The Quizmaster's 2022 Predictions Revisited
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First published: Monday January 2nd, 2023
First published: Monday January 2nd, 2023
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Last February, I made my first annual Official Predictions™ for the coming year. It didn't take very long for many of these predictions to look quite bad indeed. Let's see how I did.
Events rated by me as having a 80% chance or higher of occuring
Expected: 18.6
Actual: 17
99% – World population increases in 2022
97% – My property taxes go up at my current residence
95% – I still live in the Seattle area
94% – Average home price in the U.S. increases during 2022 according to Zillow
Amazingly, home prices increased by 12.3% despite a huge increase in mortgage interest rates.
93% – Seattle July 2021 estimated population higher than 2020 census
First decrease in a long time. The rent is too dang high, I guess.
93% – Mark Zuckerburg still CEO of Meta
92% – Vladimir Putin still President of Russia
90% – Kim Jong-un still leader of North Korea
90% – More than 400,000 JetPunk quizzes taken in a single day in 2022
This one exceeded our greatest expectations. We blew our previous record out of the water, and recorded a daily high of 711,156 quizzes taken. We now get more than 400,000 takes almost every day. Thank you to all the JetPunk users who made this possible!
90% – My parents move into in their new house
88% – Joe Biden still President of the U.S.
87% – I still live in my current residence
87% – Elon Musk still CEO of Tesla
85% – More JetPunk quizzes taken in 2022 than 2021
85% – JetPunk releases a new minigame
Maybe next year!
85% – I still moderate quizzes nearly every day
85% – U.S. trade deficit with China higher in 2022 than 2021
85% – Queen Elizabeth still alive
80% – Chicago July 2021 estimated population lower than 2020 census
Probably should have had this higher. The population of Chicago declined by more than 50,000 people.
80% – U.S. official unemployment below 5%
80% – A superhero movie is the #1 grossing movie for the entire year worldwide
I was WAY off on this one. The top 3 movies were "Top Gun: Maverick", "Avatar: The Way of Water" and "Jurassic World: Dominion". I probably should have seen Avatar coming.
Events rated by me as having a 50–80% chance of occuring
Expected: 11.4
Actual: 8.5
78% – I travel outside the United States
Canada counts, right?
75% – Republicans win the Senate and House
75% – Dr. Fauci still Chief Medical Advisor to the President
Not sure how to score this one. He stepped down on December 31st. Marking as a tie.
75% – At least 10% of people at my local grocery store still wearing masks
In Seattle a sizeable minority of people still mask at the grocery store, probably about 20%.
70% – Tesla stock declines in 2022
70% – Chicago has more murders in 2022 than 2021
70% – Boris Johnson still Prime Minister of the UK
65% – Novak Djokovic wins at least one Grand Slam tennis event
60% – Jair Bolsonaro re-elected
50% – Mask mandate still in place on U.S. flights
50% – Joe Rogan still on Spotify
50% – U.S. inflation (trailing 12 months) above 5%
50% – At least one Starbucks in Seattle gets unionized
50% – Lewis Hamilton wins the F1 championship
50% – JetPunk releases a new quiz format
We released the Click Quiz format.
50% – I travel to a country I've never been to before
50% – Price of oil (WTI) over $100/barrel
50% – Door Dash stock down at least 80% in 2022
I was much too bold with this prediction, even if I identified the trend correctly. Door Dash stock was "only" down 68%.
50% – AMD higher market cap than Intel
Events rated by me as having a 20–50% chance of occuring
Expected: 8.6
Actual: 11
45% – extremeweatherwatch.com gets more than 5 million page views for the year
This is the other site I've been working on a lot. Sadly, we only got about 3.3 million page views, compared to 427 million for JetPunk.
45% – WHO designates another Variant of Concern
45% – Donald Trump officially announces he is running for President
40% – Aiden Hutchinson drafted #1 in the NFL draft
He was drafted #2. Pathetic.
40% – Quizmaster releases 100 or more new quizzes
I released 117, down a lot from my heyday, but still not bad.
35% – Michigan beats Ohio State in football
35% – Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade
30% – Russia invades Ukrainian territory
Ugh, this one happened only a couple weeks after I made my predictions last February. I figured the odds were relatively low because it would be such a stupid move by Russia. I was right about that at least.
