Speaker 1: Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making
Speaker 1: better decisions. I'm Maria Kanikova.
Speaker 2: And I'm Nate Silver.
Speaker 1: Nate Today is going to be a fun show. You're
Speaker 1: taping from Tokyo, I'm taping from New York, so from
Speaker 1: opposite sides of the world. We'll be talking about our
Speaker 1: predictions for twenty twenty five on a whole number of things,
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of topics, from you know, economics and
Speaker 1: politics to pop culture and lots of things in between, sports,
Speaker 1: fashion choices. I think you'll enjoy this one. Let's get
Speaker 1: into it.
Speaker 2: Nate, Happy twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Everybody Happy twenty twenty five. It's a quarter thing century.
Speaker 1: It's a good boy, all right. Yeah, that's insane. God,
Speaker 1: what were you doing on New Year's two thousand? On
Speaker 1: New Year's two thousand, Oh my god, I was still
Speaker 1: in high school, I was God, yeah, I was in
Speaker 1: high school. So I was with my family. Where were
Speaker 1: you twenty five years ago?
Speaker 2: I was in on a beach in Key West, Florida, nice,
Speaker 2: doing various substances that may or may not have been
Speaker 2: legal in the state of Florida. And we'll leave it
Speaker 2: at that.
Speaker 1: Sounds good. I think there's I think you're good on
Speaker 1: the statute of limitations. Okay, okay, all right, so let's
Speaker 1: get into it. So we have a bunch of different
Speaker 1: topics ranging from you know, crypto to pop culture. Do
Speaker 1: you want to start it off with kind of one
Speaker 1: of the big topics that we've talked about on the
Speaker 1: show multiple times, which is bitcoin. What do you think
Speaker 1: nate will be the highest price that bitcoin will reach
Speaker 1: this year? And what do you think will be the
Speaker 1: lowest price bitcoin will reach? If you want, I can
Speaker 1: start a soft way. So we're looking at polymarket, where
Speaker 1: I'm an advisor says that the over.
Speaker 2: Under mark is roughly one twenty k by market thirty first.
Speaker 1: That's not the end of the year, yeah, and any.
Speaker 2: K on the lowest and by March thirty first. You know, look,
Speaker 2: I mean, if you had to like, this is a
Speaker 2: really hard question, it is a really hard question.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let me say the high is the high is
Speaker 2: one forty is my over under, and the low is
Speaker 2: sixty right, Okay, all right, that's I'm just doubling. I'm
Speaker 2: just doubling polymarket. I trust that people in poly market
Speaker 2: a lot of crypto friendly types there. I trust that
Speaker 2: the market is smarter than I am, and I'm just
Speaker 2: doubling the range. Sure, So yeah, March thirty first through
Speaker 2: the end of the year.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's pretty smart. I am going to go higher
Speaker 1: than you. I am going to say one eighty high
Speaker 1: for twenty twenty five. So I think that there are
Speaker 1: a lot of people, a lot of smart crypto people
Speaker 1: who think it will hit two hundred and might even
Speaker 1: go over two hundred. I don't think it will go
Speaker 1: that high, but I'm going to be bullish and I'm
Speaker 1: going to say one eighty. And on the low side,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I will say seventy. I will say
Speaker 1: seventy as the low.
Speaker 2: So are you buying I mean that sounds pretty asymmetric
Speaker 2: where you should be buying bio. Are you buying bitcoin?
Speaker 1: I am not currently buying bitcoin, but I think that
Speaker 1: bitcoin is actually something that potentially I should start buying.
Speaker 1: Especially as Donald Trump comes into office. We know that
Speaker 1: he hasn't necessarily delivered on, you know, things that he's
Speaker 1: promised in the past, but so far there are positive
Speaker 1: signs that he is going to be pretty pro crypto,
Speaker 1: and if all of those things come to pass. You know, normally,
Speaker 1: the way that you look at markets is, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: smart people have already priced this in, right, So the
Speaker 1: price of bitcoin already reflects people being optimistic about Donald
Speaker 1: Trump and what he's going to do and his policies.
Speaker 1: But I think that with crypto it doesn't necessarily work
Speaker 1: that way, and the market doesn't price things in quite
Speaker 1: the same way as the stock market. I would say
Speaker 1: that it's less efficient in some ways and much more volatile, right.
