Holiday retail sales will be below consensus forecasts leading to some market turmoil in the early part of the year as the ‘recovery’ starts to look shaky (70%).
A developed country will suffer a currency crisis—most likely either the UK, US or one of the weaker Eurozone economies (60%).
A new round of bank failures and financial turmoil as the wave of Option ARM mortgage resets starts to hit and commercial real estate collapses including at least one major bank failure (a ‘too big to fail’ bank) (75%).
A major terrorist attack in the US (50%) most likely with a connection to Pakistan. The response will be disproportionate to the magnitude of the attack (99%).
Apple will launch a tablet and will aim to do for print media what it has done for music (80%).
Democrats will lose seats in Congress and the Senate in the elections but Republicans will not gain control of either house (70%).
One or more developed countries will see significant civil unrest due to ongoing problems with the economy (50%).
Next Decade
US will undergo a severe currency crisis (more likely) or sovereign default (less likely) (75%).
Developed countries’ welfare states will begin to collapse (state retirement and unemployment benefits and health care will be severely curtailed or eliminated in more than one developed country) (75%).
UK will undergo a severe currency crisis or sovereign default (90%).
One or more countries will drop out of the Euro or the entire system will collapse (75%).
A major terrorist attack in the US (50%) most likely with a connection to Pakistan.
I would be very happy to accept a bet with you on those odds if there’s a way to sort it out. I’d define major as any attack with more than ten deaths.
I occasionally offer people bets, but I think this has been the first time for me that the subject of contention is the right shape for betting to be a real possibility.
Do you have a PayPal account? I’d be willing to wager $50 USD to be paid within 2 weeks of Jan 1st 2011 if you’re interested. I can provide my email address. That would rely on mutual trust but I don’t know of any websites that can act as trusted intermediaries. Do you know of anything like that?
How about this wording? “10 or more people will be killed on US soil during 2010 as the result of a deliberate attack by a party with a political goal, not overtly the act of any state”. And if we hit an edge case where we disagree on whether this has been met, we’ll do a poll here on LW and accept the results of the poll. Sound good?
I’d like to change the wording slightly to “on US soil, or on a flight to or from the US” if that’s alright with you (even though I think an attack on an aircraft is less likely than an attack not involving aircraft). A poll here sounds like a fair way to resolve any dispute. I expect to still be reading/posting here fairly regularly in a year but I’m also happy to provide my email address if you want.
The term “terrorism” is usually taken to mean an attack on civilians, though as a legal matter, this is far from settled. This definition would exclude the Fort Hood shooting, where the targets were soldiers. In any case, the bet is over non-state, politically motivated killing, which is broader and would include Fort Hood, I think.
FWIW: The targets at Fort Hood were soldiers, but predictably-disarmed soldiers. In the area Hasan attacked, the soldiers he shot at aren’t allowed to carry weapons or even have them within easy reach. So it’s more analogous to shooting up a bar frequented by soldiers that takes your weapons at the door.
Plus, his attack was intended to spread terror, not to achieve a military objective (any weakness he inflicted on the army capability itself was probably a secondary goal).
I was going to ask whether people would classify the recent attack on the IRS building in Texas as terrorism. It wouldn’t qualify for the bet either way because there was only 1 casualty but I’m curious if people think it would count as terrorism?
Bob Murphy’s post, excerpting Glen Greenwald, summarizes my position very well. In short:
1) What Stack did meets the reasonable definition of terrorism: “deliberate use of violence against noncombatants to achieve political or social goals by inducing terror [in the opposing population]”.
2) Most of what the government is classifying as terrorism, isn’t. Fighting an invading army, no matter how unjust your cause may be, is not terrorism. Whetever injustice you may be committing does not additionally count as terrorism. Yet the label is being applied to insurgents.
3) It’s in the government’s interest, in taking over the terrorism label, that Stack not be called a terrorist, because he seems too (otherwise) normal. People want to think of terrorists as being “different”; a middle-aged, high-earning programmer ain’t the image they have in mind, and if they did have that in mind, they’d be more resistant to make concessions in the name of fighting terrorism.
Excellent question! If such an attack happens this year, I’d say it wasn’t a terrorist attack, but if mattnewport felt that it was I’d pay out without making a poll.
I’d lean towards saying it was a terrorist attack but I’m sufficiently uncertain about how to classify it that I’d be happy to let a community poll settle the question.
Re: “10 or more people will be killed on US soil during 2010 as the result of a deliberate attack by a party with a political goal, not overtly the act of any state”.
How come “Pakistan” got dropped? A contributing reason for the claim being unlikely was that it was extremely specific.
From the wording, it seemed that the 50% was for any attack, not just one with Pakistan involved. I think I’m on to a pretty good bet even without it. It’s not as unlikely as a US state seceding, but I didn’t want to wait ten years :-)
The US State seceding is something that many of my friends sit around contemplating. We have had speculations about whether it will be a state like Mississippi, or South Carolina (Red), or if it will be a state like California or Oregon (Blue).
The Red States are pretty easy to understand why they might wish to secede from the heathen atheistic socialist nazi USA… But, the motivations for a Blue State are a bit more complex.
For instance, in California, I have noticed a lot of people complaining about how much money this state pays into Social Security, yet only gets back about 10% of that money. If we were able to get back all of it, instead of supporting states like South Carolina or Mississippi, we would be able to go a long way toward solving many of our own social ills. Not to mention that many in CA chafe under having to belong to the same union as states such as those I have mentioned, and thus have issues with being able to even pursue social solutions that might pay off big (Stem Cell research, Legalization & regulation of narcotics, work and skills training for inmates—and socialization skills for the same, infrastructure work to which the USA is slow to commit, and so on).
All of these are also issues that Red States like to brag about being able to focus on if they were to secede. The only problem with most Red States is, just like in the Civil War, they have little to no economy of their own. Texas (Maybe Florida) is really the exception. Also, should a Red State secede, most of the best and brightest would flee the state (Academics usually don’t like working under ideological bonds, for instance).
It will be interesting to see what would happen should a state try to secede. I think it could be the best thing that could happen to our country if things continue to become divisive.
As I understand it, our economy is in such dire straights because most of the money in CA’s taxes leaves the state instead of staying in it.
I could be wrong about that. I am mostly dealing with facts I have obtained from Gov’t web sites, so the data could be skewed.
Your statement only deals with the management and not the fiscal reality of the cash flow in CA. It is true that we have a financial shortfall, but that could be the case with anyone, even if they made billions of dollars a year if all of that money was being taken by another party. No management in the world would be able to help in that situation.
Texas is another big tax donor state, yet they turn budget surpluses mostly. The difference is California doesn’t bother to balance their out of control spending with their revenues.
Texas, though, doesn’t contribute more to the US Budget than they get out, and… I hate to say this… Both GW Bush, and his predecessor in the Governors office did pretty good jobs managing the State.
During the Office of Rick Perry, they had some tremendous problems (I am from Texas, and technically, it is still a state of residence for some of my bills). Texas and California are however, the only two states (NY Possibly an exception, but only barely) that could really stand as an independent country in this day and age (They both did so in the past under very different conditions).
Upon thinking about it a bit. CA does have a more out of control spending problem. I still think that the problem could be remedied by a more equitable share of their Federal Tax money (not just Social Security) being returned to the state. Regardless of whether that happened, fiscal responsibility is needed. It doesn’t do any good to increase an income if the expenses rise disproportionately.
California’s uniquely awful budget crisis is mainly due to the state’s consitutional amendment that requires a supermajority to raise state taxes (and the fact that it’s never in the Republican minority’s political interest to agree to a tax hike), along with the lawmakers’ shortsighted tendency to cut taxes when the economy was in great shape.
I knew that I wasn’t imagining that bit about the Fed Taxing v spending.
I was also aware of the supermajority thing. Although, I wonder exactly how much of a Republican Schwarzenegger really is (I hope I spelled his name right. I can’t be bothered to find out). He has many beliefs about the rule of law and government that I find to be very at odds with the Republicans, and all I can really find that binds them together is his extreme misogynism and love of guns (alright, I could look further and find more, I am sure, but my point is that he is really a populist candidate/politician who just happened to land in the Republican’s back yard).
CA’s budget crises can also be traced to several Texas Energy companies (Does Enron mean anything to anyone) who gouged the state in all kind of manipulative practices during the late 90s/early 00s.
Also, never mind that California is responsible for around 12% − 14% of the USA’s total economy, or that we have a GDP, all on our own of around 2 trillion dollars (the largest in the USA, and I believe that we are right behind England or France in total GDP)… Yeah, never mind all that (to the naysayers of California).
I’m not sure that the acts of a single person with no associations with anyone else are really the sort of thing I had in mind, but it’s too late to refine the bet now, so we’ll see whether people think such a thing counts if we need to.
“10 or more people [...] as the result of a deliberate attack” seems to suggest that 10 assassinations in 2010 would probably not qualify—unless it was proved that they were all linked. My summary of the link is that there have been few terrorist attacks against Americans on American soil recently.
That was 99% confidence that the response will be disproportionate to the magnitude of the attack, if an attack takes place, not 99% confidence that there will be an attack. My odds of an attack were 50%. I think an attack is fairly unlikely to be on an aircraft—security is relatively tight on aircraft compared to other possible targets.
I’ll agree that if anything happens, or even if something doesn’t (is thwarted), the response will be silly and disproportionate. However, I still think you’re way too high with 50%.
A declaration of war, curtailment of liberties, or other expenditure of resources more than ten times the loss of resources (including life, which is not priceless) it tries prevent.
I am more confident of winning as you’d expect. But I’m finding it counterintuitive to adjust my subjective probability for losing the bet in proportion to the portion of the year that’s lapsed, which means either my initial probability was too low or my current one is too high.
Incidentally, if you have a specific probability for an event occurring in 1 out of 365 days, say, or not occurring at all, you could try to calculate exactly what probability to give it occurring in the rest of the year (considering that it’s August): http://www.xamuel.com/hope-function/ / http://www.gwern.net/docs/1994-falk
(Actually calculating the new probability is left as an exercise for the reader.)
I will take a bet on this, if you like. Also, did you perhaps mean “attempt to secede”, or are you predicting actual success? I’ll take the bet either way.
On further reflection I think I need to revise my estimate down somewhat. Thinking on it further my 30% estimate is conditional on general trends that I think are more likely than not to occur but I did not correctly incorporate them into the estimate for secession. I think 10-15% is probably a better estimate taking that into account.
I think the political pressure for secession will stem from an extended period of economic weakness in the US and widespread fiscal crises in states like California and New York. If, as seems likely, federal aid is seen to go disproportionately to certain states that have the most troubled finances then the states that feel they are losing out will begin to see secession as an attractive option. My original estimate did not sufficiently account for the possibility that I am wrong about the economic troubles ahead however.
I think we could probably hammer out a mutually agreeable definition but the decade time frame for a pay out makes a bet on this impractical I feel. I’m reasonably comfortable making a bet to be settled next January but a bet to be settled in 2020 doesn’t seem practical through an agreement on a forum.
I guess now is a good time for a 6 month review of how the predictions in this thread are panning out.
Next Year
Holiday retail sales will be below consensus forecasts leading to some market turmoil in the early part of the year as the ‘recovery’ starts to look shaky (70%).
Retail sales were a bit worse than expected but despite a bit of a dip in the stock market in late Jan / early Feb it took longer than I expected for the recovery in the US to be seriously questioned. It’s only in the last few weeks that talk of a double dip recession has become really widespread. The problems in Europe and more recently in China brought the global recovery into question a bit earlier but overall the jury is still out. I think I could argue that this prediction was correct as written but I was expecting more problems earlier in the year.
A developed country will suffer a currency crisis—most likely either the UK, US or one of the weaker Eurozone economies (60%).
I think the problems in Greece (and to a lesser extent Spain and Portugal) and the resulting turmoil in the Euro are sufficient to say this prediction was correct. The UK pound has also had a rough time but in both cases ‘currency crisis’ could still be argued. I expect further problems before the year is out.
A new round of bank failures and financial turmoil as the wave of Option ARM mortgage resets starts to hit and commercial real estate collapses including at least one major bank failure (a ‘too big to fail’ bank) (75%).
Hasn’t happened yet. Option ARM resets will be picking up through the second half of the year so I still expect problems from that. A little less confident that it will mean a major bank failure—that is somewhat dependent on the political climate as well.
A major terrorist attack in the US (50%) most likely with a connection to Pakistan. The response will be disproportionate to the magnitude of the attack (99%).
The attempted bombing in Times Square appears to have had a Pakistan link. It can’t really be called a ‘major’ attack however. I still think there is a fair chance of this happening before the year is out but odds are a little lower (my estimate of how incompetent most terrorists are has increased a little).
Apple will launch a tablet and will aim to do for print media what it has done for music (80%).
The iPad and iBooks launch bear this out I think.
Democrats will lose seats in Congress and the Senate in the elections but Republicans will not gain control of either house (70%).
Won’t know until November. I think the prediction is still reasonable.
One or more developed countries will see significant civil unrest due to ongoing problems with the economy (50%).
The riots and strikes in Greece and strikes in Spain arguably confirm this. The prediction is a little vague however and I was expecting somewhat more serious civil unrest than we’ve seen so far. It remains to be seen what will happen as the rest of the year unfolds.
Next Decade
US will undergo a severe currency crisis (more likely) or sovereign default (less likely) (75%).
No change here.
Developed countries’ welfare states will begin to collapse (state retirement and unemployment benefits and health care will be severely curtailed or eliminated in more than one developed country) (75%).
Some early signs of this with retirement age increases and other austerity measures in Greece and elsewhere in Europe. I still expect to see a lot more of this before the decade is out.
UK will undergo a severe currency crisis or sovereign default (90%).
Odds on this down slightly I think—there’s some evidence that the new government is serious about addressing the problems. Less evidence that they will succeed.
One or more countries will drop out of the Euro or the entire system will collapse (75%).
I think the problems here have been more widely recognized than when I wrote the prediction. My odds haven’t changed much though.
I still think there is a fair chance of [a major terrorist attack] happening before the year is out but odds are a little lower (my estimate of how incompetent most terrorists are has increased a little).
Shouldn’t the odds go down by about half, just because half the year is used up?
The failed Times Square attack raised my probability for attempts at attacks this year but lowered my probability that any attempted attacks would be effective enough to classify as ‘major’. On balance I think the odds of a major attack in the remaining 6 months are lower than 50% at this point but events since my original prediction weigh into my estimate now and so it’s not a simple matter of adjusting the odds based on elapsed time.
A developed country will suffer a currency crisis—most likely either the UK, US or one of the weaker Eurozone economies (60%).
I think the problems in Greece (and to a lesser extent Spain and Portugal) and the resulting turmoil in the Euro are sufficient to say this prediction was correct. The UK pound has also had a rough time but in both cases ‘currency crisis’ could still be argued. I expect further problems before the year is out.