30% – Roger Federer retires
30% – Gold over $2000/oz
30% – JetPunk adds another featured language
25% – WHO officially declares the pandemic over
25% – Ron DeSantis announces he is running for President
25% – Seattle still requires vaccine or negative test to go into restaurants
25% – Elon Musk is world's richest person
He was the richest person for most of the year, but Tesla stock took a nosedive, and Musk was passed by Bernard Arnault who, with a net worth of $179 billion, is the richest handbag salesman ever to live.
25% – Eviction moratorium still in place in Seattle
25% – Another country besides El Salvador adopts Bitcoin as an official currency
The Central African Republic did so in April.
25% – Average price of gas in the U.S. above $4/gallon
Gas is over $4 in only two states: California and Hawaii.
25% – Aidan Hutchinson drafted by the Detroit Lions
25% – Macron reelected as President of France
My prediction was very wrong because it was based on gut feel, not actually looking at polls.
25% – I make a private real estate investment
25% – New record set for world's heaviest pumpkin
20% – Bitcoin finishes year above $100,000
20% – Indoor mask mandate still in place in Seattle
20% – Gamestop stock price above $100
20% – Lebron James retires from basketball
20% – U.S. enters recession at some point during the year
20% – More than 500,000 quizzes taken in a single day in 2022
20% – Capital added, removed, or name change on "Capitals of the World" quiz
Nur-Sultan was changed back to Astana, and Kiev spelling was changed to Kyiv.
20% – I start a new website which gets at least 100,000 total page views
20% – I climb a blue route at Seattle Bouldering Project
Events rated by me as having less than 20% chance of occuring
Expected: 2.4
Actual: 2.5
15% – I buy a new car
15% – U.S. inflation (trailing 12 months) above 10%
15% – Golden State Warriors win the NBA championship
15% – At least 10% of people in my neighborhood still wearing masks outdoors
Marking as a tie. I'm not sure I could get this right without doing a detailed survey which I'm not willing to do. I should have put this much higher.
15% – Seattle has at least one day of 100 °F or higher
15% – Joe Rogan interviews Donald Trump
12% – There is a country name change on the "Countries of the World" quiz
10% – U.S. Covid deaths higher in 2022 than 2021
10% – Russia captures Kiev
10% – Chicago declares bankruptcy
10% – Islamist terrorist attack in Europe or North America killing more than 100 people
10% – Death Valley breaks its record of 130 °F (54.4 °C)
10% – I shoot a hole-in-one in disc golf
8% – China invades Taiwan mainland
8% – Lockdown in a Chinese city for a virus other than Covid
8% – Average price of gas in the U.S. above $5/gallon
8% – Country added or removed from "Countries of the World" quiz
7% – Kamala Harris nominated to Supreme Court
Wacky predictions feel even wackier when they don't happen. I should have put this at 2% max.
7% – Major sex scandal involving Joe Biden
7% – U.S. suffers 1000 or more military deaths in a new conflict
7% – 9.0 or higher earthquake anywhere on Earth
7% – More than 100 people die in a single hurricane in the US
Hurricane Ian killed 146 people in Florida.
5% – JetPunk is sold to a new owner
5% – Someone beats Usain Bolt's world record in the 100m dash
2% – Nuclear detonation kills at least 1000 people
0.5% – 9.0 or higher earthquake on the Cascade fault
0.2% – Proof of extra-terrestrial intelligent life discovered
0.1% – Asteroid impact kills more than 1000 people on Earth
0% – Cyprus added to "Countries of Europe" quiz
I wanna see more of these coming. Maybe the chances of Twitter shutting down this year?
Regarding Trump announcing his 2024 candidacy — I believe he'll run third party and split the Republican vote, giving Democrats an easy victory.
All around very interesting and well thought-out predictions, nice job QM!
Just a detail... The JetPunk Daily Word Search could count as a minigame, no...?
And the Cyprus one so petty lol
#letsstartariot
#pleasedontbanmeforsayingthat
My feeling is that he's been around for so long there has to be something, and certainly there's a lot of viral videos of unwanted touching at photo ops. At the time, his popularity was in a major downward trend, and it felt possible that the party could jettison him for someone younger.
Galaxy brain thinking, and my 7% estimate was probably too high.
i can't say it UwU