Speaker 1: We see, you can see in the cryptocurrency world, you
Speaker 1: can see something go up five hundred percent, right, That
Speaker 1: just does not happen on the regular stock market. So
Speaker 1: so I would say that there's the upside is asymmetric,
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 2: See, I might argue that crypto is almost my definition
Speaker 2: ary vibe spased, right, Yeah, and it may over anticipate,
Speaker 2: it may overly be pricing it in, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's also very possible.
Speaker 2: And in general I'm wonder if there's like a little
Speaker 2: bit of irrational zoo Brenth. I mean, President's is hard, right,
Speaker 2: He's inheriting a pretty unhappy electorate. He will be surrounded
Speaker 2: by a mix of people, some of them are confident
Speaker 2: in many of whom aren't. He has very narrow majority
Speaker 2: in the House, right, Yeah, he's old. He and Eli
Speaker 2: will probably have a falling out at some point. B
Speaker 2: A BFFs. I don't know. I think there's kind of
Speaker 2: a I think the average Trump new convert enthusiast crypto
Speaker 2: enthusiast is a little high on fumes right now. And
Speaker 2: I remember, you know, kind of when uh, whenever there's
Speaker 2: new president, when there's a switch of parties, right, like
Speaker 2: people people don't understand how difficult it starts to look
Speaker 2: three to six months in right, you're doing your one
Speaker 2: hundred days stuff, although it's harder now than it used
Speaker 2: to be. But Trump will do some executive orders. We'll
Speaker 2: talk about that in a bit, and then I know,
Speaker 2: I think there's a short term bare case on Trump
Speaker 2: I think is probably worthwhile. And how that turns it
Speaker 2: to the crypto is not linear entirely. But like, it's
Speaker 2: hard to be president, that's all I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I totally agree with that. But because we're looking at
Speaker 1: by the you know, this year in total, right, we're
Speaker 1: not actually doing a prediction of where it's going to
Speaker 1: be next month or where it's going to end up.
Speaker 1: We're just saying, like, what is the high for twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five? And I actually think that the irrational exuberance
Speaker 1: will get us to that high at some point, and
Speaker 1: then it might crash right precipitously. And the reason I'm
Speaker 1: not buying bitcoin, by the way, is that I'm not
Speaker 1: confident enough in my ability to predict, you know, when
Speaker 1: those crashes will come and when those changes and sentiment
Speaker 1: will come. But I do think we're going to see
Speaker 1: something like that. So I think that there's a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of things to be said for pre caution,
Speaker 1: but also for you know, let's put some of those
Speaker 1: irrationally exuberant predictions in there. Let's switch gears a little bit,
Speaker 1: sort of sort of because this is related to Trump.
Speaker 1: So how about a prediction about Trump's We've talked about
Speaker 1: the cabinet right and about his nominees. Do you have
Speaker 1: a prediction for how many cabinet nominees and this is
Speaker 1: starting now, so Gates does not count, will either be
Speaker 1: rejected or withdraw No Gates. Yeah, let's so gate Gates
Speaker 1: does not count because that has already happened. So starting now,
Speaker 1: let's bench tracker with poly Market.
Speaker 2: Poly Market says Pete haig Seth is an eighty six
Speaker 2: percent chance of being confirmed, Tulsa Gabbard seventy five percent,
Speaker 2: Cash Hotel eighty nine percent, RFK Junior eighty five percent,
Speaker 2: and then there are some other people that probably nobody
Speaker 2: cares about. Right, So let me do math fifteen twenty five,
Speaker 2: fifty sixty and then a little pocket change we get.
Speaker 2: So poly Market says that the best bet is probably
Speaker 2: one or zero. I'll go with zero. I think that
Speaker 2: like we saw the scalp with Mac, I think if
Speaker 2: you're going to have somebody else that it would have
Speaker 2: happened sooner in this kind of pre because the further
Speaker 2: you go, the more embarrassing to Trump, and most Republicans
Speaker 2: in the Senate actually don't want to embarrass Trump. And so,
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, the market says that Gabbard is
Speaker 2: the most likely wild card, and but but I think
Speaker 2: they've mostly survived. I mean out they'll survive the vetting
Speaker 2: making them look good, right, But there's no objective standard here, right,
Speaker 2: it's do you have fifty votes in the Senate? And
Speaker 2: I think I think they've probably survived it in a way.
Speaker 2: Mack age students. So I'll go with zero. I'll go
Speaker 2: he'll bet one thousand.
Speaker 1: The rest of the way, I actually agree with you,
Speaker 1: I was going to say zero. I don't think that
Speaker 1: anyone's going to withdraw, and I don't think anyone is
Speaker 1: going to be rejected. I think we're going to see
Speaker 1: the falls light confirmed. I think that people will tow
Speaker 1: party lines, and I think that we're going to see that.
