b_b fantasized that Trump would neglect to move in to the White House, or else resign for no obvious reason, so I took a position against what looked like wishful thinking.
I didn't get in on this conversation, but want to highlight the point that cgod made about predictions being probabilistic. It's good to get only 80% of your 80% confident predictions right, if you get more than that it shows your confidence needs calibration. Simple yes/no bets are kind of clumsy.
Update on the prediction that two stars in the constellation Cygnus would collide in 2022:
Two stars will NOT merge and explode into red fury in 2022
Update on Scott Alexander: eight of twelve Trump administration predictions correct.
- Here are my guesses. In brief, I predict more of the same.
- There are now "more than 580 miles (930 km) of barriers in place" along the 1,954-mile (3,145 km) long Mexico-U.S. border. I predict that the wall will be improved, but will remain less than half the length of the border.
Not much wall was added. Including replacement, under construction, and pre-construction, the total is less than 800 miles.
- I predict that Trump will not force Mexico to pay construction costs (talk perhaps, but not actions like garnishing money transfers or withholding aid). Aid obligations in 2015 were $586 million, mostly for drug enforcement. The number varies a lot by year, but I predict it will not drop below the 2012 reported value of $215 million during the next four years.
2015 was unusually high, and 2016 was low, but the three years beginning in 2017 were above the 2012 level.
2012 214,692,742 2013 419,124,768
2014 332,284,923
2015 582,555,918
2016 86,788,120
2017 296,134,669
2018 235,961,887
2019 443,964,994
2020 (incomplete)
- There were 12,265,000 employees in U.S. manufacturing jobs in October 2016. The trend has been downward since the 1980s, though there has been some recovery since 2010. I predict that this number will be lower than 12,265,000 by the end of 2020.
The recovery continued, until 2020.
The preliminary number for December 2020 is 12,309,000.
- Twitter will still exist and annoy in 2020.
- Trump will remain president for a full four-year term.
- The number of abortions induced, as measured by the CDC, will continue to decline as it has for years, with no conspicuous change in the next four years.
The latest survey shows that the gradual decline remains fairly consistent.
- The U.S. will remain a signatory to the Paris Climate Agreement.
The Paris Agreement is so weak and ineffective it hardly seemed worth quitting, but I neglected to consider the political value in snubbing the globalists. Withdrawal was announced in June 2017, and became effective in November 2020.
President Biden plans to reverse the move on Trump's last day in office, but that's too late to save the prediction.
- The number of mosques in the U.S. not be less than the 2,106 counted in 2011 during the next four years.
I can't find a more recent number than the 2,106 counted before, but I haven't seen any reason to believe that the number has gone down.
- U.S. GDP growth will be positive for at least three of the four years from 2017 to 2020, and not lower than -2% in any year.
Well, this was half right, but one estimate for 2020 is -4.27%.
Our bet is now settled. I finally just now got around to donating $208 (less fees, so like $206.50) to Hubski. To recap, $208 represented each week of the Trump presidency. As I said tongue-in-cheek below, my instincts were correct that Trump should have been removed from office early. I think the upside is that he's gone, and despite his best efforts, we averted a coup. The downside, however, is that we found out how far someone ca go when they aren't interested in playing by the rules. I think he and Barr and Bannon showed us that one can take a baby step in any direction one wants, and that very few people will object, because it's only a baby step. They realized early on that you can take 5 baby steps instead of one adult step, and that's an easy way to get away with the unthinkable. Had he tried on day 1 some of the bush league moves he was trying by week 200, he would have been out on his ass. But we all prefer appeasement to confrontation, I guess.
I agree with these predictions. In addition, I predict that Biden will not seek re-election.
Further updates from Scott Alexander: