Credit is not renewed: 80%
No form of federal carbon tax is passed in the US: 90%
Democrats will maintain control of the House at midterms: 70%
Democrats will maintain control of the Senate at midterms: 60%
At least one major Republican (current or former Governor, Senator, or Representative) announces a Presidential bid: 70%
Donald Trump does not announce a new Presidential bid this year: 80%
Biden approval rating above 40% per FiveThirtyEight: 80%
United States will not go to war with a nuclear power: 90%
United States will not enter a major new war (>100 US casualties): 70%
Boris Johnson will still be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom: 90%
Justin Trudeau will still be Prime Minister of Canada: 95%
Emmanuel Macron will still be President of France: 60%
Vladimir Putin will still be President of Russia: 95%
No additional countries will opt to leave the European Union: 90%
North Korean government will not be overthrown or displaced: 95%
North Korean government will not begin major liberal reforms: 95%
Fewer than 100 cases of wild polio this year: 60%
Fewer than 1000 cases of vaccine-derived polio this year: 60%

META

I will remember to score these predictions: 95%
I will be overconfident in these predictions: 70%
I will be less overconfident in my predictions than in 2021: 60%

For the second year in a row, I managed to come up with a full set of 100. That didn't help me much last year, but we'll see how it goes this time around. The predictions are divided roughly-evenly between categories.

I may experiment with short-term or topic-specific prediction sets this year, as I think trying to develop good calibration year-over-year is a bit slow. But those, if I do them, will be other posts at later dates.

2021 Prediction Results

Every year, I make predictions about what will happen in the coming year, and every New Year's Eve, I come back to score then. I made a full 100 predictions for the first time in 2021, and it does not seem that a greater number improved my success, as we will see.

Predictions which I got right are left unmarked. Predictions that were wrong are struck-through. I am throwing out three predictions, which are marked in italics. First, I'm throwing out the political/religious/philosophical conversion prediction, surprising as that may be. I've had some experiences that I won't relay here, which might constitute the beginning of a major change, but I'm not sure where, if anywhere, it'll go at this time. Additionally, I am still working on one class for grad school, so my GPA is in an unusual state of flux for this time of year. For both of these predictions, I genuinely can't say yet whether the cat is dead or alive. The final prediction I'm throwing out comes from the Meta category, where I think being "less underconfident" is conditional on being underconfident at all.

PERSONAL/ACADEMIC

I will read 15 books this year: 90%
...20 books: 80%
...25 books: 70%
I will read three technical/science/engineering books this year: 80%
...five books: 60%
I will write an average of one blog post per month: 90%
...greater than one blog post per month: 60%
I will not experience a major political/religious/philosophical conversion: 95%
I will still be using Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr: 90%
I will remain single this year: 60%
I will not have my wisdom teeth removed: 60%
I will not be hospitalized this year: 90%
Neither of my parents will be hospitalized this year: 80%
I will compete in either NaNoWriMo proper or the Summer Writing Program: 90%
...and succeed: 80%
I will compete in both NaNoWriMo proper and the Summer Writing Program: 60%
My French will improve this year: 70%
I will not begin learning Russian this year: 80%
I will graduate with my MS degree in aerospace engineering: 95%
...in May: 80%
...with a GPA of 3.5 or above: 90%
I will either find an engineering job or start my own venture: 90%
I will no longer be living in Kansas: 60%
I will no longer be living with my parents: 90%
I will participate in some sort of Solstice Event (including remote viewing): 70%