I think this prediction has failed utterly. In the Euro zone, There are/were debt crises in Greece and Ireland, but the currency, the Euro itself did fine. A graph of the variation of the Euro against the US dollar shows no special variation in 2010 compared to its “typical” variations over the last decade. The pound maintained the value in 2010 that it had already fallen to in 2009, hardly even slightly adhering to a prediction about 2010.
Those were exciting predictions. Had you predicted a sovereign debt crisis in a developed country, you would have been right, and it would have been a much less exciting prediction than a currency crisis.
There’s room for debate whether we saw a true currency crisis in the Euro but ‘this prediction has failed utterly’ is overstating it. We saw unusually dramatic short term moves in the Euro in May and there was widespread talk about the future of the Euro being uncertain. Questions about the long term viability of the Euro continue to be raised.
I’d argue that charting any of the major currencies against gold indicates an ongoing loss of confidence in all of them—from this perspective the dollar and the euro have both declined in absolute value over the year while trading places in terms of relative value in response to changing perceptions of which one faces the biggest problems.
‘Currency crisis’ was in retrospect a somewhat ambiguous prediction to make since there is no clear criteria for establishing what constitutes one. I’d argue that the euro underwent the beginnings of a currency crisis in May but that the unprecedented intervention by the ECB forestalled a full blown currency crisis.
I looked at Gold vs Euro from your link over 10 years. It shows a ssteady decline since mid 2004, with no change in that trend to distinguish 2010 from 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, or 2005. It seems to me that if no special effects in currency vs currency or in currency vs gold can be seen in 2010 that the most rational label for that prediction would be “wrong.” YMMV, but I don’t see why it should. Would you accept “this prediction has failed” if I leave off the utterly?
US states aren’t allowed to secede. Not even Texas. The US government would lose so much prestige from the loss of a state, that they would never allow it. So it would require some kind of armed conflict that no one state could ever win.
Are you really certain that the federal government would send the military in to prevent a state seceding if secession was clearly the democratic will of the people of the state? I wouldn’t rule out the possibility but I think it would be an unlikely outcome.
I’m pretty certain the federal government will not take the blow of a state leaving in the next decade, at least. They might be slightly more likely to let a quirky, small state like Vermont or New Hampshire leave, since clamping down on a tiny state would look bad, and the loss would be negligible. But then they would set a dangerous precedent for more important possible secessionist states like Texas (Texans are somewhat nationalistic, though also often super-american/patriotic), New Mexico (majority-minority state) or Alaska (active secessionist movement).
What exactly is the federal government going to do about it though? I think using the military to suppress a state that was attempting a peaceful secession would be very hard for the government to justify. It’s a possibility but I think the probability is low that US troops would be deployed on US soil to prevent a state seceding. Plus I expect the federal government to have very major financial problems which will limit its ability to act.
Few people in 1982 would have predicted that the USSR would allow its constituent republics to secede peacefully within a decade.
It is settled legally, that the states do not have the authority to secede, they tried during the Civil War. Many people thought that states could leave the union at that time. However the precedent set by Lincoln’s actions are unchallenged now by the legal establishment.
Anyway, the procedure would go like this:
State government announces secession.
then
2a. Federal government challenges legality of secession in courts.
3a. Supreme court declares the secession unconstitutional.
Or:
2b. Federal government charges rebels with Treason.
3b. Federal government arrests the secessionists. Using federal troops would likely not be necessary, since national guards are ultimately under the authority of the president, if he calls them up for national service.
Finally, if there was an armed insurrection by natives, they would be put down as domestic terrorists. It would certainly be embarrassing, but not as dangerous as the precedent set by a state leaving the union without a shot fired.
Obviously if the Federal government financially collapses in the next decade, this wouldn’t be a problem. But that is very unlikely, since the government has the power to inflate away its debts. With the dollar as global reserve currency, it doesn’t really have to worry about an Argentina situation.
I think this is about right. The US dedication to self determination is generally limited to small ethnic groups conveniently placed in the interest spheres of rival great powers.
Texas is probably the most likely but I can imagine a number of other possibilities. MatthewB’s post above outlines a plausible case for California for example.
Being from Texas (I was born in Texas, but moved to CA in my mid-20s), I agree with you.
I noticed, when I went to school in Europe in the mid 80s that people there acted as if Texas was almost a different country from the rest of the USA. It was also easy for Europeans to recognize. When a foreign citizen, in Europe, was asked where they were from, Texans would usually answer “Texas”, yet if a person from Louisiana, Alabama, Montana, Idaho, or some other more obscure state attempted to explain where they were from in the terms of their home state, it would usually devolve to “I am from the Southern USA” or “I am from the Northwest/Midwest USA”.
Only New York and California seemed to enjoy this same recognition in Europe.
But, for Texans, they would consider themselves from Texas, first, and the USA second. Whereas most of the other US citizens from other states seemed to identify as USA citizens first, and then by their state.
Texas has a really strong independence from the USA, and it is pretty much the only state with an active Federal movement (movement to recognize the state as its own Nation). California also have one, but it is not nearly as diverse nor as active as that in TX.
However, despite the strong state recognition of its citizens, I think that there are other states that might lead the pack in an attempt to secede. Most of the former Confederate States still seem to have Very deep grudges against the federal gov’t, and when I lived in GA for a few years back in 91⁄92, I was stunned at how many people I encountered who really believed that the Civil War was still not finished, and that The South Shall Rise Again!
Many Republicans seem to be fomenting this sort of thinking as well, with things like the Tea Baggers, or trying to force the recognition of the USA as a Christian Nation
Referring to a (presumably) disfavored political group by a crude sexual dysphemism earned you a vote down. This is not how discourse is done here, please make a note of it.
Not badly calibrated for 2010 in retrospect, though I should have realized at the time that some of your conditional probabilities were crazy: there’s virtually no chance that the Democrats would have held the House if there had been “a new round of bank failures and financial turmoil”, unless that happened after the elections.
Haven’t riots been going on in Greece pretty regularly? (eg, 11/2009) Did you put at 50% the chance that the riots in Greece would stop? Maybe it was reasonable to put at 50% the chance that the riots would stay at 2009 levels and 50% the chance that they would go back to 12/2008 levels, but it’s not clear that “significant” should mean that.
Yes, Greece had riots in 2009. I expected increased civil unrest in developed countries in 2010. My impression is that there is more civil unrest in Greece now than there was last year but I don’t know how to objectively measure that which makes me think I was not specific enough with my prediction in this case.
Since nobody took the other side of the bet it doesn’t matter too much. I’m more interested in how my investments pan out as they represent real bets on my predictions—it’s not much use being right if you can’t turn it into profit.
Holiday retail sales will be below consensus forecasts leading to some market turmoil in the early part of the year as the ‘recovery’ starts to look shaky (70%).
Jan. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Sales at U.S. retailers unexpectedly fell in December following a gain the prior month that was larger than previously estimated, signaling a consumer recovery will be uneven.
The 0.3 percent decrease came after a 1.8 percent jump the prior month, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. The government last month calculated the November gain at 1.3 percent.
...
Retail sales were projected to rise 0.5 percent after an originally reported 1.3 percent gain in November, according to the median estimate of 80 economists in a separate Bloomberg survey. Forecasts ranged from no change to a gain of 1.2 percent.
I’m inclined to call this a confirmation of the first part of my prediction but in retrospect I could have been more specific as to what would constitute confirmation. As to the resulting market turmoil that constitutes the second half of my prediction, I’d say that’s unconfirmed as yet and is also rather unspecific. I’m actually now betting real money on market turmoil by buying VXX which is a bet on increased volatility so I still stand by the second half of the prediction.