Speaker 1: We're going to see everyone sail through. I don't even
Speaker 1: think it's going to be particularly close.
Speaker 2: Next question, you are eluding this, Maria, number of press
Speaker 2: secretaries in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: I am going to say that in twenty twenty five
Speaker 1: he is going to have two. That's going to be
Speaker 1: my prediction.
Speaker 2: Maria, we're agreeing too much here. I'm two seems like
Speaker 2: the rational modal number. It's a fucking hard job, it is.
Speaker 2: I mean, I kind of feel like press secretaries of
Speaker 2: the one people should be allowed to lie, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, because you can't really do the job
Speaker 2: without lying.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't think. I mean, I think there's a
Speaker 1: difference and between lying and spinning, and there is, so
Speaker 1: I do. I'm not trying to play semantics here, right,
Speaker 1: So there's lying where like you're just like flat out
Speaker 1: saying something that you know is not true. And then
Speaker 1: there are like misrepresentations, which in some ways is worse
Speaker 1: right because it's harder to be like you lied. You
Speaker 1: can be like, well, no, like if you parse the
Speaker 1: sentence semantically, I didn't. Technically, I did not lie. And
Speaker 1: I think that that's more what press secretaries do. They're
Speaker 1: more spin doctory than they are.
Speaker 2: It's like a poker player, you know. Some poppe plays
Speaker 2: will not like actually lie about the contents of their hand. Right.
Speaker 2: You'll be like, do you have a pucket kings? And
Speaker 2: they'll be like, well, it's a big pair or something,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. Yeah, I just lie about
Speaker 2: the kindents of my hand all the fucking time. In poker,
Speaker 2: it's like allowed.
Speaker 1: It is allowed, It is allowed. I don't do it there, No,
Speaker 1: I don't do it, but but it is absolutely allowed,
Speaker 1: and I totally don't blame you for doing it. The
Speaker 1: funniest thing, by the way, can we just do like
Speaker 1: a poker aside is when people lie about their hand
Speaker 1: on stream, on televised stream when their cards are shown,
Speaker 1: and it will become very very clear that they're lying.
Speaker 1: Scott sever does this all the time, and he'll just
Speaker 1: like with a straight face like be like fold you
Speaker 1: know I've got it, or like he'll he'll or just
Speaker 1: like completely lie what hand he has and like you
Speaker 1: can see he's lying and he just doesn't care. So
Speaker 1: I think that I think that that is definitely very accepted.
Speaker 1: I am more of the I don't like telling people,
Speaker 1: you know, what I had and they if they don't
Speaker 1: take that for an answer, I'll just say yes, right, Sullivan,
Speaker 1: did you have Kings?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Did you have Queen's Yes? Did you have JACKX Yes?
Speaker 1: Did you have Ace King?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Like I will, and if you start asking me more
Speaker 1: than one hand, you will realize that I'm just saying
Speaker 1: yes to everything. So I'll just do something like that,
Speaker 1: which you know will will normally shut people up. But
Speaker 1: I don't like to tell people what I have, as
Speaker 1: we've talked about before on the show, and I think
Speaker 1: this is an important point outside of poker. Information equals power.
Speaker 1: Do not give people information when you don't have to, right,
Speaker 1: have them know as little as possible about your intentions,
Speaker 1: how you play everything else. So yeah, two press secretaries.
Speaker 1: First ones never hold on. I mean, Trump just goes
Speaker 1: through press secretaries like none other. I wouldn't even be
Speaker 1: surprised to see three. But I think two is the
Speaker 1: right prediction. All right, we've got one more Trumps? What
Speaker 1: we have more than one? Trump has said he will
Speaker 1: declare a national emergency on his first day in office
Speaker 1: to begin mass deportations. Do you think he will do
Speaker 1: this on January twentieth? Is there going to be a
Speaker 1: national emergency declaration?
Speaker 2: Again? There is a market to calibrate to polymarket says
Speaker 2: eighty percent chance on day one he does issue at action.
