Let’s look at how accurately Zach predicted 2019. As usual (2017 results, 2018 results), the predictions are broken down by region.

Canada

1. Liberals win the next Canadian election – 60%
2. Majority government in the next Canadian election – 60% 
3. NDP loses seats in the next Canadian election – 80%
4. Conservatives gain seats in the next Canadian election – 70%
5. Jagmeet Singh is not in parliament at the end of 2019 – 51%
6. No court finds the assisted dying bill isn’t in line with Carter v Canada in 2019 – 80% 
7. No court rules on carbon tax constitutionality in 2019 – 90%
8. No terrorist attack in Canada that kills > 10 Canadians in 2019 – 90%
9. Opioid poisoning deaths decline from 2018 levels in Canada – 80%
10. Construction on the Trans Mountain pipeline does not begin again in 2019 – 90%
11. Canadian unemployment rate at or below 6% at the end of 2019 – 60%
12. Health Canada still doesn’t allow Soylent to enter the country by the end of 2019 – 70%

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Here are my 95 predictions about the next year. If you’d like to make your own predictions, you can download my blank template. Like previous years (2017, 2017 results, 2018, 2018 results), I’ve broken them down by region.

Canada

1. Liberals win the next Canadian election – 60%
2. Majority government in the next Canadian election – 60%
3. NDP loses seats in the next Canadian election – 80%
4. Conservatives gain seats in the next Canadian election – 70%
5. Jagmeet Singh is not in parliament at the end of 2019 – 51%
6. No court finds the assisted dying bill isn't in line with Carter v Canada in 2019 – 80%
7. No court rules on carbon tax constitutionality in 2019 – 90%
8. No terrorist attack in Canada that kills > 10 Canadians in 2019 – 90%
9. Opioid poisoning deaths decline from 2018 levels in Canada – 80%
10. Construction on the Trans Mountain pipeline does not begin again in 2019 – 90%
11. Canadian unemployment rate at or below 6% at the end of 2019 – 60%
12. Health Canada still doesn't allow Soylent to enter the country by the end of 2019 – 70%

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In what is becoming a New Year’s tradition, let’s look at how accurately I predicted the future a year ago.

Canada

1. Liberals remain ahead in the CBC Poll Tracker seat projection – 70%
2. Trudeau has a higher net favorability rating than Andrew Scheer according to the CBC Leader Meter on January 1, 2019 – 80%
3. Marijuana is legalized in time for Canada Day – 60%
4. Marijuana is legalized in 2018 – 90%
5. At least one court finds the assisted dying bill isn't in line with Carter v Canada – 70%
6. Ontario PC party wins the election – 60%
7. The Ontario election results in a minority government – 80%
8. The Quebec election results in a minority government – 80%
9. No BC snap election in 2018 – 90%
10. No terrorist attack in Canada that kills > 10 Canadians in 2018 – 90%
11. More Canadian opioid poisoning deaths in 2018 than in 2017 – 60%
12. Canada does better at the 2018 Winter Olympics (in both gold medals and total medals) than in 2014 – 90%
13. Canada does not win a gold medal in men's hockey at the 2018 Olympics – 70%
14. Canada does win a gold medal in women's hockey at the 2018 Olympics – 51%

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Economists normally splits goods into four categories:

• Public goods are non-excludable (so anyone can access them) and non-rival (I can use them as much as I want without limiting the amount you can use them). Broadcast television, national defense, and air are all public goods.
• Common-pool resources are non-excludable but rival (if I use them, you will have to make do with less). Iron ore, fish stocks, and grazing land are all common pool resources.
• Private goods are excludable (their access is controlled or limited by pricing or other methods) and rival. My clothes, computer, and the parking space I have in my lease but never use are all private goods.
• Club goods are excludable but (up to a certain point) non-rival. Think of the swimming pool in an apartment building, a large amusement park, or cellular service.

Club goods are perhaps the most interesting class...

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I like to keep track of my life over time. I’m an obsessive journaler (and, as this blog can attest, a fairly regular blogger). At the end of every day, I track my mood, my sleep, my productivity, my social life, and how well I did in spaced repetition exercises. Last May, I decided to track one more thing about myself and start a tradition of publishing my Political Compass results yearly.

I’m a bit late this year (I kept the title because I started the post in May) because there’s actual politics happening; I’ve been volunteering for my local MPP’s re-election campaign. Of explanations for being late with a politics related blog post, that might be the best one I ever give.

The Results

Last year, I scored -3.25 on the economic axis and -6.56 on the authority axis.

Canadian results come from The Political Compass’s...

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Inspired by Slate Star Codex, this is my second year of making predictions (see also: my previous predictions, their scores, and my recent LessWrong post about these predictions).

Before I jump into the predictions, I want to mention that I’ve created templates so that anyone who wants to can also take a stab at it; the templates focus on international events and come in two versions:

• Long (which assumes you read global news a lot)
• Short (which is less demanding)

With both these sheets, the idea is to pick a limited number of probabilities (I recommend 51%, 60%, 70%, 80%, and 90%) and assign one to each item that you have an opinion on. At the end of the year, you count the number of correct items in each probability bin and use that to see how close you were to ideal. This gives you an answer to the important question: “when I say something is 80% likely to happen, how likely, really, is it to happen?”