SCIENCE/SPACE

No successful human clones announced: 95%
Venusian phosphine continues to not replicate: 80%
No other strong evidence of extra-terrestrial life found: 95%
Both Voyager spacecraft will still be operational: 90%
Hubble Space Telescope will still be operational: 90%
MSL Curiosity will still be operational: 90%
International Space Station will still be operational: 90%
James Webb Space Telescope launches this year: 80%
Boeing conducts Orbital Test Flight 2 successfully: 90%
Boeing conducts the Crewed Test Flight successfully: 80%
NASA astronauts reach orbit exclusively on commercial vehicles this year: 80%
Artemis 1 does not launch this year: 60%
Artemis 2 still scheduled to launch on or before 31 December 2023: 70%
Artemis 3 still scheduled to launch on or before 31 December 2024: 60%
Lunar Gateway still scheduled to begin construction in 2024: 70%
Starship will not successfully complete an orbital test flight this year: 90%
Virgin Galactic tourist flights will not begin this year: 70%
The United States will have more successful orbital launches than China this year: 70%
China will have more successful orbital launches than Russia this year: 80%
No crewed flights beyond Low Earth Orbit: 95%
Shenzhou 12 successfully completed: 60%
No deaths in space this year: 90%
No country leaves the ISS Treaty: 90%
Starlink leaves beta (for at least some locations): 60%
Sci-Hub will remain easily accessible from the United States: 90%

CORONAVIRUS

US cumulative confirmed cases exceed 30 million: 95%
...40 million: 90%
...50 million: 80%
US cumulative confirmed deaths exceed 500,000: 95%
...750,000: 80%
...1,000,000: 70%
Global cumulative confirmed cases exceed 150 million: 90%
...200 million: 80%
...250 million: 70%
...300 million: 60%
Global cumulative confirmed deaths exceed 3 million: 90%
...4 million: 80%
...5 million: 70%
At least four coronavirus vaccines approved by the FDA: 70%
United States in top five countries for vaccination percentage rate: 60%
...top three countries: 70%
At least 50 million Americans vaccinated: 95%
...at least 100 million Americans: 80%
...at least 200 million Americans: 60%
My grandfather and step-grandmother receive a coronavirus vaccination: 95%
Both of my parents receive a coronavirus vaccination: 90%
I receive a coronavirus vaccination: 80%
I do not experience a confirmed case of COVID-19: 90%
No one in my household has a confirmed case of COVID-19: 80%
No one in my close extended family dies of COVID-19: 70% 

POLITICS/WORLD

Joe Biden will still be President of the United States: 95%
Kamala Harris will still be Vice-President of the United States: 95%
Nancy Pelosi will remain Speaker of the House: 90%
Mitch McConnell or Chuck Schumer will be Senate Majority Leader: 90%
At least one US government shutdown will occur this year: 70%
Puerto Rico will not be admitted as a new state this year: 95%
DC will not be admitted as a new state this year: 95%
At least one major Republican (current or former Governor, Senator, or Representative) announces a Presidential bid: 60%
United States will not go to war with a nuclear power: 95%
United States will not enter a major new war (>100 US casualties): 80%
Boris Johnson will still be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom: 90%
Justin Trudeau will still be Prime Minister of Canada: 95%
Vladimir Putin will still be President of Russia: 95%
No additional countries will opt to leave the European Union: 95%
North Korean government will not be overthrown or displaced: 95%
North Korean government will not begin major liberal reforms: 95%
Bitcoin will end the year valued $1000 or above: 95%
...$10,000 or above: 80%
...$20,000 or above: 60%
Oil prices will not go negative this year: 90%
Fewer than 250 cases of wild polio this year: 80%
Fewer than 1000 cases of vaccine-derived polio this year: 60%

META

I will remember to score these predictions: 95%
I will be underconfident in these predictions: 60%
I will be less underconfident in my predictions than in 2020: 80%

See, I told you the meta questions were conditional. Let's start scoring:

In each band of question:

60% predictions: 9 right and 8 wrong, for a score of 53%

70% predictions: 5 right and 9 wrong, for a score of 36% (!)

80% predictions: 17 right and 4 wrong, for a score of 81%

90% predictions: 24 right and 1 wrong, for a score of 96%

95% predictions: 19 right and 1 wrong, for a score of 95%

Most of these bands are not bad, but I completely fell apart at the 70% confidence range. I had trouble there in 2019, but nowhere near as badly.

Graphed, the results look like this:

This would be not-bad calibration except for the 70% band, which is so egregious I can't begin to ignore it. I don't know what high-level result to take away, besides reducing my confidence and possibly doing fewer conditional predictions.

