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.

First let’s take a look at how I did this past year, and see if my calibration levels were correct. Incorrect predictions are crossed out.

Predictions for 2017:

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%

Sports

1. Miami Heat do not make playoffs:  95%
2. Miami Heat get top 6 draft pick: 60%
3. Duke basketball wins 1 game or more against UNC: 80%
4. Duke basketball makes it to Round of 32 in NCAA Tournament: 90%
5. Duke basketball makes Final Four: 50%
6. Duke basketball does not win NCAA tournament: 80%
7. Warriors or Cavs will win the NBA title: 60%
8. Lebron James will not be highest paid NBA player during 2017-18 season: 70%

Personal

1. Employed in current job:  90%
2. I will have less than 300 Twitter followers: 60%
3. I will change my registered party from Republican to Libertarian: 70%
4. I will have authored > 14 more blog posts (not just on this blog) by June 30, 2017: 90%
5. I will have authored > 30 more blog posts (not just on this blog) by December 31, 2017: 80%
6. michaelelgart.com to have >3,000 page loads 2017: 70%
7. These predictions are under-confident: 70%

I missed all the ones I marked as 50% confident, but I’ve realized that 50% predictions do not convey any 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, 11 were correct out of 13.
• Of items I marked as 70% confident, 8 were correct out of 9.
• Of items I marked as 80% confident, 10 were correct out of 13.
• Of items I marked as 90% confident, 6 were correct out of 8.
• Of items I marked as 95% confident, 3 were correct out of 3.
• Of items I marked as 99% confident, 4 were correct out of 4.

This doesn’t look that impressive or well-calibrated, although one point I will make is that one of the 90% confidence predictions I missed was a personal goal to blog more. I only missed this by one blog post, and it makes sense that I was overconfident in it. Taking that one out, my 90% predictions come in at 87.5%, which is pretty good.

I did better than I should have on my 60% confidence predictions. In retrospect, predictions about the number of Twitter followers I would have, and about Trump’s approval rating were really under-confident (affected my 70% predictions as well). I severely cut the number of tweets on my personal twitter account in favor of one with more anonymity, and Trump never really recovered from his initial approval ratings, information I had pretty readily available. Additionally, my 60% confidence that Bitcoin’s price would be above $750 seems woefully incorrect, and it’s clear in this case, that I really had no idea what Bitcoin was going to do.

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 bring humans to low earth orbit: 70%
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%

Sports

1. Miami Heat make playoffs: 80%
2. Miami Heat do not make it second round of playoffs: 80%
3. Duke basketball wins 1 game or more against UNC: 90%
4. Duke basketball makes it to Round of 32 in NCAA Tournament: 90%
5. Duke basketball does not make Final Four: 80%
6. Duke basketball does not win NCAA tournament: 95%
7. Warriors or Cavs will win the NBA title: 60%
8. Steph Curry will be highest paid NBA player during 2017-18 season: 60%

Personal

1. Employed in current job:  90%
2. I will vote this year in the general election: 80%
3. I will have authored > 12 more blog posts (not just on this blog) by June 30, 2018: 90%
4. I will have authored > 25 more blog posts (not just on this blog) by December 31, 2018: 80%
5. I will have read 6 additional books this year: 80%
6. These predictions are under-confident: 70%