I was mostly happy with the Covid-style approach I tried out last time. This is an update of ‘all the things worth noting since then’ but excluding prediction markets. I plan to do a prediction market update next, and keep those two tracks distinct. I do talk a bit about how I would characterize various final settlements, with an aim of getting prediction markets that can better reflect the nature of the final outcome.
Democratically elected governments always tax/restrict supply and subsidize demand. This has the predictable effect of creating shortages.
Housing, healthcare, fuel, food, education, etc etc.
Voters want carrots for consumers and sticks for producers. If this policy approach makes the problem worse, the voters respond with "do it harder". Education is expensive? Are we gonna encourage more new colleges or for colleges to take in new students, nope, student loan forgiveness. Healthcare costs a lot? Are we gonna loosen the restrictions on building new hospitals or training new doctors, nope, free universal healthcare.
Once you notice the pattern you see it everywhere, and it is maddening.
You section on victory conditions lacks tie as a possible outcome, which feels like a significant omission. Many wars ended in ties. E.g. War of 1812, or the war between Iraq and Iran in the 80s.
The bit about a settlement being at-best months away is a bit alarming. The duration (and death tolls) for wars are approximately power-law distributed. For each passing day the prior we should have for the total duration of the war should increase by more than a day. For each death, our prior on the total number of deaths should rise by more than 1. If ordinary bureaucratic muckery means that we can't expect the war to be over in less than ~3-6 months from now in a best-case scenario, that makes it much more likely that the war will drag on for years.
And, of course, that in turn raises the number of chances for something stupid to happen which causes the war to go nuclear and/or NATO to get involved. If there's no way for the war to end in the next few weeks, the odds of it lasting for years and, accordingly, for it to become WWIII, go way up.
Of course, that's just the prior and "the negotiations are going very well and the fighting is settling down" could overcome our prior expectation for the war's duration, but still, that was very disheartening to learn.
"This raises the central question about China. To what extent is Xi’s and/or the Party’s and/or China’s view that the world is essentially zero sum? I don’t know."
You've elegantly compiled outcomes into a single victory track.
Gentle nudge to decompile back into a small number of independent tracks, maybe one for leadership, one for territory, one for money. Once you've written off "total victory" then the outcomes on these tracks are only loosely correlated.
Territory
- Donbas control
- Odesa
- Kyiv
...
- Consolidate by making a list of the most important cities and asking what percentage controlled by either side by [date].
- Military operations expand to other territories [Baltics, Suwalki Gap; Belarus, Russia] [I worried about this a few weeks ago, now rate it as very low that Putin believes adding a new front would solve any of his problems.]
Money
- Russia under "significant" sanctions from the US in 2024. [US sanctions are a ratchet, the prior should be very high here.]
- EU eases sanctions before 2024. [Much more likely, though still contingent on resolution within 2 years. What's the average length of a Russian war?]
Leadership outcomes (most complicated set of independent outcomes):
- Putin President of Russia January 2024
- Putin President of Russia July 2024
- Zelenskyy President of Ukraine Jan 2024
- Zelenskyy President of Russia July 2024 (ok ok just having fun)
- Ukrainian nationalist government in exile
- Zelenskyy alive + free
- Putin a+f
- Navalny a+f (proxy for how much Moscow changed, even if Putin leaves office, though I expect p(ouster) already quite low)
Separate and maybe most important from the above, war resolved by [date]. We might not have final answers to the above for a long time.
Given how destitute individual soldiers are we should be offering lots more money for Russians to turn over equipment.
And you share my despair at how unserious people seem to be about getting off Russian gas. "Well, that would be hard," as if that's all the explanation needed for not trying.
Democratically elected governments always tax/restrict supply and subsidize demand. This has the predictable effect of creating shortages.
Housing, healthcare, fuel, food, education, etc etc.
Voters want carrots for consumers and sticks for producers. If this policy approach makes the problem worse, the voters respond with "do it harder". Education is expensive? Are we gonna encourage more new colleges or for colleges to take in new students, nope, student loan forgiveness. Healthcare costs a lot? Are we gonna loosen the restrictions on building new hospitals or training new doctors, nope, free universal healthcare.
Once you notice the pattern you see it everywhere, and it is maddening.
Private equity in oil and gas got absolutely massacred. I wouldn't expect any new york finance guys flying to midland anytime soon.
You section on victory conditions lacks tie as a possible outcome, which feels like a significant omission. Many wars ended in ties. E.g. War of 1812, or the war between Iraq and Iran in the 80s.
The bit about a settlement being at-best months away is a bit alarming. The duration (and death tolls) for wars are approximately power-law distributed. For each passing day the prior we should have for the total duration of the war should increase by more than a day. For each death, our prior on the total number of deaths should rise by more than 1. If ordinary bureaucratic muckery means that we can't expect the war to be over in less than ~3-6 months from now in a best-case scenario, that makes it much more likely that the war will drag on for years.
And, of course, that in turn raises the number of chances for something stupid to happen which causes the war to go nuclear and/or NATO to get involved. If there's no way for the war to end in the next few weeks, the odds of it lasting for years and, accordingly, for it to become WWIII, go way up.
Of course, that's just the prior and "the negotiations are going very well and the fighting is settling down" could overcome our prior expectation for the war's duration, but still, that was very disheartening to learn.
"This raises the central question about China. To what extent is Xi’s and/or the Party’s and/or China’s view that the world is essentially zero sum? I don’t know."
I know this one! The answer is "yep, all of this"
Here's an article from a decade ago *before* the hardline turn: https://www.chinafile.com/document-9-chinafile-translation
You've elegantly compiled outcomes into a single victory track.
Gentle nudge to decompile back into a small number of independent tracks, maybe one for leadership, one for territory, one for money. Once you've written off "total victory" then the outcomes on these tracks are only loosely correlated.
Territory
- Donbas control
- Odesa
- Kyiv
...
- Consolidate by making a list of the most important cities and asking what percentage controlled by either side by [date].
- Military operations expand to other territories [Baltics, Suwalki Gap; Belarus, Russia] [I worried about this a few weeks ago, now rate it as very low that Putin believes adding a new front would solve any of his problems.]
Money
- Russia under "significant" sanctions from the US in 2024. [US sanctions are a ratchet, the prior should be very high here.]
- EU eases sanctions before 2024. [Much more likely, though still contingent on resolution within 2 years. What's the average length of a Russian war?]
Leadership outcomes (most complicated set of independent outcomes):
- Putin President of Russia January 2024
- Putin President of Russia July 2024
- Zelenskyy President of Ukraine Jan 2024
- Zelenskyy President of Russia July 2024 (ok ok just having fun)
- Ukrainian nationalist government in exile
- Zelenskyy alive + free
- Putin a+f
- Navalny a+f (proxy for how much Moscow changed, even if Putin leaves office, though I expect p(ouster) already quite low)
Separate and maybe most important from the above, war resolved by [date]. We might not have final answers to the above for a long time.
Given how destitute individual soldiers are we should be offering lots more money for Russians to turn over equipment.
And you share my despair at how unserious people seem to be about getting off Russian gas. "Well, that would be hard," as if that's all the explanation needed for not trying.