By category, I actually did worst in Personal/Academic with 61% accuracy. This is usually my best category, though given the fact that my personal life was thrown for a loop within the first few days of 2021, I suppose that it shouldn't be too surprising. Science/Space had 76% accuracy, with again launch schedule optimism as a common issue. Coronavirus was 80% accurate, due to a combination of better outcomes but worse policy response. Politics/World was 91% accurate, and I'm pleased to report polio eradication efforts seem to be getting back on track. The only questions I missed here were related to internal Congressional action, which after January 6th doesn't seem like a great failure on my part.

My overall accuracy was 76%, as I got 74 out of 97 predictions right. This is not bad overall, but could have been better; perfect calibration would have been closer to 80% overall accuracy.

I think the high-level takeaway is that I do well predicting events which are quite likely to happen, but have had more trouble with less probable events. The fact that I was close in the 60% category might be a fluke; with such a small sample size, it's hard to tell. My tentative plan for next year is to reduce my confidence, especially in the personal sphere. This make a certain amount of sense; global trends and major projects are more stable than my individual affairs.

Predictions for 2021

Every January, I make a number of predictions about how the coming year will go. At the end of the year, I come back and score them. Here are my predictions for 2021.

PERSONAL/ACADEMIC

I will read 15 books this year: 90%
...20 books: 80%
...25 books: 70%
I will read three technical/science/engineering books this year: 80%
...five books: 60%
I will write an average of one blog post per month: 90%
...greater than one blog post per month: 60%
I will not experience a major political/religious/philosophical conversion: 95%
I will still be using Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr: 90%
I will remain single this year: 60%
I will not have my wisdom teeth removed: 60%
I will not be hospitalized this year: 90%
Neither of my parents will be hospitalized this year: 80%
I will compete in either NaNoWriMo proper or the Summer Writing Program: 90%
...and succeed: 80%
I will compete in both NaNoWriMo proper and the Summer Writing Program: 60%
My French will improve this year: 70%
I will not begin learning Russian this year: 80%
I will graduate with my MS degree in aerospace engineering: 95%
...in May: 80%
...with a GPA of 3.5 or above: 90%
I will either find an engineering job or start my own venture: 90%
I will no longer be living in Kansas: 60%
I will no longer be living with my parents: 90%
I will participate in some sort of Solstice Event (including remote viewing): 70%

SCIENCE/SPACE

No successful human clones announced: 95%
Venusian phosphine continues to not replicate: 80%
No other strong evidence of extra-terrestrial life found: 95%
Both Voyager spacecraft will still be operational: 90%
Hubble Space Telescope will still be operational: 90%
MSL Curiosity will still be operational: 90%
International Space Station will still be operational: 90%
James Webb Space Telescope launches this year: 80%
Boeing conducts Orbital Test Flight 2 successfully: 90%
Boeing conducts the Crewed Test Flight successfully: 80%
NASA astronauts reach orbit exclusively on commercial vehicles this year: 80%
Artemis 1 does not launch this year: 60%
Artemis 2 still scheduled to launch on or before 31 December 2023: 70%
Artemis 3 still scheduled to launch on or before 31 December 2024: 60%
Lunar Gateway still scheduled to begin construction in 2024: 70%
Starship will not successfully complete an orbital test flight this year: 90%
Virgin Galactic tourist flights will not begin this year: 70%
The United States will have more successful orbital launches than China this year: 70%
China will have more successful orbital launches than Russia this year: 80%
No crewed flights beyond Low Earth Orbit: 95%
Shenzhou 12 successfully completed: 60%
No deaths in space this year: 90%
No country leaves the ISS Treaty: 90%
Starlink leaves beta (for at least some locations): 60%
Sci-Hub will remain easily accessible from the United States: 90%