Speaker 1: I have that seems high.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, look, I mean one of the things you
Speaker 2: can say Trump had a mandate to be elected on
Speaker 2: was immigration, right, and he clearly cares a lot about that.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's kind of core to his brand. I
Speaker 2: think it's within the purview of the one House issue
Speaker 2: executive action. So I'm going to say, yes, right, I
Speaker 2: have no reason to like, like, this is kind of
Speaker 2: what you promised. This is what he promised to do
Speaker 2: if you voted for Trump. This is what you were
Speaker 2: supposed to get, and I think he's going to do it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think you're probably right, but I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna get of a completely. So this is the opposite
Speaker 1: of what we do here on Risky Business, which has
Speaker 1: use our rational minds to do predictions. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: say he won't do it because I don't want him to.
Speaker 1: That is not how you make decisions. So the rational answers, yes,
Speaker 1: I think there will be a national emergency. My emotional
Speaker 1: answer is I hope there isn't and I hope that
Speaker 1: there are no mass deportations. But you're absolutely right that
Speaker 1: this is something that people that people you know did
Speaker 1: vote for.
Speaker 2: And so I mean if the reason why I think
Speaker 2: you want to take the yes and bet is like
Speaker 2: ify for whatever reason, is influenced by uh, I mean,
Speaker 2: Silicon Valley doesn't care as much about the illegal immigration,
Speaker 2: but if he's influenced to like take a softer line,
Speaker 2: I think he would still issue an executive order of
Speaker 2: some kind. It would and it would have fewer teeth
Speaker 2: or they wouldn't fight for it as much in the
Speaker 2: courts or right. I think he kind of has to
Speaker 2: like do this to kind of maintain face. What if
Speaker 2: he gets in and he's like, it's all long con
Speaker 2: it's all long coin of been a Democratic all time,
Speaker 2: including the first term. I know what place that.
Speaker 1: Was that was not Trump, I'm not sure who that was.
Speaker 2: Adam Sandler never, that was embarrassing, most embarrassing when williams. Hey,
Speaker 2: let's move on the next question. Will Elon Musk become
Speaker 2: the world's first trillionaire in twenty twenty five. His current
Speaker 2: net worth, according to Bloomberg, is four hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: six billion with a B dollars.
Speaker 1: I say no, I say he will not become a
Speaker 1: trillionaire in twenty twenty five. And I say this because
Speaker 1: Tesla has had disappointing sales this year. I realized that
Speaker 1: that's only one small part of his net worth, but
Speaker 1: you know it's it's an important one. And I also
Speaker 1: think that there's going to be some fallout with his
Speaker 1: association with Trump, including a fallout with Trump at some point,
Speaker 1: because I don't don't know of anyone, like any high
Speaker 1: profile marriage that Trump has had that has lasted, obviously
Speaker 1: including his actual marriages, but what I mean right now,
Speaker 1: you know, marriage with any kind of close political confidant. Right,
Speaker 1: he's broken up with all of them. He elevates advisors,
Speaker 1: He's like, you know, they're BFFs. They're really close, and
Speaker 1: then always there's you know, I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: ego clashing or what it is, but there's always a
Speaker 1: falling out. And I think that that's going to hurt Elon,
Speaker 1: and I think that's going to happen in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: So I don't think he's going to become poor, but
Speaker 1: I definitely do not see him becoming a trillionaire. There's
Speaker 1: also the AI component, and you know, I think it
Speaker 1: does matter whether you're bullish or bearish on the financial
Speaker 1: prospects of AI, and I don't think they're going to
Speaker 1: figure out their cash flow finances, you know, how to
Speaker 1: actually make money in the coming year.
Speaker 2: What do you think, Nate, So if someone else becomes
Speaker 2: a billionaire a trillionaire before, you also lose this bet.
Speaker 2: Is that correct?
Speaker 1: Yes, because he's the first trillionaire.
Speaker 2: Okay, oh yeah. For Look, the long term average for
Speaker 2: super rich guys that they increase in net worth by
Speaker 2: probably around twenty percent per year, which is very very
Speaker 2: good relative to how most Americans do. But take take
Speaker 2: four to fifty whatever is now and add twenty percent,
Speaker 2: and you're not that close. There's a little bit of
Speaker 2: a thing before about like to the extent that like
Speaker 2: assets that Elon owns have been priced up, that's kind
Speaker 2: of priced in to some extent already. I tend to
Speaker 2: agree that, Like, I mean, you see these periodic reports
Speaker 2: that Trump was like Elon's getting a little carried away here,
Speaker 2: and yeah, I think this is a a It's not
Speaker 2: impossible to imagine, but I'd say, like, I think there's
Speaker 2: maybe a one in five chants and then tweet that
Speaker 2: twenty percent down to like eighteen because now and then
Speaker 2: someone else gets there first, like in the AI scenario
Speaker 2: where this is the year where you have like a
Speaker 2: big AI boom, then like the Nvidia people and other
Speaker 2: people that are a bit more like directly tied to
Speaker 2: AI might benefit first. Right.