I’m going to attempt to continue posting updates on the state of my 1 year predictions as relevant news develops. This prediction exercise is only useful if outcomes are tracked.
One or more developed countries will see significant civil unrest due to ongoing problems with the economy (50%).
I’m not going to claim this [1] as a confirmation of that prediction but I expect to see a lot more of these kinds of demonstrations and on a larger scale. Flaming torches are just the start, the metaphorical pitchforks will come.
I’m curious what the response of the secret service would be to a group of demonstrators with flaming torches surrounding the White House.
[1] “Fire and ice: On Monday, hundreds of people gathered outside the residence of Icelandic President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson in Reykjavik, where they held torches and delivered a petition asking him not to sign the controversial debt legislation.”
Great example of what I’m talking about. I’d challenge you on most of those actually, if there was a convenient and well structured betting forum, but none of them seem crazy to me.
30% probability might be around the point where we start to call things ludicrous. If you talk seriously about things that you think have a 10% chance of happening, you will be beyond the point where most people call it ludicrous, or even crazy; they simply will not understand or believe that that’s what you mean.
This comment provides more confirmation for a view I’ve held for a long time, and which was particularly reinforced by some of the reactions to (the first version of) my Amanda Knox post.
People have trouble distinguishing appropriately among degrees of improbability. This generalizes both underconfidence and overconfidence, and is part of what I regard as a cluster of related errors, including underestimating the size of hypothesis space and failing to judge the strength of evidence properly. (These problems are the reason that judicial systems can’t trust people to decide cases without all kinds of artificial-seeming procedures and rules about what kind of evidence is “allowed”.)
The reality is that given all the numerous events and decisions we experience on a daily basis and throughout our lives, something with a 10% chance of happening or being true is something that we need to take quite seriously indeed. 10% is, easily, planning-level probability; it should attract a significant amount of our attention. By the same token, something which isn’t worth seriously planning on shouldn’t be getting more than single digits of probability-percentage, if that.
There is a vast, huge spectrum of degrees of improbability below 1% (never mind 10% or 30%) that careful thinking can allow us to distinguish, even if our evolved intuitions don’t. Consider for instance the following ten propositions:
(1) The Republicans will win control of both houses of Congress in the 2010
elections.
(2) It will snow in Los Angeles this winter.
(3) There will be a draft in the U.S. by 2020.
(4) I will be dead in a month.
(5) Amanda Knox (or Raffaele Sollecito) was involved in Meredith Kercher’s death.
(6) A U.S. state will make a serious attempt to secede by 2020.
(7) The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, as opposed to the many-worlds interpretation, is correct.
(8) A marble statue has waved or will wave at someone due to quantum tunneling.
(9) Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead.
(10) Christianity is true.
I listed these in (approximately) order of improbability, from most probable to least probable. Now, all of them would be described in ordinary conversation as “extremely improbable”. But there are enormous differences in the degrees of improbability among them, and moreover, we have the ability to distinguish these degrees, to a significant extent.
The 10%-30% range is for propositions like (1) ; the 1%-10% range for things like (2) (the last time it snowed in LA was in the 1960s). Around 1% is about right for (3). Propositions (4), (5), and (6) occupy something like the interval from 0.01% to 1% (I find it hard to discriminate in this range, and in particular to judge these three against each other). Propositions (8), (9), and (10), however, are in a completely different category of improbability: double-digit negative exponents, if you’re being conservative. We could argue about (7), but it probably belongs somewhere in between (4)-(6) and (8)-(10); maybe around 10^(-10), if you account for post-QM theories somehow turning Copenhagen into something more mundane than it seems now.
So the point is, we, right here, have the tools to make estimates that are a lot more meaningful than “probably yes” or “probably no”. I remember reading that we tend to be overconfident on hard things and underconfident on easy things; I think we can afford to be a little more bold on the no-brainers.
Propositions (8), (9), and (10), however, are in a completely different category of improbability: double-digit negative exponents, if you’re being conservative.
It would of course be sacrilegious to place (8) below (9) and (10). Nevertheless even in the case of apparently overwhelming evidence, if you disagree with a mainstream belief 10^(-20) times you will be wrong rather a lot more than once.
Meanwhile, quantum tunnelling is a specific phenomenon which, if possible (very likely) gives fairly clear bounds on just how ridiculously improbable it is for a marble statue to wave. Even possible improbable worlds which make quantum tunnelling more likely still leave (8) less probable than (9) (but perhaps not 10).
I personally place (10) at no less than 10^(-5) and would be comfortable accusing anyone going below 10^(-7) of being confused about probabilities (at least as related to human beliefs).
Nevertheless even in the case of apparently overwhelming evidence, if you disagree with a mainstream belief 10^(-20) times you will be wrong rather a lot more than once.
Like most majoritarian arguments, this throws away information: the relevant reference class is “mainstream beliefs you think are that improbable”. (edit: no, I didn’t read the whole sentence) In that class, it’s not obvious to me that one would certainly be wrong more than once, if one could come up with 10^20 independent mainstream propositions that unlikely and seriously consider them all while never going completely insane. Going completely insane in the time required to consider one proposition seems far more likely than 10^-20, but also seems to cancel out of any decision, so it makes sense to implicitly condition everything on basic sanity.
Meanwhile, quantum tunnelling is a specific phenomenon which, if possible (very likely) gives fairly clear bounds on just how ridiculously improbable it is for a marble statue to wave. Even possible improbable worlds which make quantum tunnelling more likely still leave (8) less probable than (9) (but perhaps not 10).
(9), and (10) for some definitions of “Christianity”, being more likely than (8) seems conceivable due to interventionist simulators (something I really have no idea how to reason about), but not for any other object-level reason I can think of. Can you think of others?
I personally place (10) at no less than 10^(-5) and would be comfortable accusing anyone going below 10^(-7) of being confused about probabilities (at least as related to human beliefs).
I’d be inclined to accuse anyone going above… something below 10^-7… of being far too modest.
Like most majoritarian arguments, this throws away information: the relevant reference class is “mainstream beliefs you think are that improbable”.
No, that is the reference class intended and described (“apparently overwhelming evidence”).
In that class, it’s not obvious to me that one would certainly be wrong more than once, if one could come up with 10^20 independent mainstream propositions that unlikely and seriously consider them all while never going completely insane.
Your prior is wrong (that is, it does not reflect the information that is freely available to you).
Going completely insane in the time required to consider one proposition seems far more likely than 10^-20, but also seems to cancel out of any decision, so it makes sense to implicitly condition everything on basic sanity.
Considering normal levels of sanity are sufficient. Failing to account for the known weaknesses in your reasoning is a failure of rationality.
I’d be inclined to accuse anyone going above… something below 10^-7… of being far too modest.
I am comfortable accusing you of being confused about probabilities as related to human beliefs.
Propositions (4), (5), and (6) occupy something like the interval from 0.01% to 1% (I find it hard to discriminate in this range, and in particular to judge these three against each other).
I’d guess you could estimate (4) to within an order of magnitude or better from an actuarial table.
You display a pessimism much greater than I think is warranted. My predictions for some of your statements:
Next decade:
One or more countries will drop out of the Euro or the entire system will collapse (5%).
A US state will secede (3%).
Developed countries’ welfare states will begin to collapse (state retirement and unemployment benefits and health care will be severely curtailed or eliminated in more than one developed country) (10%).
