Tag: NAFTA

Untestable knowledgeable cannot be scientific.  To avoid the problems of retroactively placing events into your narrative of the world, predictions must be laid out before events happen. If you try to use your model of the world to create testable predictions, those predictions can be proven right or wrong, and you can actually learn something. Incorrect predictions can help update our models.

This is, of course, the basis for the scientific method, and generally increasing our understanding of the world. Making predictions is also important for making us more humble; we don’t know everything and so putting our beliefs to the test requires us to reduce our certainty until we’ve researched a subject before making baseless claims.  Confidence levels are an important part of predictions, as they force us to think in the context of value and betting: a 90% confidence level means I would take a $100 bet that required me to put up anything less that $90. Moreover, it’s not just a good idea to make predictions to help increase your knowledge; people who have opinions but refuse to predict things with accompanying confidence levels, and therefore refuse to subject their theories to scrutiny and testability, must be classified as more fraudulent and intellectually dishonest.

Before I take a look at how I did this past year, and see if my calibration levels were correct, I should look at some hard fork predictions I made in July:

1. There will be a Bitcoin Cash block mined before 12 AM August 2, US Eastern time: 80%
2. The price of Bitcoin Cash at 12 AM August 2, US Eastern time will be <10% of Bitcoin’s price: 70%
3. The price of Bitcoin Cash on August 5 will be < 10% of Bitcoin’s price: 90%
4. The price of Bitcoin Cash on September 1 will be < 10% of Bitcoin’s price: 90%
5. The value of all transactions of Bitcoin Cash around September 1 (maybe averaged over a week?) will be < 10% of the value of all transactions in Bitcoin: 95%

I did not predict that Bitcoin Cash would have long term staying power. In retrospect, I should have had more confidence that it would be similar to Ethereum Classic, which has remained for over a year now.

Now for predictions made at the beginning of the year:

World Events

1. Trump Approval Rating end of June <50% (Reuters or Gallup): 60%
2. Trump Approval Rating end of year <50% (Reuters or Gallup): 80%
3. Trump Approval Rating end of year <45% (Reuters or Gallup): 60%
4. Trump 2017 Average Approval Rating (Gallup) <50%: 70% (reference)
5. ISIS to still exist as a fighting force in Palmyra, Mosul, or Al-Raqqah: 60%
6. ISIS to kill < 100 Americans: 80%
7. US will not get involved in any new major war with death toll of > 100 US soldiers: 60%
8. No terrorist attack in the USA will kill > 100 people: 90% (reference)
9. France will not vote to leave to the EU: 80%
10. The UK will trigger Article 50 this year: 70% (reference)
11. The UK will not fully leave the EU this year: 99%
12. No country will leave the Euro (adopt another currency as their national currency): 80%
13. S&P 500 2017 >10% growth: 60%
14. S&P 500 will be between 2000 and 2850: 80% (80% confidence interval)
15. Unemployment rate December 2017 < 6% : 70%
16. WTI Crude Oil price > $60 : 70%
17. Price of Bitcoin > $750: 60%
18. Price of Bitcoin < $1000: 50%
19. Price of Bitcoin < $2000: 80%
20. There will not be another cryptocurrency with market cap above $1B: 80%
21. There will not be another cryptocurrency with market cap above $500M: 50%
22. Sentient General AI will not be created this year: 99%
23. Self-driving cars will not be available this year for general purchase: 90%
24. Self-driving cars will not be available this year to purchase / legally operate for < $100k: 99%
25. I will not be able to buy trips on self-driving cars from Uber/Lyft in a location I am living: 80%
26. I will not be able to buy a trip on a self-driving car from Uber/Lyft without a backup employee in the car anywhere in the US: 90%
27. Humans will not land on moon by end of 2017: 95%
28. SpaceX will bring humans to low earth orbit: 50%
29. SpaceX successfully launches a reused rocket: 60%
30. No SpaceX rockets explode without launching their payload to orbit: 60%
31. Actual wall on Mexican border not built: 99%
32. Some increased spending on immigration through expanding CBP, ICE, or the border fence: 80%
33. Corporate Tax Rate will be cut to 20% or below: 50% (it was 21%)
34. Obamacare (at least mandate, community pricing, pre-existing conditions) not reversed: 80%
35. Budget deficit will increase: 90% (Not if you go by National Debt increase January to January)
36. Increase in spending or action on Drug War (e.g. raiding marijuana dispensaries, increased spending on DEA, etc): 70% (hard to say: Rohrbacher Amendment, FY2018 DoJ changes)
37. Some tariffs raised: 90% (reference)
38. The US will not significantly change its relationship to NAFTA: 60%
39. Federal government institutes some interference with state level legal marijuana: 60%
40. At least one instance where the executive branch violates a citable civil liberties court case: 70% (I made this too broad as I can cite Berger v New York and the NSA violates it every day)
41. Trump administration does not file a lawsuit against any news organization for defamation: 60%
42. Trump not impeached (also no Trump resignation): 95%

Postlibertarian

1. Postlibertarian.com to have >15 more blog posts by July 1, 2017: 80%
2. Postlibertarian.com to have >30 blog posts by end of year: 70%
3. Postlibertarian.com to have fewer hits than last year (no election): 60%
4. Postlibertarian Twitter account to have <300 followers: 90%
5. Postlibertarian Twitter account to have >270 followers: 60%
6. Postlibertarian Subreddit to have <100 subscribers: 90%

I missed all the ones I marked as 50% confident, but I’ve realized this category conveys no mathematical information. I could have also listed the predictions as simultaneously saying that there was a 50% chance the exact opposite of the statement occurred, so actually, I got exactly half of them right, and I will always get exactly half of them right. This makes the category completely useless, and so I have decided to avoid posting any predictions of exactly 50% accuracy for next year.