Speaker 1: But yeah, okay, so we agree on this one as.
Speaker 2: Well, and we'll be right back after this break.
Speaker 1: What's up next? Let's do some poker.
Speaker 2: Poker over under on Nate and Maria's net tournament winnings
Speaker 2: for the year, i e. Winnings minus buy in. Let's
Speaker 2: assume this is all live tournaments, right, so we'll ignore
Speaker 2: any any sketchy uh online stuff that we might or
Speaker 2: might not do. So it's trackable in theory.
Speaker 1: It's hard. You know, tournaments are so incredibly it's such
Speaker 1: a volatile thing, right, and there's so much variance there
Speaker 1: that it's really really difficult to have predictions. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've had years where I've been down a lot, and
Speaker 1: I've had years where I've been up a lot, And
Speaker 1: you know, I would like to have a nice optimistic
Speaker 1: prediction that but and I think you have to. If
Speaker 1: you're a tournament player, you have to be optimistic. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like an entrepreneur. You realize that, you know,
Speaker 1: most people lose money, but in order to do it,
Speaker 1: you have to believe that you're one of the few
Speaker 1: that's going to succeed. So I think you kind of
Speaker 1: have to have that mindset I'm in.
Speaker 2: Look in the book, I did some simulations for a
Speaker 2: assuming a very good tournament player, maybe if we're being honest,
Speaker 2: probably not too far from where you and I, Maria,
Speaker 2: but maybe a little bit better in that book then,
Speaker 2: you know, but in that vicinity, right, and if this
Speaker 2: player PENELOPEA I named her, if she plays two hundred bullets,
Speaker 2: two hundred entries, that is bullets. We don't want to
Speaker 2: use violent imagery, but that's what pokers say. When you
Speaker 2: buy into a tournament, you fire a bullet. She buys
Speaker 2: into two hundred bullets per year in live poker tournaments
Speaker 2: with a schedule that probably looks a lot like what
Speaker 2: you are. I might play Maria the mix of tournaments,
Speaker 2: and she loses money about forty to forty five percent
Speaker 2: of the time out of two hundred entries. I might
Speaker 2: play fifty entries this year. You might play more. You
Speaker 2: might be I don't know where are you seventy five,
Speaker 2: one hundred or something like. Well, probably the brutal truth
Speaker 2: is that the odds are that we will have a
Speaker 2: losing year, or at least I will with fifty entries.
Speaker 2: It's hard to win money with fifty entries. Sometimes you
Speaker 2: win a lot of money, but like probably sixty percent
Speaker 2: of the time, you wind up with a losing year
Speaker 2: with that, with that volume, even with with with an edge,
Speaker 2: I assume poker tournaments, we remain pretty soft. But like, so, yeah,
Speaker 2: probably my over under is like negative ten thousands. Okay,
Speaker 2: I won't speak for you.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm gonna I'm gonna be optimistic, but I'll
Speaker 1: be I'll be cautiously optimistic. We'll stay in the five
Speaker 1: figures instead of six figures. So so I'll say that, uh,
Speaker 1: I predict my net tournament winnings this year to be
Speaker 1: forty five thousand, twenty twenty five. I don't know where
Speaker 1: that number is coming from. It's it's trying, it's tempering expectations,
Speaker 1: but trying to hope for the best. The thing is,
Speaker 1: it's it's.
Speaker 2: Actually kind of hard to have the forty five thousand plus.
Speaker 2: It's like like you kind of have like you almost
Speaker 2: want to say like negative fifty thousand, or like I
Speaker 2: think something in three hundred k right or five, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean, because that's kind of where the distribution.
Speaker 1: It's true, it's true, but you know, like thinking of
Speaker 1: this past year, you know, I had a horrific World series,
Speaker 1: but I had a really good year at the end.
Speaker 1: But I had you know, I had some really big scores,
Speaker 1: but because my world series was so bad, I was,
Speaker 1: you know, down over one hundred thousand dollars. Like that
Speaker 1: really detracted from from the big scores. So so at
Speaker 1: the end I was positive, but it could have, you know,
Speaker 1: it could have very easily. It took a number of
Speaker 1: big scores to get me to the positive part, right, So.
Speaker 2: So what's on the what's on the schedule, even what's
Speaker 2: on this because fucking France I was gonna go.
