[nradov]

There have been plenty of recessions and depressions so far and none of them have ended civilization. Another recession is certainly possible this year, but some people are always predicting those. Do you have a record of making accurate recession predictions without false positives?

[nostrademons]

Predicted 2000, 2008-09, and 2020. Predicted growth from 2003-2007. Falsely predicted a double-dip in 2011. Predicted growth from 2012-2020. Correctly predicted that 2015 and 2017-2018 would not result in recessions at a time that media and some friends were saying they would. Incorrectly predicted that 2020 recession would last longer than it did - I reversed opinion in early 2021, which was a little late to capture much of the upside. Correctly predicted the 2020+ inflation.

In general I've got close to 100% success at avoiding major disasters, but also tend to be a little bit jumpy on the trigger and sometimes forecast disasters that do not happen. ("A little bit" meaning about a 30-40% false-positive rate, not a perma-bear.) I also usually predict a higher severity and longer duration than actually occurs.

[rlonn]

It’s like they say: bears have predicted all 25 of the last 5 recessions

[selimthegrim]

Civilization ending because it affects ability to respond to climate change?

[nostrademons]

I explain a bit more what I mean here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35087159

I consider climate-change to be another potential civilization ending event in that it's going to create ripple effects that will likely lead to present-day governments falling. But I'm not referring to it as an effect here - TBH, I think the consequences of climate change are already locked in at this point and we're going to face them regardless of what we do.

I mean "civilization ending" as in "the rules are unknown or non-existent". As in, our civilization ends, not civilization for all time ends. There will be new forms of cooperation and political organization - I suspect they'll grow out of local governments.