Predictions for 2022

Having just written a story in which I shat all over people who do Tetlockian predictions, here I am trying my hand at them. Apologies to those friends and acquaintances to whom I promised a forecasting competition a few months ago: work and then personal issues got in the way.¹ Here are 50 forecasts as to what will be true at midnight on 1/1/2023 (plus a few conditional forecasts).

This is my first go, and so I imagine I will do pretty badly in general. I feel most confident in my Northern Irish and personal predictions, and least confident in the categories of Other (politics / international affairs) and Covid.

Northern Ireland

These are pretty straightforward. I think it’s overwhelmingly likely that the DUP will lose ground, but much less likely that Sinn Féin make substantial gains. The main questions remaining are a) how large the DUP’s losses are, b) how well, relative to each other, Alliance, the UUP, and the TUV do in winning over the space ceded by the DUP, and c) what kind of government is formed in the aftermath.

• The DUP are not the largest party in the Assembly - 95%

  • Conditional on that, the DUP are the largest unionist party - 65%

• Alliance are the fifth party - 60%

• Unionists + Other have a majority in the Assembly - 90%

  • Conditional on that, Unionists + Alliance have a majority in the Assembly - 99%

• Swann is Health Minister - 55% (I’m praying for you Robin - you deserve a break!)

• Givan is neither FM nor DFM - 95% (quite honestly I don’t understand why he’s not gone already)

• At least three major outlets (BBC Newsline, UTV News, BelTel, the Newsletter, etc.)² ran top stories on anti-Protocol protests / riots during the year - 50%

United Kingdom

These will probably look familiar. Johnson faces challenges but will probably hold onto the premiership; Starmer will continue to crush the hard left internally; there won’t be a general election; the Lib Dems will not do particularly well.

• Starmer is leader of the Labour Party - 95%

• Johnson is Prime Minister - 80%

• Sunak is the most popular (approval minus disapproval) Cabinet or Shadow Cabinet member - 85%

• Sunak is in one of the Great Offices of State - 95%

• There has not been a general election - 90%

• The Lib Dem polling average across the year has been 10%, plus or minus 2.5 points - 75% (I need to find a way to actually get this number calculated without just literally compiling every single poll into a spreadsheet - if you have any experience here, let me know)

• Labour made gains in the Cambridge City Council elections - 75%

Republic of Ireland

A bit more complicated. At the start of 2021, it seemed clear to me that Ireland was moving towards a two-party Sinn Féin-Fine Gael system, and Martin would be the last Fianna Fáil Taoiseach: all the poll trends showed a collapse in Fianna Fáil support and close competition between Sinn Féin and Fine Gael. But since then, FG support has been falling and FF support rising; FF is only a few percentage points below FG, both hovering around the 20% mark as SF comfortably maintains ~30% of public support. But I’m going out on a limb and saying that FF’s improvement this year was a temporary covid effect: an SF-FG two-party system just seems like a much more stable attractor state. Nonetheless, I’ve downgraded my probabilities accordingly.

• Fianna Fáil have dropped below 15% on Politico’s poll of polls at least once - 65%

  • Conditional on that, Fianna Fáil polling average across the year has been <15% - 55%

• Fianna Fáil never overtook Fine Gael on Politico’s poll of polls - 70%

• Varadkar was more popular (approval - disapproval) than Martin when the rotating Taoiseach agreement went into effect - 65% (I will average the results of the most recent approval poll before the rotation and the first poll afterwards)

• Sinn Féin’s polling average across the year has been 30%, plus or minus 5 points - 85% (again, let me know if you know how to calculate this)

  • Conditional on that, Sinn Féin’s polling average across the year has been 30%, plus or minus 2.5 points - 80%

United States

Some pretty depressing predictions here, none of them particularly surprising.

• The GOP controls the Senate - 85%

  • Conditional on that, the GOP controls the House: 95%

• The GOP controls the House - 90%

  • Conditional on that, the GOP controls the Senate: 90%

• Biden is president - 95%

• Roe v. Wade has been overturned - 80%

  • Conditional on that, it was overturned in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization - 95%

    • Conditional on that, Roberts voted with the majority - 70%

• Breyer has not retired - 80% (have you people read his fucking book? he’s going nowhere)

Covid

Disclaimer: I am whatever the exact opposite of a scientist is.

