A most (un)predictable year
I made ten predictions for 2024 on Polymarket and I got all of them right. As for my personal life, well it was a little less predictable...
2024 was our year of living out of suitcases. The family spent two months in Abu Dhabi, two months in Tokyo, four months in Skopje and four months in Montreal. In between I visited Riyadh, Neom, Doha, Kyoto, Takamatsu, Singapore, Seattle, San Francisco, Barcelona, London, Zurich... Honestly, it’s all a blur. Here’s a photo gallery reminding me that I was indeed in each of these places.
I am no stranger to moving between countries, but even by my standards 2024 was a little too hectic. The difference between traveling and moving is all about the duration of the displacement, and for me the threshold is approximately one month. Anything longer than that and I undergo a software upgrade. My body remembers my former routine, my brain forgets my preferences, and even a task as mundane as going to the toilet feels like a backward compatibility issue1.
According to the above criteria, I ended up moving nine times in 2024. Four of these moves were with the entire family, so no wonder our suitcases were rarely unpacked. Every day was an adventure, a blessing, and a surprise. I am grateful to my university for approving and financing this one-of-a-kind sabbatical, and to my family for always looking on the bright side of the move. Still, I am hoping for a more stationary 2025.
As unpredictable as my personal life was in 2024, I compensated for it by accurately predicting worldwide trends. Memories can be deceiving, so I logged each of my predictions on Polymarket and distributed $10 on ten different bets. My goal was not to optimize my earnings, but to perform a sanity check on a world going crazy. In the past I have used calibration graphs to convince myself that I can think probabilistically about questions where the answers are well-known2. This time I made ten predictions about things that haven’t happened yet. I decided to only bet on topics where I had 90% certainty I would be correct. I was hoping that I would get 9/10 predictions right, but it turns out I got all ten! Keep in mind, these predictions did not reflect my wishes. They only reflected reality.