CORONAVIRUS - 25

US cumulative confirmed cases exceed 30 million: 95%
...40 million: 90%
...50 million: 80%
US cumulative confirmed deaths exceed 500,000: 95%
...750,000: 80%
...1,000,000: 70%
Global cumulative confirmed cases exceed 150 million: 90%
...200 million: 80%
...250 million: 70%
...300 million: 60%
Global cumulative confirmed deaths exceed 3 million: 90%
...4 million: 80%
...5 million: 70%
At least four coronavirus vaccines approved by the FDA: 70%
United States in top five countries for vaccination percentage rate: 60%
...top three countries: 70%
At least 50 million Americans vaccinated: 95%
...at least 100 million Americans: 80%
...at least 200 million Americans: 60%
My grandfather and step-grandmother receive a coronavirus vaccination: 95%
Both of my parents receive a coronavirus vaccination: 90%
I receive a coronavirus vaccination: 80%
I do not experience a confirmed case of COVID-19: 90%
No one in my household has a confirmed case of COVID-19: 80%
No one in my close extended family dies of COVID-19: 70% 

POLITICS/WORLD

Joe Biden will still be President of the United States: 95%
Kamala Harris will still be Vice-President of the United States: 95%
Nancy Pelosi will remain Speaker of the House: 90%
Mitch McConnell or Chuck Schumer will be Senate Majority Leader: 90%
At least one US government shutdown will occur this year: 70%
Puerto Rico will not be admitted as a new state this year: 95%
DC will not be admitted as a new state this year: 95%
At least one major Republican (current or former Governor, Senator, or Representative) announces a Presidential bid: 60%
United States will not go to war with a nuclear power: 95%
United States will not enter a major new war (>100 US casualties): 80%
Boris Johnson will still be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom: 90%
Justin Trudeau will still be Prime Minister of Canada: 95%
Vladimir Putin will still be President of Russia: 95%
No additional countries will opt to leave the European Union: 95%
North Korean government will not be overthrown or displaced: 95%
North Korean government will not begin major liberal reforms: 95%
Bitcoin will end the year valued $1000 or above: 95%
...$10,000 or above: 80%
...$20,000 or above: 60%
Oil prices will not go negative this year: 90%
Fewer than 250 cases of wild polio this year: 80%
Fewer than 1000 cases of vaccine-derived polio this year: 60%

META

I will remember to score these predictions: 95%
I will be underconfident in these predictions: 60%
I will be less underconfident in my predictions than in 2020: 80%

For the first time, I am making a full 100 predictions: 25 in each major category besides Politics/World, which has only 22. The remainder go into Meta.

I am still not willing to bet on any of my predictions, which (contra yesterday's statements) should tell you how strongly I rate my intuition. Maybe next year, if I do well in 2021, and if I have some of my own money laying around. I don't feel comfortable betting, even if I set a trivial maximum cap, with other people's funds.

2020 Prediction Results

Every year, I make predictions about how the coming year will go. At the end of the year, I score them. 2020 is, at long last, over, which means it's time to see how many of my sixty-eight predictions came true.

As in previous years, predictions left unmarked came true, while predictions struck through did not. This year, I am throwing out two predictions, which are marked in italics. First, I'm not sure how to count a relatively quiet Discord chat insofar as it comes to "participating in the Less Wrong/SSC community". When I made that prediction in at the start of January, I wasn't considering the possibility that external forces could put an end to in-personal socializing. (By the end of January, I was.) Second, I didn't consider the possibility that control of the Senate could come down to run-off elections occurring after the turn of the year.

There's also an ambiguous case which I'm leaving in. I predicted that Starship wouldn't fly this year; I meant that it would fly to orbit, which it didn't. However, I admit that, once again, I should have been more specific in my prediction, given that suborbital and atmospheric test flights are a thing.