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Now is the big reveal. Just how did I do in 2017?

Canada

1. Trudeau ends the year with a lower approval rating than he started – 60%
2. No bill introduced that changes the electoral system away from first past the post in 2019 – 50%
3. No referendum scheduled on changing the electoral system away from first past the post before 2019 – 70%
4. A bill legalizing marijuana is passed by the House of Commons – 90%
5. The senate doesn’t block attempts to legalize marijuana – 80%
6. At least one court finds the assisted dying bill isn’t in line with Carter v Canada – 60%
7. Ontario Liberal Approval rating remains below 30% – 80%
8. Patrick Brown “unsure” rating remains above 40% – 70%
9. Kellie Leitch is not the next CPC leader – 80%
10. Michael Chong is not the next CPC leader – 70%
11. Maxine Bernier is not the next CPC leader – 90%
12. No terrorist attack that kills >10 Canadians – 70%
13. No terrorist attack that kills >100 Canadians – 90%
14. At least one large technology company (valuation >$10 billion and >1,000 employees) will open a Waterloo office in 2017 – 80%

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I predict that within five years of the implementation of the new $15/hour  Ontario minimum wage, we’ll see an increase in the labour participation rates of women and a decrease in the labour participation rates of people with disabilities or developmental delays.

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Like many others who are a bit, um, obsessive when it comes to politics, I’ve long been a fan of the Political Compass. Most people are familiar with the differences between left wing redistributive and right wing capitalist politics. The observation underlying the Political Compass is that these aren’t the only salient axes of political disagreement.

In addition to the standard left-right economic disagreement, the Political Compass looks at the disagreements between libertarians and authoritarians. This second axis deals with the amount of social restrictions (or, from the other point of view, mandated social cohesiveness) a government imposes on its citizens.

The Political Compass breaks political parties (and the political views of individuals) into four quadrants: the authoritarian left (think centralized communism, e.g. Mao, Stalin), the authoritarian right (think socially conservative capitalism, e.g. Reagan, Thatcher), the libertarian right (think socially permissive capitalism e.g. Macron, Gary Johnson), and the libertarian...

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A friend asked me what I thought about the candidates in the leadership race for the Conservative Party of Canada. I found I had more to say than was strictly reasonable to post in a Facebook comment. I posted it anyway – because I’m sometimes unreasonable – but I found I also wanted to record my thoughts in a more organized manner that’s easier to link to.

Right now, I think there are a few meaningful ways to split up the candidates. You can split them up based on what block of the party they represent.

The way I see it, you have:

• Michael Chong representing the wonkish Progressive Conservatives
• Maxine Bernier and Rick Peterson representing the wonkish libertarians
• Steven Blaney and Dr. Kellie Leitch with a more nativist message
• Lisa Raitt, Andrew Scheer, and Erin O'Toole running as unobjectionable compromise candidates
• Andrew Saxton and Chris Alexander running as clones of Steven Harper
• Pierre Lemieux and Brad Trost running as social conservatives
• Deepak Obhrai running against xenophobia

It might be possible to collapse these categories a bit; unobjectionable compromise candidates and Harper clones don’t have that much difference between them, for example. But I think I’m clustering based on salient differences in what the candidates are choosing to highlight, even when their policy positions or voting records are very similar.

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In the vein of Slate Star Codex, I’d like to publicly post my predictions for 2017. I’ve tried to tie these predictions to empirically verifiable outcomes as much as possible, so that there’s no room for interpretation or wiggling. I’ve also included my confidence in my predictions (all predictions are formulated so confidence is at least 50%) so that I can check my calibration as well as my accuracy. If you can think of a better formulation of any of these that maintains the meaning, please let me know before January 7th. I will not edit this post at all after then, even to correct typos.

Canada

1. Trudeau ends the year with a lower approval rating than he started - 60%
2. No bill introduced that changes the electoral system away from first past the post in 2019 - 50%
3. No referendum scheduled on changing the electoral system away from first past the post before 2019 - 70%
4. A bill legalizing marijuana is passed by the House of Commons - 90%
5. The senate doesn't block attempts to legalize marijuana - 80%
6. At least one court finds the assisted dying bill isn't in line with Carter v Canada - 60%
7. Ontario Liberal Approval rating remains below 30% - 80%
8. Patrick Brown "unsure" rating remains above 40% - 70%
9. Kellie Leitch is not the next CPC leader - 80%
10. Michael Chong is not the next CPC leader - 70%
11. Maxine Bernier is not the next CPC leader - 90%
12. No terrorist attack that kills >10 Canadians - 70%
13. No terrorist attack that kills >100 Canadians - 90%
14. At least one large technology company (valuation >$10 billion and >1,000 employees) will open a Waterloo office in 2017 - 80%

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