Next year:
One or more developed countries will see significant civil unrest due to ongoing problems with the economy (5-20%, depending on how we define a significant unrest).
Holiday retail sales will be below consensus forecasts leading to some market turmoil in the early part of the year as the ‘recovery’ starts to look shaky (30%).
A developed country will suffer a currency crisis—most likely either the UK, US or one of the weaker Eurozone economies (15%).
A new round of bank failures and financial turmoil as the wave of Option ARM mortgage resets starts to hit and commercial real estate collapses including at least one major bank failure (a ‘too big to fail’ bank) (15%).
A major terrorist attack in the US (20%) most likely with a connection to Pakistan. The response will be disproportionate to the magnitude of the attack (99%).
Next Year
Holiday retail sales will be below consensus forecasts leading to some market turmoil in the early part of the year as the ‘recovery’ starts to look shaky (70%).
A developed country will suffer a currency crisis—most likely either the UK, US or one of the weaker Eurozone economies (60%).
A new round of bank failures and financial turmoil as the wave of Option ARM mortgage resets starts to hit and commercial real estate collapses including at least one major bank failure (a ‘too big to fail’ bank) (75%).
A major terrorist attack in the US (50%) most likely with a connection to Pakistan. The response will be disproportionate to the magnitude of the attack (99%).
Apple will launch a tablet and will aim to do for print media what it has done for music (80%).
Democrats will lose seats in Congress and the Senate in the elections but Republicans will not gain control of either house (70%).
One or more developed countries will see significant civil unrest due to ongoing problems with the economy (50%).
Next Decade
US will undergo a severe currency crisis (more likely) or sovereign default (less likely) (75%).
Developed countries’ welfare states will begin to collapse (state retirement and unemployment benefits and health care will be severely curtailed or eliminated in more than one developed country) (75%).
UK will undergo a severe currency crisis or sovereign default (90%).
One or more countries will drop out of the Euro or the entire system will collapse (75%).
A US state will secede (30%).
A major terrorist attack in the US (50%) most likely with a connection to Pakistan.
I would be very happy to accept a bet with you on those odds if there’s a way to sort it out. I’d define major as any attack with more than ten deaths.
I voted all the betting comments up because I think this is awesome. Does this kind of thing happen often here?
I occasionally offer people bets, but I think this has been the first time for me that the subject of contention is the right shape for betting to be a real possibility.
Do you have a PayPal account? I’d be willing to wager $50 USD to be paid within 2 weeks of Jan 1st 2011 if you’re interested. I can provide my email address. That would rely on mutual trust but I don’t know of any websites that can act as trusted intermediaries. Do you know of anything like that?
For $50, trust-based is OK with me.
How about this wording? “10 or more people will be killed on US soil during 2010 as the result of a deliberate attack by a party with a political goal, not overtly the act of any state”. And if we hit an edge case where we disagree on whether this has been met, we’ll do a poll here on LW and accept the results of the poll. Sound good?
I’d like to change the wording slightly to “on US soil, or on a flight to or from the US” if that’s alright with you (even though I think an attack on an aircraft is less likely than an attack not involving aircraft). A poll here sounds like a fair way to resolve any dispute. I expect to still be reading/posting here fairly regularly in a year but I’m also happy to provide my email address if you want.
Do you think this was a terrorist attack? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Hood_shooting
The term “terrorism” is usually taken to mean an attack on civilians, though as a legal matter, this is far from settled. This definition would exclude the Fort Hood shooting, where the targets were soldiers. In any case, the bet is over non-state, politically motivated killing, which is broader and would include Fort Hood, I think.
FWIW: The targets at Fort Hood were soldiers, but predictably-disarmed soldiers. In the area Hasan attacked, the soldiers he shot at aren’t allowed to carry weapons or even have them within easy reach. So it’s more analogous to shooting up a bar frequented by soldiers that takes your weapons at the door.
Plus, his attack was intended to spread terror, not to achieve a military objective (any weakness he inflicted on the army capability itself was probably a secondary goal).
I was going to ask whether people would classify the recent attack on the IRS building in Texas as terrorism. It wouldn’t qualify for the bet either way because there was only 1 casualty but I’m curious if people think it would count as terrorism?
Bob Murphy’s post, excerpting Glen Greenwald, summarizes my position very well. In short:
1) What Stack did meets the reasonable definition of terrorism: “deliberate use of violence against noncombatants to achieve political or social goals by inducing terror [in the opposing population]”.
2) Most of what the government is classifying as terrorism, isn’t. Fighting an invading army, no matter how unjust your cause may be, is not terrorism. Whetever injustice you may be committing does not additionally count as terrorism. Yet the label is being applied to insurgents.
3) It’s in the government’s interest, in taking over the terrorism label, that Stack not be called a terrorist, because he seems too (otherwise) normal. People want to think of terrorists as being “different”; a middle-aged, high-earning programmer ain’t the image they have in mind, and if they did have that in mind, they’d be more resistant to make concessions in the name of fighting terrorism.
Excellent question! If such an attack happens this year, I’d say it wasn’t a terrorist attack, but if mattnewport felt that it was I’d pay out without making a poll.
I’d lean towards saying it was a terrorist attack but I’m sufficiently uncertain about how to classify it that I’d be happy to let a community poll settle the question.
Could you email me so I have your address too? paul at ciphergoth.org. Thanks!
Had limited Internet access over the New Year, I’ve sent you an email.
I think I won this one—have emailed the address you sent me. Thanks!
EDIT: paid in full—many thanks!
Fine with me. My email is paul at ciphergoth.org. How exciting!
Re: “10 or more people will be killed on US soil during 2010 as the result of a deliberate attack by a party with a political goal, not overtly the act of any state”.
How come “Pakistan” got dropped? A contributing reason for the claim being unlikely was that it was extremely specific.
From the wording, it seemed that the 50% was for any attack, not just one with Pakistan involved. I think I’m on to a pretty good bet even without it. It’s not as unlikely as a US state seceding, but I didn’t want to wait ten years :-)
The US State seceding is something that many of my friends sit around contemplating. We have had speculations about whether it will be a state like Mississippi, or South Carolina (Red), or if it will be a state like California or Oregon (Blue).
The Red States are pretty easy to understand why they might wish to secede from the heathen atheistic socialist nazi USA… But, the motivations for a Blue State are a bit more complex.
For instance, in California, I have noticed a lot of people complaining about how much money this state pays into Social Security, yet only gets back about 10% of that money. If we were able to get back all of it, instead of supporting states like South Carolina or Mississippi, we would be able to go a long way toward solving many of our own social ills. Not to mention that many in CA chafe under having to belong to the same union as states such as those I have mentioned, and thus have issues with being able to even pursue social solutions that might pay off big (Stem Cell research, Legalization & regulation of narcotics, work and skills training for inmates—and socialization skills for the same, infrastructure work to which the USA is slow to commit, and so on).
All of these are also issues that Red States like to brag about being able to focus on if they were to secede. The only problem with most Red States is, just like in the Civil War, they have little to no economy of their own. Texas (Maybe Florida) is really the exception. Also, should a Red State secede, most of the best and brightest would flee the state (Academics usually don’t like working under ideological bonds, for instance).
It will be interesting to see what would happen should a state try to secede. I think it could be the best thing that could happen to our country if things continue to become divisive.
That’s why California’s economy is 20 billion plus in the red. And has been for years. Fine fiscal management.
That’s why your governor has gone begging Washington for a bailout. Off of our backs, not yours.
You folks should secede. You’d save the rest of us from yourselves.
-- Born an bred in California, escaped the insanity as soon as I could.