PERSONAL/ACADEMIC

I will read 15 books this year: 95%
....20 books: 80%
....25 books: 70%
I will read three technical/science/engineering books this year: 80%
...five books: 60%
I will write an average of one blog post per month: 90%
....two blog posts per month: 60%
I will not experience a major political/religious/philosophical conversion: 95%
I will still be using Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr: 80%
I will remain single this year: 70%
I will vote in the 2020 general elections: 95%
I will have my wisdom teeth removed: 60%
I will not be hospitalized this year: 95%
I will compete in the NaNoWriMo Summer Writing Program: 90%
....and succeed: 80%
My French will not improve this year: 80%
I will not begin learning Russian this year: 80%
I will still be attending graduate school: 90%
....on track to graduate in May 2021: 80%
I will end the year GPA 3.5 or above: 70%
I will still be participating in the Less Wrong/SSC community: 95%
I will attend some sort of Solstice event: 70%

SCIENCE/SPACE

No successful human clones announced: 90%
No strong evidence of extra-terrestrial life found: 95%
Both Voyager spacecraft will still be operational: 80%
Hubble Space Telescope will still be operational: 90%
International Space Station will still be operational: 95%
JWST scheduled to launch on or before December 31, 2021: 70%
SpaceX conducts Demonstration Mission 2 successfully: 70%
Boeing conducts the Crew Test Flight successfully: 60%
Astronauts (public or private) launch from American soil to above the Kármán Line: 70%
One Commercial Crew rotation begins this year: 60%
SLS will not launch this year: 60%
Virgin Galactic tourist flights will not begin this year: 60%
Blue Origin begins crewed tests this year: 60%
SpaceX Starship will not fly this year: 60%
Rocket Lab will demonstrate successful stage recovery: 60%
China will have more successful orbital launches than the US this year: 80%
The United States will have more successful orbital launches than Russia: 90%
No crewed flights beyond Low Earth Orbit: 95%
Shenzhou 12 successfully completed: 70%
No deaths in space this year: 90%
No country leaves the ISS Treaty: 90%
Sci-Hub will remain easily accessible from the United States: 90%

POLITICS/WORLD

Donald Trump will still be President of the United States: 95%
Mike Pence will still be Vice-President of the United States: 95%
At least one US government shutdown will occur this year: 60%
Donald Trump wins the Republican Party nomination: 95%
Joe Biden wins the Democratic Party nomination: 70%
The Democratic Party nominee will win the Presidency: 60%
Democrats will maintain control the House: 70%
Republicans will maintain control of the Senate: 70%
United States will not go to war with a nuclear power: 95%
United States will not enter a major new war (>100 US casualties): 80%
Boris Johnson will still be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom: 90%
Justin Trudeau will still be Prime Minister of Canada: 95%
Vladimir Putin will still be President of Russia: 95%
UK will leave the European Union: 80%
No additional counties will opt to leave the European Union: 95%
North Korean government will not be overthrown or displaced: 95%
North Korean government will not begin major liberal reforms: 95%
Bitcoin will end the year valued $500 or above: 90%
....$1000 or above: 80%
....$5000 or above: 60%
Fewer than 200 cases of wild polio this year: 70%
Fewer than 350 case of vaccine-derived polio this year: 60%

META

I will remember to score these predictions: 95%
I will still be overconfident in these predictions: 70%

The last prediction requires a bit of analysis before scoring. However, it did not end up being much a a tie-breaker question.

In each band of question:

60% predictions: 7 right and 7 wrong, for a score of 50%

70% predictions: 9 right and 3 wrong, for a score of 75%

80% predictions: 11 right and 1 wrong, for a score of 92%

90% predictions: 11 right and 0 wrong, for a score of 100%

95% predictions: 17 right and 0 wrong, for a score of 100%

These suggest that I was underconfident in 2020 (of all the years for that to happen!). Even before scoring the overconfidence question as incorrect, the 70% prediction band was at 83%, which makes it even more underconfident.

Graphed, my results look like this:

This is actually worse calibration than last year, when my results more-closely hugged the perfect calibration line. Deviations from the orange line indicate the degree of under- or over-confidence at that point. This year, I was above the line, or underconfident, for all but the 60% category. Note, though, that if I had had one more 70% prediction incorrect, and one more 60% prediction correct, that I would have been as close to the line as possible with the fractions at hand (after accounting for the questions which I threw out). As such, these are relatively good results.