In the other categories:

• Of items I marked as 60% confident, 10 were correct out of 13.
• Of items I marked as 70% confident, 5 were correct out of 7.
• Of items I marked as 80% confident, 9 were correct out of 12.
• Of items I marked as 90% confident, 7 were correct out of 9.
• Of items I marked as 95% confident, 2 were correct out of 3.
• Of items I marked as 99% confident, 4 were correct out of 4.

This may not look great, but is better than last year. Additionally, the big problem is the 95% predictions, which was severely hurt by my poor decision to make predictions about the Bitcoin hard fork, an event which hadn’t really happened before. Ignoring those predictions made in July would change my scores to:

• Of items I marked as 60% confident, 10 were correct out of 13.
• Of items I marked as 70% confident, 4 were correct out of 6.
• Of items I marked as 80% confident, 8 were correct out of 11.
• Of items I marked as 90% confident, 6 were correct out of 7.
• Of items I marked as 95% confident, 2 were correct out of 2.
• Of items I marked as 99% confident, 4 were correct out of 4.

That’s actually remarkably well, with perhaps some 60% predictions that needed more confidence. Moreover, it’s clear I had no business making predictions about Bitcoin with such high confidence, nor did anyone this year. I will definitely be dialing back my confidence levels in Bitcoin price predictions next year, and I’ve focused a bit more of whether Drivechain will be adopted.

Predictions for 2018:

World Events

1. Trump Approval Rating end of year <50% (Gallup): 95%
2. Trump Approval Rating end of year <45% (Gallup): 90%
3. Trump Approval Rating end of year < 40% (Gallup): 80%
4. US will not get involved in any new major war with death toll of > 100 US soldiers: 60%
5. No single terrorist attack in the USA will kill > 100 people: 95%
6. The UK will not fully leave the EU this year: 99%
7. No country will leave the Euro (adopt another currency as their national currency): 80%
8. North Korea will still be controlled by the Kim dynasty: 95%
9. North Korea will conduct a nuclear test this year: 70%
10. North Korea will conduct a missile test this year: 95%
11. Yemeni civil war will still be happening: 70%
12. S&P 500 2018 >10% growth: 60%
13. S&P 500 will be between 2500 and 3200: 80% (80% confidence interval)
14. Unemployment rate December 2018 < 6%: 80%
15. Unemployment rate December 2018 < 5%: 60%
16. WTI Crude Oil price up by 10%: 60%
17. Price of Bitcoin > $10,000: 70%
18. Price of Bitcoin < $30,000: 60%
19. Price of Bitcoin < $100,000: 70%
20. Lightning Network available (I can complete a transaction on LN): 80%
21. Drivechain development “complete”: 70%
22. Drivechain opcodes not soft-forked into Bitcoin: 70%
23. No drivechains soft-forked into existence: 95%
24. US government does not make Bitcoin ownership or exchange illegal: 90%
25. Self-driving cars will not be available this year for general purchase: 95%
26. Self-driving cars will not be available this year to purchase / legally operate for < $100k: 99%
27. I will not be able to buy trips on self-driving cars from Uber/Lyft in a location I am living: 95%
28. I will not be able to buy a trip on a self-driving car from Uber/Lyft without a backup employee in the car anywhere in the US: 90%
29. Humans will not be in lunar orbit in 2018: 95%
30. SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket will attempt to launch this year (can fail on launch): 95%
31. SpaceX will not bring humans to low earth orbit: 60%
32. No SpaceX rockets explode without launching their payload to orbit: 60%
33. Mexican government does not pay for wall: 99%
34. Border wall construction not complete by end of 2018: 99%
35. Some increased spending on immigration through expanding CBP, ICE, or the border fence: 80%
36. No full year US government budget will be passed (only several months spending): 90%
37. US National Debt to increase by more than 2017 increase (~$500B): 70%
38. Increase in spending or action on Drug War (e.g. raiding marijuana dispensaries, increased spending on DEA, etc): 70%
39. Some tariffs raised: 90%
40. The US will not significantly change its relationship to NAFTA: 70%
41. Federal government institutes some interference with state level legal marijuana: 70%
42. Trump administration does not file a lawsuit against any news organization for defamation: 90%
43. Mexican government does not pay for wall 99%
44. Trump not removed from office (also no Trump resignation): 95%
45. Democrats do not win control of Senate: 60%
46. Democrats win control of House: 60%

Postlibertarian

1. postlibertarian.com to have 10 new posts by July 1, 2018: 80%
2. postlibertarian.com to have 20 new posts this year: 80%
3. Postlibertarian to have more hits than last year: 70%

 

*I modified prediction #31 on January 24th from 70% positive to 60% negative. This feels early enough that I can still call it a prediction, and I’m not sure why I was so confident in December when I wrote these.

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