As I understand it, our economy is in such dire straights because most of the money in CA’s taxes leaves the state instead of staying in it.
I could be wrong about that. I am mostly dealing with facts I have obtained from Gov’t web sites, so the data could be skewed.
Your statement only deals with the management and not the fiscal reality of the cash flow in CA. It is true that we have a financial shortfall, but that could be the case with anyone, even if they made billions of dollars a year if all of that money was being taken by another party. No management in the world would be able to help in that situation.
Texas is another big tax donor state, yet they turn budget surpluses mostly. The difference is California doesn’t bother to balance their out of control spending with their revenues.
Texas, though, doesn’t contribute more to the US Budget than they get out, and… I hate to say this… Both GW Bush, and his predecessor in the Governors office did pretty good jobs managing the State.
During the Office of Rick Perry, they had some tremendous problems (I am from Texas, and technically, it is still a state of residence for some of my bills). Texas and California are however, the only two states (NY Possibly an exception, but only barely) that could really stand as an independent country in this day and age (They both did so in the past under very different conditions).
Upon thinking about it a bit. CA does have a more out of control spending problem. I still think that the problem could be remedied by a more equitable share of their Federal Tax money (not just Social Security) being returned to the state. Regardless of whether that happened, fiscal responsibility is needed. It doesn’t do any good to increase an income if the expenses rise disproportionately.
Actually, Texas does contribute more than they get back. Texas gets 94% of federal tax contributions back. California gets 79% back.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/1397.html
Based on that map we can also see that more agriculturally focused states do well from federal tax dollars. I assume this is mostly farm subsidies.
You are correct about federal taxing vs. spending with respect to states.
California’s uniquely awful budget crisis is mainly due to the state’s consitutional amendment that requires a supermajority to raise state taxes (and the fact that it’s never in the Republican minority’s political interest to agree to a tax hike), along with the lawmakers’ shortsighted tendency to cut taxes when the economy was in great shape.
(N.B: it’s spelled “dire straits”.)
I knew that I wasn’t imagining that bit about the Fed Taxing v spending.
I was also aware of the supermajority thing. Although, I wonder exactly how much of a Republican Schwarzenegger really is (I hope I spelled his name right. I can’t be bothered to find out). He has many beliefs about the rule of law and government that I find to be very at odds with the Republicans, and all I can really find that binds them together is his extreme misogynism and love of guns (alright, I could look further and find more, I am sure, but my point is that he is really a populist candidate/politician who just happened to land in the Republican’s back yard).
CA’s budget crises can also be traced to several Texas Energy companies (Does Enron mean anything to anyone) who gouged the state in all kind of manipulative practices during the late 90s/early 00s.
Also, never mind that California is responsible for around 12% − 14% of the USA’s total economy, or that we have a GDP, all on our own of around 2 trillion dollars (the largest in the USA, and I believe that we are right behind England or France in total GDP)… Yeah, never mind all that (to the naysayers of California).
Oh, I see—sorry!
I looked into who was going to win such a bet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assassinations_and_acts_of_terrorism_against_Americans
...looks like a reasonable resource on the topic.
I’m not sure that the acts of a single person with no associations with anyone else are really the sort of thing I had in mind, but it’s too late to refine the bet now, so we’ll see whether people think such a thing counts if we need to.
“10 or more people [...] as the result of a deliberate attack” seems to suggest that 10 assassinations in 2010 would probably not qualify—unless it was proved that they were all linked. My summary of the link is that there have been few terrorist attacks against Americans on American soil recently.
Agreed.
What makes your think 2010 is the year? I mean, this has even been floating around lately. And at 99%^h^h^h50% confidence!
That was 99% confidence that the response will be disproportionate to the magnitude of the attack, if an attack takes place, not 99% confidence that there will be an attack. My odds of an attack were 50%. I think an attack is fairly unlikely to be on an aircraft—security is relatively tight on aircraft compared to other possible targets.
I’ll agree that if anything happens, or even if something doesn’t (is thwarted), the response will be silly and disproportionate. However, I still think you’re way too high with 50%.
You must specify disproportionately high, or disproportionately low.
I thought disproportionately high went without saying (but then I would with a confidence level that high wouldn’t I?)
A declaration of war, curtailment of liberties, or other expenditure of resources more than ten times the loss of resources (including life, which is not priceless) it tries prevent.
Is there a standard method for assigning a numerical value to liberties?
The money those people would pay to avoid the loss of liberty, had they the option.
That’s a valid measure, but it would require a fairly complicated study to actually get a value for it.
And it’s complicated by loss aversion.
I’ve added this prediction to PredictionBook: http://predictionbook.com/predictions/1565 based on the description at http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Bets_registry
So now that 2010 is more than half over with no attack that I know of, have you or mattnewport’s opinions changed?
(I notice that domestic terrorism seems kind of spiky—quite a few in one year, and none the next: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Islamist_terrorism_in_the_United_States omits entire years but has several in one year, like 2007 or 2009.)
I am more confident of winning as you’d expect. But I’m finding it counterintuitive to adjust my subjective probability for losing the bet in proportion to the portion of the year that’s lapsed, which means either my initial probability was too low or my current one is too high.
Incidentally, if you have a specific probability for an event occurring in 1 out of 365 days, say, or not occurring at all, you could try to calculate exactly what probability to give it occurring in the rest of the year (considering that it’s August): http://www.xamuel.com/hope-function/ / http://www.gwern.net/docs/1994-falk
(Actually calculating the new probability is left as an exercise for the reader.)
A US state will secede (30%).
I will take a bet on this, if you like. Also, did you perhaps mean “attempt to secede”, or are you predicting actual success? I’ll take the bet either way.
You’ll have to define what constitutes an attempt.
Perhaps a vote goes through the state legislature in favor of secession?
On further reflection I think I need to revise my estimate down somewhat. Thinking on it further my 30% estimate is conditional on general trends that I think are more likely than not to occur but I did not correctly incorporate them into the estimate for secession. I think 10-15% is probably a better estimate taking that into account.
I think the political pressure for secession will stem from an extended period of economic weakness in the US and widespread fiscal crises in states like California and New York. If, as seems likely, federal aid is seen to go disproportionately to certain states that have the most troubled finances then the states that feel they are losing out will begin to see secession as an attractive option. My original estimate did not sufficiently account for the possibility that I am wrong about the economic troubles ahead however.
I would still be willing to take a bet at these odds, given some reasonably clear-cut definition of “attempt to secede”.
I think we could probably hammer out a mutually agreeable definition but the decade time frame for a pay out makes a bet on this impractical I feel. I’m reasonably comfortable making a bet to be settled next January but a bet to be settled in 2020 doesn’t seem practical through an agreement on a forum.
So close on Brexit, but just missed the deadline.
Britain was in the EU, but it kept Pounds Sterling, it never adopted the Euro.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_European_sovereign_debt_crisis
Not bad.
I guess now is a good time for a 6 month review of how the predictions in this thread are panning out.
Retail sales were a bit worse than expected but despite a bit of a dip in the stock market in late Jan / early Feb it took longer than I expected for the recovery in the US to be seriously questioned. It’s only in the last few weeks that talk of a double dip recession has become really widespread. The problems in Europe and more recently in China brought the global recovery into question a bit earlier but overall the jury is still out. I think I could argue that this prediction was correct as written but I was expecting more problems earlier in the year.
I think the problems in Greece (and to a lesser extent Spain and Portugal) and the resulting turmoil in the Euro are sufficient to say this prediction was correct. The UK pound has also had a rough time but in both cases ‘currency crisis’ could still be argued. I expect further problems before the year is out.
