2018 Predictions: How well did I do?

What will the future bring? In 2016, I started the tradition of making predictions in January of every year. At the end of the year, I score those predictions to see how well I did. Here are the results for 2018. As you’ll see, I was generally too pessimistic on international relations, believing that Brexit negotiations were intractable and North Korea could not be tamed. In reality, a Brexit agreement was reached, although it is highly unlikely to be approved by Parliament; and North Korea did not test a single missile or nuclear weapon in 2018. I also underestimated the extent of the cryptocurrency crash, which was already in progress when I made my predictions. In terms of politics — i.e. elections and impeachments, and the like — I nailed all my predictions.

1. In US, deficit-to-GDP ratio will be higher in 2018 than in 2017 (70%) — TRUE. The ratio is 4% in fiscal year 2018, compared to 3.4% in FY 2017 (source).
2. Democrats will win control of the House of Representatives (60%) — TRUE
3. Democrats will not win control of the Senate (60%) — TRUE
4. Trump will still be president at year’s end (80%) — TRUE
5. S&P 500 will be higher at year’s end (80%) — FALSE. A sudden downturn in December meant the S&P 500 ended the year at 2507, compared to 2713 on January 3, 2018.
6. The number of global terrorist attacks will be lower than in 2017 (70%) — FALSE. The number of terrorist attacks has actually increased from 1380 to 1521, although the number of fatalities decreased from 8797 to 7899 (source).
7. The Israeli-Palestinian peace talks will result in no significant progress (90%) — TRUE. If there was any progress at all, I’m certainly not aware of it.
8. Putin will win the Russian elections (95%) — TRUE
9. TESS will finally launch (80%) — TRUE
10. JWST will be delayed yet again (50%) — TRUE. It was delayed even more than I expected, all the way until 2021.
11. The Syrian Civil War will not end, but Assad will not lose significant ground (70%) — TRUE. Military operations continued throughout 2018, even though Assad has all but won the war since a year ago.
12. ISIS will lose all its territory (70%) — FALSE. Amazingly, ISIS is still clinging on to dear life in a tiny piece of Syrian territory. ISIS lost Hajin, its last city, on December 14, but there are still militants holding on to tiny pockets in the desert.
13. Brexit negotiations will not lead to general agreement on free trade or EU citizen rights (80%) — FALSE, but with caveats. The withdrawal agreement between the UK and EU does cover citizen rights in detail. It specifies that the UK and EU will either negotiate a trade deal before the end of the transition period, or default to a customs union. However, the agreement has virtually no chance of passing Parliament — and everyone knew it at the time it was signed.
14. Conservatives will win in Ontario election (70%) — TRUE
15. Bitcoin will be above $5000 at year’s end (70%) — FALSE. It was at $3685 at year’s end, compared to $17,000 at the beginning of 2018. 2018 was a terrible year for cryptocurrencies.
16. No new fundamental physics is discovered and accepted as such by scientific consensus. Examples of fundamental physics include: detection of dark matter particles, unexplainable anomalies at the LHC, evidence of inflation from the CMB, proton decay, supersymmetry, faster than light communication. (90%) — TRUE.
17. In Iran, no substantial political changes for the better due to protests (80%) — TRUE. The regime banned English in primary schools and censored the Internet, but doesn’t seem to have done much else (source).
18. North Korea will successfully test both a missile and a nuclear weapon (70%) — FALSE. In fact, North Korea tested neither.
19. Trump’s approval rating will be below 50% at year’s end, according to fivethirtyeight (80%) — TRUE. Trump has hovered around a 53% disapproval rating since May.
20. No terrorist attack kills >100 people in US (80%) — TRUE.
21. Falcon Heavy will finally launch (70%) — TRUE, and the three boosters landed gracefully back on Earth. The live stream was amazing.
22. No commercial companies will take humans to ISS (90%) — TRUE

Simple score: 16/22 (73%)

Probability-weighted score: -0.573 (expected: -0.534 +- 0.10)

For an explanation of how the probability-weighted score works, see the end of my first prediction article. Essentially, the “expected” score is the average probability-weighted score I would get if I assigned probabilities to everything correctly. Since events are probabilistic, there is an error bar associated with the “expected” score.