• China has given up on zero-covid - 75%

• A new variant of concern has been identified by the WHO - 90%

• Variant-specific vaccines have not been rolled out in any OECD nation - 75%

• At least one nation has less than 10% of its population double-vaxxed - 95% (this is a popular topic of prediction, but I think people are massively underrating it, and I almost gave it 99%. just think concretely and ask: how exactly is Yemen going to get to 10%?)

Other (politics / international affairs)

Many of these are just guesses! This is the category I am taking least seriously.

• Macron is the president of France - 70%

• Pécresse did not reach the run-off - 65%

• Lula is the president of Brazil - 55% (I started with a prediction 65%, close to the current Smarkets trade volume, but have adjusted down given that how much I fucking hate Bolsonaro was probably making me engage in a little wishful thinking)

• China has not invaded Taiwan - 85% (too fucking low)

• Russia has not invaded Ukraine - 60% (way too fucking low)

  • Conditional on that, there are new US sanctions on Russia - 70%

• The Uyghur genocide has not stopped - 90% (yup.)

Other (misc.)

Some other stuff I am interested in or have thoughts about.

• Simone Biles has announced her retirement from competition - 75%

• At least 5 additional living artists, or bands with living members, in the Rolling Stone top 50³ have followed the Boss and sold their back-catalogues - 80%

• Kendrick still hasn’t dropped a new album - 70%

• Dublin won Sam - 85% (last year was great, but also probably a fluke, and the structural forces leading to Dub dominance will continue until the GAA do something drastic like break the Dublin team apart)

This blog

• I published Part 2 of the ‘Self-defeating theories’ series - 85%

• I published Part 3 of the ‘Self-defeating theories’ series - 65%

• I have finished the ‘Self-defeating theories’ series - 60%

• I have written at least one post every month - 65%

Personal

• I am in a relationship with [current partner] - 99%

• I am living in Cambridge - 80%

• I am living at [current address] - 75%

• I am still vegan - 95%

• I donated more money to charitable causes in 2022 compared to 2021 - 95%

• >25% of my donations went to animal advocacy causes - 65%

• I ran in the local elections in Cambridge - 60% (this includes paper candidacy, for those who are worried about me beginning a rise to power)

• I attended CULA AGM - 75%

• I did not attend a CULA event other than the AGM or an EGM - 80% (campaigning does not count as a CULA event)

• I have come to disagree with the conclusion of at least one of my articles / blog posts / essays - 70% (excluding those I currently disagree with - just so this properly tracks changing my mind)

Forecasts I want to make but can’t quantify

Finally, there are the runty step-children. The whole point of this exercise is to do numerical, quantifiable, verifiable forecasts, so these won’t count. I include them because I imagine it is possible to construct proxies for at least some that are verifiable; if you suggest some in the comments and I’m happy with them, I might edit this post to include them.

• Covid as a social phenomenon is basically over in the UK - 70% (this is more than just ‘no restrictions’, but obviously much less than ‘pandemic finished’)

• The Northern Ireland Secretary is incompetent - 90%

• Jared Polis has done something absolutely fucking based - 99%

• It looks less likely that Trump will run for president than it did at the start of the year - 60% (maybe could define this using Metaculus? haven’t checked if they have a question on this)

• The ‘applied turn’ in Anglo-American philosophy continues apace - 80% (perhaps quantifiable in terms of the proportion of LEMM vs SEPP appointments at Philosophical Gourmet top universities? no clue what proportion would be sensible, though)

• Conditional on Boris Johnson still being Prime Minister, he has less political power than he did at the start of the year - 85% (in terms of: less able to pass bills he wants to, less personal control over the cabinet, more rebellions, more successful rebellions, further rolling back of Levelling Up, etc. etc.)

• Conditional on Simone Biles retiring, the media coverage of the announcement was fucking stupid - 95%

1. Although I’m sure everyone who was invited to that has heard about the personal issues anyway, it’s still good to say openly. That’s the whole Tetlock spirit!

2. The most obvious edge-case I can think of here is Slugger - tell me if you think Slugger counts or not.

3. A pretty good proxy for high-status dadrock.