2022 ACX Prediction Contest
My predictions for Scott Alexander's 2022 ACX Prediction Contest, along with (eventually) an analysis of my performance and a discussion on the outcomes of the questions.
Table of Contents
From Scott Alexander’s1 post Predictions For 2022, on Astral Codex Ten:
Sam Marks and Eric Neyman have kindly turned this tradition into a contest.
If you want, you can go to their form and predict the same set of questions I did (minus the personal and redacted ones). Use the same rules I did: no peeking at the prediction markets, and no more than five minutes of research per question. If you don’t know anything about a question, you can leave it blank and it will get filled with my prediction by default.
The winner will get eternal glory (realistically: mentioned on an Open Thread) and a free ACX subscription.
- Read the contest description/rules here
- Give feedback on the contest here
- And once again, the form where you take the contest is here
Question Topics and Aggregated Predictions
My Predictions
| Question | Rodeo’s Prediction | Scott’s Prediction | FP’s Prediction | Yglesias’s Predictions | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Biden approval rating (as per 538) is greater than fifty percent | 35% | 40% | - | - | |
| At least $250 million in damage from a single round of mass protests in US | 40% | 10% | - | - | |
| PredictIt thinks Joe Biden is most likely 2024 Dem nominee | 72% | 80% | - | - | |
| PredictIt thinks Donald Trump is most likely 2024 GOP nominee | 65% | 60% | - | - | |
| Beijing Olympics happen successfully on schedule | 97% | 99% | - | - | YES |
| Major flare-up (worse than past 5 years) in Russia/Ukraine conflict | 60% | 50% | - | 40% | YES |
| Major flare-up (worse than past 10 years) in Israel/Palestine conflict | 10% | 5% | - | - | |
| Major flare-up (worse than in past 50 years) in China/Taiwan conflict | 3% | 5% | - | - | |
| Honduran ZEDEs legally crippled to the point where no reasonable person would invest in them further | 5% | 5% | - | - | |
| New ZEDE approved in Honduras | 40% | 30% | - | - | |
| Gamestop stock price still above $100 | 20% | 30% | - | - | |
| Bitcoin above 100K | 15% | 20% | - | - | |
| Ethereum above 5K | 15% | 20% | - | - | |
| Ethereum above 0.05 BTC | 90% | 90% | - | - | |
| Dow above 35K | 92% | 90% | - | - | |
| Dow above 37.5K | 50% | 40% | - | - | |
| Inflation for the year below five percent | 63% | 90% | - | - | |
| Unemployment below five percent in December | 68% | 50% | - | - | |
| Google widely allows remote work, no questions asked | 59% | 50% | - | - | |
| Starship reaches orbit | 92% | 90% | - | - | |
| Fewer than 10K daily average official COVID cases in US in December 2022 | 34% | 20% | - | - | |
| Fewer than 50K daily average COVID cases worldwide in December 2022 | 5% | 1% | - | - | |
| >66% US population fully vaccinated (by current standards) against COVID | 78% | 70% | - | - | |
| India’s official case count is higher than US | 20% | 5% | - | - | |
| Medical establishment reverses course and officially says any of Vitamin D, HCQ, or ivermectin is actually effective against COVID | 23% | 1% | - | - | |
| FDA approves a COVID indication for fluvoxamine | 55% | 60% | - | - | |
| Some new variant not currently known is greater than 25% of case | 80% | 60% | - | - | |
| Most people Scott sees in his local grocery store on December 31st are wearing masks | 69% | 60% | - | - | |
| Masks still required on US domestic flights | 50% | 60% | - | - | |
| CDC recommends that triple-vaxxed people get at least one more vax | 75% | 70% | - | - | |
| China has fewer than 100,000 COVID cases this year (official estimate) | 60% | 30% | - | - | |
| No new real-money prediction market becomes bigger than Polymarket | 65% | 70% | - | - | |
| Manifold Markets is still alive and active | 40% | 30% | - | - | |
| New legal US real-money prediction market at least half as big as Kalshi | 16% | 5% | - | - | |
