(Late) Predictions for 2015 · Read Scott Alexander

I was supposed to institute a tradition of making predictions at the beginning of each year, then grading them at the end to test my calibration. Everything went according to plan last year – last January I made predictions for 2014 and then this January I scored them. I ended with “2015 predictions coming soon,” then totally forgot to do that.

So now that it’s June and predicting what will happen in 2015 is about 40% easier, I might as well get started. Acceptable confidence levels are 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%, 90%, 95%, and 99%, to make it easy to score. All predictions are about the state of the world on 12/31/2015:

World Events
1. US will not get involved in any new major war with death toll of > 100 US soldiers: 70%
2. North Korea’s government will survive the year without large civil war/revolt: 95%
3. Greece will not announce it’s leaving the Euro: 60%
3. Neither Russia nor Qatar will lose their World Cups: 80%
4. Ebola will kill fewer people in second half of 2015 than the in first half: 95%
5. No terrorist attack in the USA will kill > 100 people: 90%
6. Assad will remain President of Syria: 70%
7. Israel will not get in a large-scale war (ie >100 Israeli deaths) with any Arab state: 90%
8. Syria’s civil war will not end this year: 80%
9. ISIS will control less territory than it does right now: 70%
10. ISIS will continue to exist: 80%
11. Iran will reach a deal with the West on nuclear weapons: 80%
12. No major civil war in Middle Eastern country not currently experiencing a major civil war: 90%
13. Iraq’s situation not to get any worse (eg gov’t collapse, new rebellion): 60%
14. Obamacare will survive the year mostly intact: 60%
15. Hillary Clinton will be the top-polling Democratic Presidential candidate: 95%
16. Jeb Bush will be the top-polling Republican candidate: 50%
17. Trans-Pacific Partnership to pass at least mostly intact: 60%
18. US official unemployment rate will be less than 7% in Dec 2015: 95%
19. Bitcoin will end the year higher than $200: 95%
20. Oil will end the year greater than $60 a barrel: 50%

Personal Life
21. SSC will remain active: 95%
22. SSC will get fewer hits in the second half of 2015 than the first half: 60%
23. At least one SSC post in the second half of 2015 will get > 100,000 hits: 70%
24. Shireroth will remain active: 90%
25. I will remain at my same job through the end of 2015: 95%
26. There will be no further ramifications or lawsuits from either side over the flooding of my house: 80%
27. I will reach my savings target: 90%
28. I will get a score at >95th percentile for my year on PRITE: 50%
29. I will be involved in at least one published/accepted-to-publish research paper by the end of 2015: 60%
30. I will not break up with any of my current girlfriends: 80%
31. I will not get any new girlfriends: 50%
32. I will not finish [project]: 60%
33. I will attend NYC Solstice ritual: 80%
34. I will flake out of my plan to lead some kind of Solstice Ritual myself: 60%
35. I will be living in the house I’m currently trying to arrange to rent: 70%

These are all the things I could think of worth predicting; feel free to suggest others.