Predictions For 2018 · Read Scott Alexander

At the beginning of every year, I make predictions. At the end of every year, I score them. So here are a hundred more for 2018.

Some changes this year: I’ve eliminated a bunch of predictions about things that are very unlikely where I just plug in the same number each year, like “99% chance of no coup in the US”. I’ve tried to have almost everything this year be new and genuinely uncertain. I’ve also included some very personal predictions about friends and gossip that I’m keeping secret for now – I have them written down somewhere else and they’re for my own interest only.

My rule is that I have to make all of these without checking existing prediction markets – otherwise I wouldn’t be learning anything about my own abilities. I’m also not doing any research beyond what I already know, because otherwise this will take forever. I bet some of these are terribly misinformed, but that’s part of what I’m including in my calibration estimate. These were written a few days ago; a few already seem obsolete.

I’m keeping 50% predictions even though everyone keeps telling me they don’t matter. My only excuse is that I write everything down first and then decide what I think the likelihood is, and sometimes my best guess really is 50%.

US:
1. Donald Trump remains president at end of year: 95%
2. Democrats take control of the House in midterms: 80%
3. Democrats take control of the Senate in midterms: 50%
4. Mueller’s investigation gets cancelled (eg Trump fires him): 50%
5. Mueller does not indict Trump: 70%
6. PredictIt shows Bernie Sanders having highest chance to be Dem nominee at end of year: 60%
7. PredictIt shows Donald Trump having highest chance to be GOP nominee at end of year: 95%
9. Some sort of major immigration reform legislation gets passed: 70%
10. No major health-care reform legislation gets passed: 95%
11. No large-scale deportation of Dreamers: 90%
12. US government shuts down again sometime in 2018: 50%
13. Trump’s approval rating lower than 50% at end of year: 90%
14. …lower than 40%: 50%
15. GLAAD poll suggesting that LGBQ acceptance is down will mostly not be borne out by further research: 80%

ECONOMICS AND TECHNOLOGY:
16. Dow does not fall more than 10% from max at any point in 2018: 50%
17. Bitcoin is higher than $5,000 at end of year: 95%
18. Bitcoin is higher than $10,000 at end of year: 80%
19. Bitcoin is lower than $20,000 at end of year: 70%
20. Ethereum is lower than Bitcoin at end of year: 95%
21. Luna has a functioning product by end of year: 90%
22. Falcon Heavy first launch not successful: 70%
23. Falcon Heavy eventually launched successfully in 2018: 80%
24. SpaceX does not attempt its lunar tourism mission by end of year: 95%
25. Sci-Hub is still relatively easily accessible from within US at end of year (even typing in IP directly is relatively easy): 95%
26. Nothing particularly bad (beyond the level of an funny/weird news story) happens because of ability to edit videos this year: 90%
27. A member of the general public can ride-share a self-driving car without a human backup driver in at least one US city by the end of the year: 80%

CULTURE WARS:
28. Reddit does not ban r/the_donald by the end of the year: 90%
29. None of his enemies manage to find a good way to shut up/discredit Jordan Peterson: 70%

COMMUNITIES:
30. SSC gets more hits in 2018 than in 2017: 80%
31. SSC gets mentioned in the New York Times (by someone other than Ross Douthat): 60%
32. At least one post this year gets at least 100,000 hits: 70%
33. A 2019 SSC Survey gets posted by the end of the year: 90%
34. No co-bloggers make 3 or more SSC posts this year: 80%
35. Patreon income less than double current amount at end of year: 90%
36. A scientific paper based on an SSC post is accepted for publication in real journal by end of year: 60%
37. I do an adversarial collaboration with somebody interesting by the end of the year: 50%
38. I successfully do some general project to encourage and post more adversarial collaborations by other people: 70%
39. New SSC meetups system/database thing gets launched successfully: 60%
40. LesserWrong remains active and successful (average at least one halfway-decent post per day) at the end of the year: 50%
41. LesserWrong is declared official and merged with LessWrong.com: 80%
42. I make fewer than five posts on LessWrong (posts copied over from SSC don’t count): 70%
43. CFAR buys a venue this year: 50%
44. AI Impacts has at least three employees working half-time or more sometime this year: 50%
45. Rationalists get at least one more group house on Ward Street: 50%
46. No improvement in the status of reciprocity.io (either transfer to a new team or at least one new feature added): 70%

PERSONAL:
47. I fail at my New Years’ resolution to waste less time on the Internet throughout most of 2018: 80%
48. I fail at my other New Years’ resolution to try one biohacking project per month throughout 2018: 80%
49. I don’t attend the APA National Meeting: 80%
50. I don’t attend the New York Solstice: 80%
51. I travel outside the US in 2018: 90%
52. I get some sort of financial planning sorted out by end of year: 95%
53. I get at least one article published on a major site like Vox or New Statesman or something: 50%
54. I get a tax refund: 50%
55. I weigh more than 195 lb at year end: 60%
56. I complete the currently visible Duolingo course in Spanish: 90%
57. I don’t get around to editing Unsong (complete at least half the editing by my own estimate) this year: 95%
58. No new housemate for at least one month this year: 90%
59. I won’t [meditate at least one-third of days this year]: 90%
60. I won’t [do my exercise routine at least one third of days this year]: 80%
61. I still live in the same house at the end of 2018: 60%
62. I will not have bought a house by the end of 2018: 90%
63. Katja’s paper gets published: 90%
64. Some other paper of Katja’s gets published: 50%

SECRET: (mostly speculating on the personal lives of friends who read this blog; I don’t necessarily want them to know how successful I expect their financial and romantic endeavors to be)
65. [Secret prediction]: 80%
66. [Secret prediction]: 70%
67. [Secret prediction]: 70%
68. [Secret prediction]: 60%
69. [Secret prediction]: 70%
70. [Secret prediction]: 60%
71. [Secret prediction]: 50%
72. [Secret prediction]: 50%
73. [Secret prediction]: 50%
74. [Secret prediction]: 90%
75. [Secret prediction]: 90%
76. [Secret prediction]: 60%
77. [Secret prediction]: 70%
78. [Secret prediction]: 60%
79. [Secret prediction]: 50%
80. [Secret prediction]: 60%
81. [Secret prediction]: 80%
82. [Secret prediction]: 70%
83. [Secret prediction]: 50%
84. [Secret prediction]: 70%
85. [Secret prediction]: 70%
86. [Secret prediction]: 70%
87. [Secret prediction]: 60%
88. [Secret prediction]: 50%
89. [Secret prediction]: 50%
90. [Secret prediction]: 70%
91. [Secret prediction]: 90%
92. [Secret prediction]: 50%
93. [Secret prediction]: 90%
94. [Secret prediction]: 50%
95. [Secret prediction]: 60%
96. [Secret prediction]: 60%
97. [Secret prediction]: 60%
98. [Secret prediction]: 95%
99. [Secret prediction]: 70%
100. [Secret prediction]: 70%

Other properly formatted predictions for this year:
– Socratic Form Microscopy (2017 results, 2018 predictions)
– Anatoly Karlin (2017 results, 2018 predictions)
– Various people from the subreddit
– Very many people on Metaculus

[EDIT: List of predictions I’ve already been convinced are miscalibrated as of 3 AM 2/6/18:
– Bitcoin prices are already too high (they were higher when I wrote these predictions a few days ago).
– Stock market is more likely to have large fall (it was higher when I wrote these predictions a few days ago)
– Chance of Trump’s approval not breaking 50% probably closer to 95% than 90%.]