| New illegal but easy-to-use market satisfying the above | 36% | 20% | - | - | |
| Inflation for the year under three percent | 65% | 80% | 80% | - | |
| Democrats will lose their majorities in the House and Senate | 93% | 90% | 95% | 90% | |
| Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade | 68% | 60% | 65% | - | |
| Emmanuel Macron will be reelected president of France | 80% | 65% | 65% | - | |
| Jair Bolsonaro will be reelected president of Brazil | 35% | 50% | 55% | - | |
| Bongbong Marcos will be elected president of the Philippines | 70% | 60% | 55% | - | |
| China will NOT reopen its borders at any point during the first half of 2022 | 75% | 90% | 80% | - | |
| Chinese GDP will continue to grow for the first 3/4 of the year | 90% | 90% | 95% | - | |
| 20% of US kids between 0.5 and 5 years old will get at least one COVID vaccine by year’s end | 70% | 65% | 65% | - | |
| WHO will designate another Variant Of Concern | 80% | 75% | 75% | - | |
| 12 billion COVID shots will be given out globally by November 1st | 85% | 80% | 80% | - | |
| At least one country will have less than 10% of people vaccinated with two shots by November 1st | 78% | 95% | 70% | - | |
| A psychedelic drug will be decriminalized/legalized in at least one more US state | 70% | 75% | 75% | - | |
| AI will discover a new drug promising enough for clinical trials | 87% | 85% | 85% | - | |
| US government will NOT renew the ban on funding gain-of-function research | 67% | 60% | 60% | - | |
| The Biden administration will set the social cost of carbon at $100/ton or more | 61% | 70% | 70% | - | |
| 2022 will be warmer than 2021 | 91% | 80% | 80% | - | |
| Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast will win Best Picture | 43% | 30% | 55% | - | |
| Norway will win the most medals at the 2022 Winter Olympics | 57% | 60% | 60% | - | |
| Democrats lose at least two Senate seats | 83% | 80% | - | 80% | |
| Democrats lose fewer than six Senate seats | 78% | 80% | - | 80% | |
| Nancy Pelosi announces retirement plans | 63% | 70% | - | 70% | |
| Joe Biden is still president | 93% | 70% | - | 70% | |
| No military conflict between the PRC and Taiwan | 93% | 90% | - | 90% | |
| Saudi Arabia and Israel establish diplomatic relations | 64% | 50% | - | 60% | |
| Fewer US Covid deaths in 2022 than in 2021 | 97% | 90% | - | 80% | |
| Emmanuel Macron re-elected | 74% | 60% | - | 60% | |
| Liz Cheney loses primary | 87% | 80% | - | 80% | |
| Some version of USICA passes Congress | 60% | 70% | - | 70% | |
| Lula elected president of Brazil | 35% | 50% | - | 60% | |
| China officially abandons Covid Zero | 50% | 70% | - | 70% | |
| Additional booster shots of mRNA vaccines authorized for seniors | 74% | 80% | - | 80% | |
| The Fed ends up doing more than its currently forecast three interest rate hikes | 50% | 60% | - | 60% | |
| Viktor Orbán loses power in Hungary | 45% | 60% | - | 60% | |
| Sinn Fein becomes the largest party in the Northern Ireland assembly | 50% | 60% | - | 60% |
Outcomes
[pending]
Performance
[pending]
External Links
[pending]
Notes
Cover Image
The cover photo for this page was likely taken by jbc. I found the photo on Unsplash. To my knowledge, my use of this photo is permissible under Unsplash’s license: “Unsplash grants you an irrevocable, nonexclusive, worldwide copyright license to download, copy, modify, distribute, perform, and use photos from Unsplash for free, including for commercial purposes, without permission from or attributing the photographer or Unsplash. This license does not include the right to compile photos from Unsplash to replicate a similar or competing service.”
Footnotes
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This is Scott’s LessWrong profile; here are his top 5 posts as of 28 February 2022: Eight Short Studies On Excuses, Schelling fences on slippery slopes, Diseased thinking: dissolving questions about disease, Generalizing From One Example, The noncentral fallacy - the worst argument in the world? ↩