Hasn’t happened yet. Option ARM resets will be picking up through the second half of the year so I still expect problems from that. A little less confident that it will mean a major bank failure—that is somewhat dependent on the political climate as well.
The attempted bombing in Times Square appears to have had a Pakistan link. It can’t really be called a ‘major’ attack however. I still think there is a fair chance of this happening before the year is out but odds are a little lower (my estimate of how incompetent most terrorists are has increased a little).
The iPad and iBooks launch bear this out I think.
Won’t know until November. I think the prediction is still reasonable.
The riots and strikes in Greece and strikes in Spain arguably confirm this. The prediction is a little vague however and I was expecting somewhat more serious civil unrest than we’ve seen so far. It remains to be seen what will happen as the rest of the year unfolds.
No change here.
Some early signs of this with retirement age increases and other austerity measures in Greece and elsewhere in Europe. I still expect to see a lot more of this before the decade is out.
Odds on this down slightly I think—there’s some evidence that the new government is serious about addressing the problems. Less evidence that they will succeed.
I think the problems here have been more widely recognized than when I wrote the prediction. My odds haven’t changed much though.
No change here. And it’s secession week.
Shouldn’t the odds go down by about half, just because half the year is used up?
The failed Times Square attack raised my probability for attempts at attacks this year but lowered my probability that any attempted attacks would be effective enough to classify as ‘major’. On balance I think the odds of a major attack in the remaining 6 months are lower than 50% at this point but events since my original prediction weigh into my estimate now and so it’s not a simple matter of adjusting the odds based on elapsed time.
I think this prediction has failed utterly. In the Euro zone, There are/were debt crises in Greece and Ireland, but the currency, the Euro itself did fine. A graph of the variation of the Euro against the US dollar shows no special variation in 2010 compared to its “typical” variations over the last decade. The pound maintained the value in 2010 that it had already fallen to in 2009, hardly even slightly adhering to a prediction about 2010.
Those were exciting predictions. Had you predicted a sovereign debt crisis in a developed country, you would have been right, and it would have been a much less exciting prediction than a currency crisis.
There’s room for debate whether we saw a true currency crisis in the Euro but ‘this prediction has failed utterly’ is overstating it. We saw unusually dramatic short term moves in the Euro in May and there was widespread talk about the future of the Euro being uncertain. Questions about the long term viability of the Euro continue to be raised.
I’d argue that charting any of the major currencies against gold indicates an ongoing loss of confidence in all of them—from this perspective the dollar and the euro have both declined in absolute value over the year while trading places in terms of relative value in response to changing perceptions of which one faces the biggest problems.
‘Currency crisis’ was in retrospect a somewhat ambiguous prediction to make since there is no clear criteria for establishing what constitutes one. I’d argue that the euro underwent the beginnings of a currency crisis in May but that the unprecedented intervention by the ECB forestalled a full blown currency crisis.
I looked at Gold vs Euro from your link over 10 years. It shows a ssteady decline since mid 2004, with no change in that trend to distinguish 2010 from 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, or 2005. It seems to me that if no special effects in currency vs currency or in currency vs gold can be seen in 2010 that the most rational label for that prediction would be “wrong.” YMMV, but I don’t see why it should. Would you accept “this prediction has failed” if I leave off the utterly?
US states aren’t allowed to secede. Not even Texas. The US government would lose so much prestige from the loss of a state, that they would never allow it. So it would require some kind of armed conflict that no one state could ever win.
Are you really certain that the federal government would send the military in to prevent a state seceding if secession was clearly the democratic will of the people of the state? I wouldn’t rule out the possibility but I think it would be an unlikely outcome.
I’m pretty certain the federal government will not take the blow of a state leaving in the next decade, at least. They might be slightly more likely to let a quirky, small state like Vermont or New Hampshire leave, since clamping down on a tiny state would look bad, and the loss would be negligible. But then they would set a dangerous precedent for more important possible secessionist states like Texas (Texans are somewhat nationalistic, though also often super-american/patriotic), New Mexico (majority-minority state) or Alaska (active secessionist movement).
What exactly is the federal government going to do about it though? I think using the military to suppress a state that was attempting a peaceful secession would be very hard for the government to justify. It’s a possibility but I think the probability is low that US troops would be deployed on US soil to prevent a state seceding. Plus I expect the federal government to have very major financial problems which will limit its ability to act.
Few people in 1982 would have predicted that the USSR would allow its constituent republics to secede peacefully within a decade.
It is settled legally, that the states do not have the authority to secede, they tried during the Civil War. Many people thought that states could leave the union at that time. However the precedent set by Lincoln’s actions are unchallenged now by the legal establishment.
Anyway, the procedure would go like this:
State government announces secession.
then
2a. Federal government challenges legality of secession in courts.
3a. Supreme court declares the secession unconstitutional.
Or:
2b. Federal government charges rebels with Treason.
3b. Federal government arrests the secessionists. Using federal troops would likely not be necessary, since national guards are ultimately under the authority of the president, if he calls them up for national service.
Finally, if there was an armed insurrection by natives, they would be put down as domestic terrorists. It would certainly be embarrassing, but not as dangerous as the precedent set by a state leaving the union without a shot fired.
Obviously if the Federal government financially collapses in the next decade, this wouldn’t be a problem. But that is very unlikely, since the government has the power to inflate away its debts. With the dollar as global reserve currency, it doesn’t really have to worry about an Argentina situation.
I think this is about right. The US dedication to self determination is generally limited to small ethnic groups conveniently placed in the interest spheres of rival great powers.
I think it is likely that the dollar will not still be the global reserve currency by the end of the decade.
Looks like it is still the global reserve currency.
I don’t see that happening—which one or ones do you think are most likely to leave?
Scotland may well leave the UK (10%), or the UK leave the EU (15%).
Texas is probably the most likely but I can imagine a number of other possibilities. MatthewB’s post above outlines a plausible case for California for example.
Being from Texas (I was born in Texas, but moved to CA in my mid-20s), I agree with you.
I noticed, when I went to school in Europe in the mid 80s that people there acted as if Texas was almost a different country from the rest of the USA. It was also easy for Europeans to recognize. When a foreign citizen, in Europe, was asked where they were from, Texans would usually answer “Texas”, yet if a person from Louisiana, Alabama, Montana, Idaho, or some other more obscure state attempted to explain where they were from in the terms of their home state, it would usually devolve to “I am from the Southern USA” or “I am from the Northwest/Midwest USA”.
Only New York and California seemed to enjoy this same recognition in Europe.
But, for Texans, they would consider themselves from Texas, first, and the USA second. Whereas most of the other US citizens from other states seemed to identify as USA citizens first, and then by their state.
Texas has a really strong independence from the USA, and it is pretty much the only state with an active Federal movement (movement to recognize the state as its own Nation). California also have one, but it is not nearly as diverse nor as active as that in TX.
However, despite the strong state recognition of its citizens, I think that there are other states that might lead the pack in an attempt to secede. Most of the former Confederate States still seem to have Very deep grudges against the federal gov’t, and when I lived in GA for a few years back in 91⁄92, I was stunned at how many people I encountered who really believed that the Civil War was still not finished, and that The South Shall Rise Again!
Many Republicans seem to be fomenting this sort of thinking as well, with things like the Tea Baggers, or trying to force the recognition of the USA as a Christian Nation
Referring to a (presumably) disfavored political group by a crude sexual dysphemism earned you a vote down. This is not how discourse is done here, please make a note of it.