By category, I did best in Politics/World with 90% accuracy, followed by Science/Space (86%) and then Personal/Academic (76%). My overall accuracy was 83% i.e., I got 55 out of 66 questions correct.

In part due to high accuracy, I did not have any major failure areas this year. The biggest single thing I can point to is overconfidence in my reading input and writing output. The former can be attributed, at least partially, to a couple of poor book choices (including one which I started last August but didn't finish until July of this year). As for writing, well, you'd think I'd have learned my lesson about the need for deadlines by now. After all, I finally finished a novel this year, but only because of summer NaNoWriMo.

At this point, the takeaway could honestly be that I've become a bit too cagey in my predictions. There may be some truth to that—I allowed manufactured normalcy to keep me from expressing my true concerns about coronavirus through most of February. I'm not sure that more risky calls are the right reaction, though, given how many unexpected things happened on a more concrete level. Who called Mitt Romney marching with Black Lives Matter activists?

Perhaps the real takeaway, for my friends and family, is that when I make a prediction, it's probably on the conservative side. Therefore, QED, everyone should defer to my judgement always (or at least when my confidence is above 60%).

Predictions for 2020

Every January, I make a set of predictions about what will happen over the course of the new year. At the end of the year, I come back and score them to see how accurate I was. Here are my predictions for 2020.

PERSONAL/ACADEMIC

I will read 15 books this year: 95%
....20 books: 80%
....25 books: 70%
I will read three technical/science/engineering books this year: 80%
...five books: 60%
I will write an average of one blog post per month: 90%
....two blog posts per month: 60%
I will not experience a major political/religious/philosophical conversion: 95%
I will still be using Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr: 80%
I will remain single this year: 70%
I will vote in the 2020 general elections: 95%
I will have my wisdom teeth removed: 60%
I will not be hospitalized this year: 95%
I will compete in the NaNoWriMo Summer Writing Program: 90%
....and succeed: 80%
My French will not improve this year: 80%
I will not begin learning Russian this year: 80%
I will still be attending graduate school: 90%
....on track to graduate in May 2021: 80%
I will end the year GPA 3.5 or above: 70%
I will still be participating in the Less Wrong/SSC community: 95%
I will attend some sort of Solstice event: 70%

SCIENCE/SPACE

No successful human clones announced: 90%
No strong evidence of extra-terrestrial life found: 95%
Both Voyager spacecraft will still be operational: 80%
Hubble Space Telescope will still be operational: 90%
International Space Station will still be operational: 95%
JWST scheduled to launch on or before December 31, 2021: 70%
SpaceX conducts Demonstration Mission 2 successfully: 70%
Boeing conducts the Crew Test Flight successfully: 60%
Astronauts (public or private) launch from American soil to above the Kármán Line: 70%
One Commercial Crew rotation begins this year: 60%
SLS will not launch this year: 60%
Virgin Galactic tourist flights will not begin this year: 60%
Blue Origin begins crewed tests this year: 60%
SpaceX Starship will not fly this year: 60%
Rocket Lab will demonstrate successful stage recovery: 60%
China will have more successful orbital launches than the US this year: 80%
The United States will have more successful orbital launches than Russia: 90%
No crewed flights beyond Low Earth Orbit: 95%
Shenzhou 12 successfully completed: 70%
No deaths in space this year: 90%
No country leaves the ISS Treaty: 90%
Sci-Hub will remain easily accessible from the United States: 90%

POLITICS/WORLD

Donald Trump will still be President of the United States: 95%
Mike Pence will still be Vice-President of the United States: 95%
At least one US government shutdown will occur this year: 60%
Donald Trump wins the Republican Party nomination: 95%
Joe Biden wins the Democratic Party nomination: 70%
The Democratic Party nominee will win the Presidency: 60%
Democrats will maintain control the House: 70%
Republicans will maintain control of the Senate: 70%
United States will not go to war with a nuclear power: 95%
United States will not enter a major new war (>100 US casualties): 80%
Boris Johnson will still be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom: 90%
Justin Trudeau will still be Prime Minister of Canada: 95%
Vladimir Putin will still be President of Russia: 95%
UK will leave the European Union: 80%
No additional counties will opt to leave the European Union: 95%
North Korean government will not be overthrown or displaced: 95%
North Korean government will not begin major liberal reforms: 95%
Bitcoin will end the year valued $500 or above: 90%
....$1000 or above: 80%
....$5000 or above: 60%
Fewer than 200 cases of wild polio this year: 70%
Fewer than 350 case of vaccine-derived polio this year: 60%

