Results of Predictions for 2021

Overall, I was clearly overconfident:

• 60% Predictions: 50% (Right 7, Wrong 7)
• 80% Predictions: 78% (Right 15, Wrong 4)
• 90% Predictions: 66% (Right 2, Wrong 1)
• 99% Predictions: 91% (Right 10, Wrong 1)

Most of the error came from two sources.

First, vaccines had just come out and looked great at the time that I was making predictions. I definitely failed to put sufficient weight on a variant coming out and making them worthless as far as preventing spread, which is what happened with Omnicron. So I failed pretty hard there -- the one 99% failure, as well as some errors in the 80% / 90% buckets, come from this failure to consider the hypothesis.

Second, when predicting crypto prices, I generally predicted a correction, because prices had recently surged. This correction did not occur. The correlated error here accounts for a lot of my other errors.

All in all, I think I generally need to spend more time trying to think of ways I can be wrong, and be aware of heuristics that I'm using.

Percentage buckets: 60%, 80%, 90%, 99%

Economic, Macro

1. (Wrong) 60%: Bitcoin ends the year lower than it starts (28,590 USD).
2. (Wrong) 60%: Ether ends year lower than it starts (730 USD).
3. (Wrong) 60%: Gold ends year higher than it starts (1,907 USD).
4. (Right) 60%: Dollar ends lower against yuan than started (6.53).
5. (Wrong) 60%: US Covid-19 infection rates < 0.1% current (260k per day) at end of year.
6. (Right) 80%: Unemployment rate ends year lower than starts (6.7%).
7. (Right) 80%: Bitcoin ends year above 8k USD.
8. (Right) 80%: Bitcoin ends year below 56k USD.
9. (Right) 80%: Ethereum ends year above 200 USD.
10. (Wrong) 80%: Ethereum end year below 1400 USD.
11. (Wrong) 90%: US Covid-19 infection rates < 1% current (260k per day) at end of year.
12. (OMG So Wrong) 99%: US Covid-19 infection rates < 10% current (260k per day) at end of year.

Technical + Misc

1. (Right) 80%: SLS is not canceled.
2. (Right) 80%: Tesla does not complete coast-to-coast autonomous drive.
3. (Right) 80%: Tesla opens up FSD beta to everyone in US.
4. (Wrong) 80%: Starship superheavy booster does test flight.
5. (Wrong) 80%: Starship does test flight to > 20k.
6. (Right) 80%: OpenAI publishes or opens new interesting stuff about cross-modal learning.
7. (Right) 90%: More hardware blows up while working on Starship.
8. (Right) 99%: No plausibly AGI system goes public.
9. (Right) 99%: MIRI releases nothing of immediate technical use.

Political

1. (Right) 80%: Trump is not in jail.
2. (Right) 99%: Trump is not president / dictator.

Health

1. (Right) 60%: My hand is better at EOY, no typing problems
2. (Wrong) 80%: My knee is better at EOY, able to exercise bike sometimes.
3. (Right) 60%: I will not have learned to code by voice
4. (Right) 80%: My plantar fascitis is NOT 100% better.
5. (Wrong) 60%: Have gotten heartrate to 60 BPM or below for a day at least.

Meta

1. (Right) 80%: No post on site has > 1000 views.
2. (Right) 99%: This post has < 1000 views.
3. (Right) 99%: No post on site has > 100000 views.

Goals / Personal

1. (Right) 60%: ██████████ █████ ██ ███████ ██ ██ ██ ██
2. (Right) 60%: Blog is still updated in > 6 months.
3. (Right) 60%: Have not finished book.
4. (Right) 90%: ██ ████████ ███ █████████████████ █████████
5. (Right) 99%: ████ ████ ███ █████████████████████ ██ █
6. (Right) 99%: ██████████████████████ ██ ██████
7. (Right) 99%: ██████████
8. (Right) 80%: ███████████ █ █████ ████████ █
9. (Right) 99%: ████ ███████ ██ █ ██ █████
10. (Right) 80%: ██████████ ███████████████████████ ███████████ ██
11. (Wrong) 60%: ███████ █████████ ███ ██ ██ ███ █████████ █████
12. (Right) 80%: ███ ███████ █ █ █████
13. (Right) 80%: █ ████ ████ █ █████████ ██ █████ ██ ██ ██████ ██
14. (Right) 99%: █████ █████████████ ████ ██ ██ ████ █
15. (Right) 60%: ███ ████ ███████ ████ ██████ ███████ ███
16. (Wrong) 60%: ████ ██████ █ █ █ ████████