Relevant wikipedia link
Not badly calibrated for 2010 in retrospect, though I should have realized at the time that some of your conditional probabilities were crazy: there’s virtually no chance that the Democrats would have held the House if there had been “a new round of bank failures and financial turmoil”, unless that happened after the elections.
I think you got that one.
This is the sort of thing I was thinking of and expect to see more of.
Haven’t riots been going on in Greece pretty regularly? (eg, 11/2009) Did you put at 50% the chance that the riots in Greece would stop? Maybe it was reasonable to put at 50% the chance that the riots would stay at 2009 levels and 50% the chance that they would go back to 12/2008 levels, but it’s not clear that “significant” should mean that.
Yes, Greece had riots in 2009. I expected increased civil unrest in developed countries in 2010. My impression is that there is more civil unrest in Greece now than there was last year but I don’t know how to objectively measure that which makes me think I was not specific enough with my prediction in this case.
Since nobody took the other side of the bet it doesn’t matter too much. I’m more interested in how my investments pan out as they represent real bets on my predictions—it’s not much use being right if you can’t turn it into profit.
I’m going to call this a hit but it was pretty much a gimme. My 80% estimate may have been too low.
U.S. Retail Sales Unexpectedly Fall After Bigger Gain
I’m inclined to call this a confirmation of the first part of my prediction but in retrospect I could have been more specific as to what would constitute confirmation. As to the resulting market turmoil that constitutes the second half of my prediction, I’d say that’s unconfirmed as yet and is also rather unspecific. I’m actually now betting real money on market turmoil by buying VXX which is a bet on increased volatility so I still stand by the second half of the prediction.
I’m going to attempt to continue posting updates on the state of my 1 year predictions as relevant news develops. This prediction exercise is only useful if outcomes are tracked.
I’m not going to claim this [1] as a confirmation of that prediction but I expect to see a lot more of these kinds of demonstrations and on a larger scale. Flaming torches are just the start, the metaphorical pitchforks will come.
I’m curious what the response of the secret service would be to a group of demonstrators with flaming torches surrounding the White House.
[1] “Fire and ice: On Monday, hundreds of people gathered outside the residence of Icelandic President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson in Reykjavik, where they held torches and delivered a petition asking him not to sign the controversial debt legislation.”
Great example of what I’m talking about. I’d challenge you on most of those actually, if there was a convenient and well structured betting forum, but none of them seem crazy to me.
None of the others do, but this one seems ludicrous to me.
30% probability might be around the point where we start to call things ludicrous. If you talk seriously about things that you think have a 10% chance of happening, you will be beyond the point where most people call it ludicrous, or even crazy; they simply will not understand or believe that that’s what you mean.
This comment provides more confirmation for a view I’ve held for a long time, and which was particularly reinforced by some of the reactions to (the first version of) my Amanda Knox post.
People have trouble distinguishing appropriately among degrees of improbability. This generalizes both underconfidence and overconfidence, and is part of what I regard as a cluster of related errors, including underestimating the size of hypothesis space and failing to judge the strength of evidence properly. (These problems are the reason that judicial systems can’t trust people to decide cases without all kinds of artificial-seeming procedures and rules about what kind of evidence is “allowed”.)
The reality is that given all the numerous events and decisions we experience on a daily basis and throughout our lives, something with a 10% chance of happening or being true is something that we need to take quite seriously indeed. 10% is, easily, planning-level probability; it should attract a significant amount of our attention. By the same token, something which isn’t worth seriously planning on shouldn’t be getting more than single digits of probability-percentage, if that.
There is a vast, huge spectrum of degrees of improbability below 1% (never mind 10% or 30%) that careful thinking can allow us to distinguish, even if our evolved intuitions don’t. Consider for instance the following ten propositions:
(1) The Republicans will win control of both houses of Congress in the 2010 elections.
(2) It will snow in Los Angeles this winter.
(3) There will be a draft in the U.S. by 2020.
(4) I will be dead in a month.
(5) Amanda Knox (or Raffaele Sollecito) was involved in Meredith Kercher’s death.
(6) A U.S. state will make a serious attempt to secede by 2020.
(7) The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, as opposed to the many-worlds interpretation, is correct.
(8) A marble statue has waved or will wave at someone due to quantum tunneling.
(9) Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead.
(10) Christianity is true.
I listed these in (approximately) order of improbability, from most probable to least probable. Now, all of them would be described in ordinary conversation as “extremely improbable”. But there are enormous differences in the degrees of improbability among them, and moreover, we have the ability to distinguish these degrees, to a significant extent.
The 10%-30% range is for propositions like (1) ; the 1%-10% range for things like (2) (the last time it snowed in LA was in the 1960s). Around 1% is about right for (3). Propositions (4), (5), and (6) occupy something like the interval from 0.01% to 1% (I find it hard to discriminate in this range, and in particular to judge these three against each other). Propositions (8), (9), and (10), however, are in a completely different category of improbability: double-digit negative exponents, if you’re being conservative. We could argue about (7), but it probably belongs somewhere in between (4)-(6) and (8)-(10); maybe around 10^(-10), if you account for post-QM theories somehow turning Copenhagen into something more mundane than it seems now.
So the point is, we, right here, have the tools to make estimates that are a lot more meaningful than “probably yes” or “probably no”. I remember reading that we tend to be overconfident on hard things and underconfident on easy things; I think we can afford to be a little more bold on the no-brainers.
It would of course be sacrilegious to place (8) below (9) and (10). Nevertheless even in the case of apparently overwhelming evidence, if you disagree with a mainstream belief 10^(-20) times you will be wrong rather a lot more than once.
Meanwhile, quantum tunnelling is a specific phenomenon which, if possible (very likely) gives fairly clear bounds on just how ridiculously improbable it is for a marble statue to wave. Even possible improbable worlds which make quantum tunnelling more likely still leave (8) less probable than (9) (but perhaps not 10).
I personally place (10) at no less than 10^(-5) and would be comfortable accusing anyone going below 10^(-7) of being confused about probabilities (at least as related to human beliefs).
Like most majoritarian arguments, this throws away information: the relevant reference class is “mainstream beliefs you think are that improbable”. (edit: no, I didn’t read the whole sentence) In that class, it’s not obvious to me that one would certainly be wrong more than once, if one could come up with 10^20 independent mainstream propositions that unlikely and seriously consider them all while never going completely insane. Going completely insane in the time required to consider one proposition seems far more likely than 10^-20, but also seems to cancel out of any decision, so it makes sense to implicitly condition everything on basic sanity.
(Related: Horrible LHC Inconsistency)
(9), and (10) for some definitions of “Christianity”, being more likely than (8) seems conceivable due to interventionist simulators (something I really have no idea how to reason about), but not for any other object-level reason I can think of. Can you think of others?
I’d be inclined to accuse anyone going above… something below 10^-7… of being far too modest.
No, that is the reference class intended and described (“apparently overwhelming evidence”).
Your prior is wrong (that is, it does not reflect the information that is freely available to you).
Considering normal levels of sanity are sufficient. Failing to account for the known weaknesses in your reasoning is a failure of rationality.
I am comfortable accusing you of being confused about probabilities as related to human beliefs.
I’d guess you could estimate (4) to within an order of magnitude or better from an actuarial table.
Well under 30% certainly, but I wouldn’t give it under 4%. A decade is long and the US is young.
I think a draft is much more likely.
You display a pessimism much greater than I think is warranted. My predictions for some of your statements:
Next decade:
Next year:
These seem overly optimistic to me. Maybe increase the numbers by 50% to 100% other than 99?