META

I will remember to score these predictions: 95%
I will still be overconfident in these predictions: 70%

This year I am making sixty-eight (68) predictions, because I wanted an even number in each category and didn't want to cut any. I am less confident that I'll be over-confident this year, because I performed comparatively well in 2019, but we won't know for another twelve months whether I am or not.

2019 Prediction Results

For the last three years, I've made predictions about how the coming year would go. In 2019, I made sixty (60) predictions, and now it's time to see how well I did.

Predictions left unmarked, while those struck through were incorrect. I am not throwing any out this year, which would be marked in italics. There are a few borderline cases, such as Boeing's Orbital Flight Test, which did not dock at the International Space Station due to a software problem, but otherwise appears to have been a successful spacecraft demonstration. I am also counting my time playing around with Python as learning a new programming language, because I had basically forgotten everything I learned about it from the last time I used it.

PERSONAL/PROFESSIONAL

I will read 15 books this year: 95%
....20 books: 80%
....30 books: 60%
I will read three technical/science/engineering books this year: 80%
....five books: 60%
I will write an average of one blog post per month: 90%
...two blog posts per month: 70%
I will still be using Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr: 80%
I will remain single this year: 60%
I will have my wisdom teeth removed: 60%
I will not be hospitalized this year: 95%
I will compete in NaNoWriMo: 80%
...and succeed: 70%
My French will improve this year: 60%
I will not begin learning Russian this year: 70%
I will begin learning a new programming language this year: 70%
I will either find an engineering job or enroll in grad school: 90%
I will still be participating in the Less Wrong/SSC community: 90%
I will attend some sort of Solstice event: 70%

SCIENCE/SPACE

No successful human clones announced: 80%
KIC 8462852 will not be satisfactorily explained: 80%
No strong evidence of extra-terrestrial life found: 95%
The Mars InSight lander will still be operational: 90%
Both Voyager spacecraft will still be operational: 80%
Hubble Space Telescope will still be operational: 90%
JWST scheduled to launch on or before December 31, 2021: 70%
SpaceX conducts Demonstration Mission 1 successfully: 90%
SpaceX conducts Demonstration Mission 2 successfully: 70%
Boeing conducts the Orbital Test Flight successfully: 90%
Boeing conducts the Crew Test Flight successfully: 70%
Falcon Heavy will fly at least once this year: 80%
SLS scheduled to launch on or before December 31, 2020: 70%
Virgin Galactic tourist flights will not begin this year: 60%
Blue Origin begins crewed test flights this year: 70%
No Chinese crewed space flights this year: 80%
No deaths in space this year: 90%
No country leaves the ISS Treaty: 90%
Sci-Hub will remain easily accessible from the United States: 80%

POLITICS/WORLD

Donald Trump will still be President of the United States: 95%
Mike Pence will still be Vice President of the United States: 95%
Donald Trump will still be planning to run for re-election: 90%
At least one new US government shutdown will occur this year: 80%
More than 5 major Democrats (current or former Governor, Senator, or Representative) announce Presidential bids: 90%
....more than 10: 70%
At least one major Republican announces a Presidential primary challenge: 70%
United States will not go to war with a nuclear power: 90%
United States will not enter a major new war (>100 US casualties): 70%
Theresa May will still be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom: 80%
UK will leave the European Union: 90%
No additional countries opt to leave the European Union: 90%
North Korean government will not be overthrown or displaced: 95%
North Korean government will not begin major liberal reforms: 95%
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: 60%
Fewer than 25 cases of wild polio contracted this year: 70%
Fewer than 100 cases of vaccine-derived polio this year: 80%

META

I will remember to score these predictions: 95%
I will still be overconfident in these predictions: 80%
I will be less overconfident than in 2018: 60%

The last two predictions required me to do some analysis before scoring, and serve as my tie-breaker questions. This year, I almost had to invoke them for that purpose.

