Predictions
Profiles: PolyMarket / Metaculus / Manifold Markets
Tags: akarlin.com / unz.com / @powerfultakes / @ethotaku
Last updated: Jan 26, 2025
The worth of any given analyst should ideally distill down to how well he or she predicts the state of the world from the information and methods at their disposal. #SkinInTheGame To this end, I have never shied from taking public bets on things that I think I have some confidence in. This page tallies the results in what I will try to progressively make as fair and impartial manner as possible. However, do note that prior calibration exercises were all done in a piecemeal and inconsistent manner – the closest time I ever got to doing this systemically, in the Scott Alexander fashion, was in the late 2010s, when I temporarily got into a habit of making start of year predictions and calibrating at the end (2016: Predictions/Calibration; 2017: Predictions/Calibration; 2018: Predictions/Calibration).
My list of successful Predictions includes COVID, multiple elections results, and SBF going to jail.
I only committed to updating this page rigorously in April 2023, including mirroring predictions I make on the blog, Twitter, or Metaculus. So subsequent predictions only becomes truly “calibrated” from that date.
Politics
US Politics
Nov 14, 2024: Trump – Musk Breakup: “I’m now like 90% sure the alliance between Trump and Elon isn’t going to even last a year.” ✅ June 5, 2025.
Oct 9, 2021: Predict Biden vs. Trump in US Election 2024, with a Biden victory at The Stark Truth. ❓coming along nicely so far
Nov 2, 2020: Biden wins 279/Trump 259, raw votes: 51.10% vs. Trump 47.07% in US Election 2024.
Final results: Biden 206/Trump 232, raw votes: 51.3% vs. 46.8%.
Amusing tabulation of my correct predictions (meant to “own” me?) from Russian anti-vaxxer MAGA chud.
Nov 8, 2016: Hillary Clinton wins in US Election 2016. ❌
Aug 12, 2012: Obama wins in US Election 2016. ✅
July 17, 2008: Obama wins in US Election 2016. ✅
World Politics
Apr 24, 2011: Predict rising prominence of Green, “pirate”, and Far Right ideologies relative to established SocDem/conservative orthodoxies. ✅ Seems to have happened: Greta; Wikileaks; Alt Right.
Russian Politics
Mar 14, 2024: Putin wins Davankov 7.4%, Putin 81.4%, Slutsky 3.3%, Kharitonov 6.5%, Spoiled ballots 1.4% in Russia Election 2024 (note: “no “phase change” in extent of Russian electoral falsifications”; there was). ❌
Final results: Davankov 3.9%, Putin 87.3%, Slutsky 3.2%, Kharitonov 4.3%, Spoiled ballots 1.4%
World Affairs
Geopolitics
Dec 8, 2024: Bearish on Jolani’s Syria ❓✅
Jan 30, 2021: No Belarus Maidan ✅
Jan 11, 2020: No Iranian Color Revolution ✅
Ukraine War
March 2018: The Ukraine Has Not Yet Perished (And Won’t Anytime Soon) – tally of prior Ukraine predictions (=accurate), and subsequently, completely vindicated. ✅
I am going to tally up my Ukraine War predictions more methodically in a separate post, but for now, I will make the following remarks:
(1) Retrospectively correct in 2018 it would no longer be a “smooth cruise to the Dnieper”.
(2) I was correct on my strong insistence from early January that the war was going to happen.
(3) I drastically overestimated Russian military strength and political competence (as did RUGOV, US intelligence (0, 1, 2), and virtually all of Metaculus).
Naturally, these Tweets became memes in NAFO Twitter and what I’m best known for as a predictor
(4) I was correct on most all other aspects and specific predictions on the conflict to date, inc. on Kherson withdrawal, Ukrainian manpower problems, etc.
I have also been correct in my Jan 2023 prediction that the conflict will degenerate into a stalemate for the foreseeable future.
Econ, Tech & Society
Economics
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Tech
May 28, 2025: AI factories by 2029 at 100:1 odds vs. Remy Grangien.
Troll Predictions
Society
Dec 7, 2022: Russia to legalize gay marriage by 2033 (semi-trollish; contingent on color revolution). ❓
Jan 13, 2018: Poland to legalize gay marriage within 10 years. ❓
Demographics
Third World fertility rates. China.
COVID-19
There is a much more detailed tally from May 2020 in which I scored myself 68/80 on predicting the course of the Corona pandemic.
Jan 22/24, 2020: First raised the alarm, guesstimated IFT at ~1%, and speculated about 20 million global deaths.
Jan 27, 2020: Suggested it was bioerror based in Bayesian reasoning about the BSL-4 lab in Wuhan. Treated as conspiracy theory for the next two years, before officials started coming round c.2022 as Cold War with China heated up. ✅looks likely
Feb 24, 2020: Predicted global spread and “millions” of deaths.
From late Feb/March 2020: Advocated “go hard or go home” policies from the start in relation to lockdowns, shilling for masks when MSM was against them. ✅
Finance & Crypto
In some ways, trading is the “purest” form of prediction peddling, since you have to very literally put your money where you month is.
Dec 1, 2017: Sold Bitcoin at $11,000 (though I only had a symbolic amount). ✅.
Apr 15, 2019/Nov 2021: My main real main accomplishment in this sphere is 10x’ing portfolio by calling the crypto bottom in April 2019 and selling the top in November 2021. ✅
Otherwise, it has been a hit and miss. I got #rekt for 2/3 of portfolio prematurely leveraging up in May 2021. Caught early $SAMO for a 20x (+30% portfolio). Got wiped (-10% portfolio) overstaying my welcome on $OHM ponzis.
Aug 24, 2022: Predicted FTX collapse and jail for SBF.
Trading Calls
Sep 21, 2025: “The Bitcoin ETF bull cycle is done IMO.”
Summer 2023: Aggressively demanded you buy Bitcoin at $25.5-30k and Ethereum at $1,550-1,800 in expectation of $100k $BTC by EOY 2024. ✅ Yes
Feb 8, 2022: Local top of $ADA and beginning of Ukraine War call. ✅ Yes
Jul 2, 2022: Milady will flip urbit stars. ✅ Yes
Nov 24, 2021: Caught the pico-top of the metaverse/#GameFi bubble. ✅ Yes