60% predictions: 5 right and 3 wrong, for a score of 63%
70% predictions: 8 right and 6 wrong, for a score of 57%
80% predictions: 13 right and 3 wrong, for a score of 81%
90% predictions: 13 right and 1 wrong, for a score of 93%
95% predictions: 8 right and 0 wrong, for a score of 100%

Graphed, my results look like this:

This is much better calibration than either 2017 or 2018. Deviation from the orange line indicates the degree of under- or over-confidence. I had some small under-confidence at the very high ends, and some over-confidence at that 70% level, but overall my result hug the perfect calibration curve much more closely than the previous years I've done this exercise. I'm still counting this as over-confident overall, but just barely.

I did about evenly-well in each major category. Personal/Professional and Politics/World were tied at 74% accuracy, while Science/Space was 84% accurate. My overall accuracy was 78% i.e., I got 47 out of 60 questions correct.

Unlike previous years, there aren't any major, obvious failure areas. I still had a degree of launch schedule optimism, which contributed towards the over-confidence at the 70% mark, but not to nearly the same degree as in past years. I also missed both questions about UK politics. Finally, the other categorical error was expected fewer cases of polio this year than actually occurred. This could be a case of anchoring: there were very few cases in the years before I began making calibrated predictions, but polio eradication effort has run into some serious stumbling blocks the last couple of years, with 2019 being particularly bad.

My overall take-away is that my calibration has improved, with the obvious caveat at 70% confidence. Besides adjusting for this, there does not seem to be a major, obvious lesson for my 2020 predictions besides more of the same.

Last Sunday Night (for now)

I think it's time to admit that weekly reviews just aren't very compatible with my academics—a month is long enough to say that it's not a single occasion, but rather the general pattern of the semester.

I've been doing reasonably well (I still haven't gotten very many assignments back) and mostly maintaining my balance, but the process of slowing down long enough to reflect on the past week is a habit I've clearly broken. We're on Fall Break right now, which seems a reasonably enough time to state the matter openly.

Grad school is more reasonable than the demands of being an undergraduate upperclassman, but the fact remains that it isn't easy to maintain a writing habit. I started a couple of Fictober prompts, for instance, and almost instantly abandoned them simply because I had other assignments and such to worry about. Design reports seem to satisfy the itch well enough that I don't have to write—there's ideas still bouncing around in my head, both fiction and non, but fitting it into my schedule is....tricky.

In any case, this concludes a series of weekly reviews stretching almost a year. My conclusions is that they can help clear my mind to some extent, but do not in themselves provide too much in the way of self-organizational value. Talking about my life to friends on a regular basis probably goes further, with the added benefit of feedback or simple external insight. It's possible to get stuck going in circles, which is one of the reasons I'm so glad to have more friendships in my life than I remember having had right now.

Come to think of it, maybe that's why I don't feel so compelled to write about my personal life so often. It's gotten a lot less internal, and about that, I really can't complain.

Busy

Things are starting to pick up academically, to the point that I've had to turn down invitations to social functions (that I actually wanted to go to, rather than as a lame excuse). The career fair is this week, adding to the load, but overall I think I'm managing it quite well.

As a summary, I'm not sure what information is really relevant. All I'm thinking about is my specific assignments—diffuser design in propulsion, the second homework in my space class. And the RASC-AL meeting tomorrow. 

Oh, and I finished the main text of Manned Spacecraft Design Principles today. There are some useful appendices that I intend to read through before calling it finished, but I'm done with the bulk of the material. Expect a review sometime soon-ish.

I don't know when the next serious blog post will be. Could be a week, could be Halloween. We'll see. School is both more important and urgent.