Speaker 1: To I know, I know, it's very sad. It's very sad.
Speaker 1: EPT Paris, which was supposed to be the first European
Speaker 1: Poker Tour stop. Poker Stars my sponsor, I'm an ambassador.
Speaker 1: You know, we've got We've got lots of descibers this show. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: because of French regulations that got that got canceled. They're
Speaker 1: trying to reschedule it. I'm really hoping that it will
Speaker 1: be rescheduled. But right now, the first EPT stop is
Speaker 1: going to be Monte Carlo. That's going to be in April.
Speaker 1: I will be there and you should com nate. Monte
Speaker 1: Carlo's gorgeous. It's right on the water, absolutely.
Speaker 2: Beautiful, Robbie. You look at Monta Carlo.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's a beautiful probably a pretty easy, beautiful hotel, probably.
Speaker 2: Pretty easy to persuade, beautiful.
Speaker 1: Location, great fields. It's a really wonderful event. I think
Speaker 1: you should come and we can do we can do
Speaker 1: some bets for the show and for our listeners, and
Speaker 1: we can do a podcast episode from Monte Carlo. So
Speaker 1: let's then move on to AI. Oh I hate this question.
Speaker 1: It's so sad. Will a consumer AI model be able
Speaker 1: to host risky business by the end of twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five that will be indistinguishable from meat space, you and me?
Speaker 1: Or and if not, then in what year will that
Speaker 1: be possible? So what's our pe doom for podcast hosts?
Speaker 2: No, I agree, and I think it will be a while,
Speaker 2: if ever. I mean, like, I think personality is a
Speaker 2: very high fidelity problem that like I don't think there's
Speaker 2: like enough. I don't know. Yeah, it's it's hard to Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's pretty hard. I mean like it can kind of
Speaker 2: like make inferences about people that are very smart, right,
Speaker 2: but like because it kind of sees what the essential
Speaker 2: features are I think, but like the nuances are very
Speaker 2: are very tricky. Like AI is not a very good
Speaker 2: stylist at writing. I mean, I don't think it's very
Speaker 2: good at like art. I think people misunderstand art. This
Speaker 2: is a band, but like it is for another time.
Speaker 2: But like I'm not worried about this in the short thing.
Speaker 1: I totally agree with you. I don't think it's good
Speaker 1: at creative things in general, because it's good at regurgitation
Speaker 1: and at making things formally look like they're like on
Speaker 1: the surface good formalistically, but I don't think it's able
Speaker 1: to have creative insight. It's not able to connect ideas
Speaker 1: or answer questions in ways that haven't been done before
Speaker 1: because it doesn't actually think right. It doesn't actually have
Speaker 1: a brain. All it's doing is kind of connecting information.
Speaker 1: And there's also that there's also the garbage in garbage out.
Speaker 1: As more and more people are saying, you know, don't
Speaker 1: train AI on our ship, then you see that the
Speaker 1: AI output actually degenerates pretty quickly. So so I don't
Speaker 1: I don't think they're coming for our jobs yet.
Speaker 2: And I'm not sure I agree that it doesn't think.
Speaker 1: Well thinking, So I guess. I guess this is a
Speaker 1: much deeper philosophical discussion, which we can have on another
Speaker 1: episode of the show because it will take too long.
Speaker 1: But I think this is a very interesting question about
Speaker 1: what thinking actually is and how we should define that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, let's let's table that and let's have an
Speaker 1: episode about that, because I actually think it's really interesting. Nate,
Speaker 1: there's a question that's specific to you. You have ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollars and you can bet it on any line
Speaker 1: in sports this year, but you have to bet right now.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think the Oklahoma city is shay. You'll
Speaker 2: just Alexander is a good bet. When the MVP A
Speaker 2: were and he was at something like minus one twenty before,
Speaker 2: which implies what is that like if you know fifty
Speaker 2: five to sixty percent chance. I think he's more lucky
Speaker 2: than that to win the award. He is averaging let
Speaker 2: me look up his stats, so he's on the best
Speaker 2: team in the league. He's averaging thirty one point three
Speaker 2: points per game, five and a half rebounds, six assists,
Speaker 2: almost two steals per game on the best defense in
Speaker 2: the league, on the best team in the league. Nicola
Speaker 2: Jokich is an incompetition great player, but the Nuggets kind
Speaker 2: of suck. I think I think he is more lucky
Speaker 2: than Vegas assumes to win the MVP. And when I
Speaker 2: get back in any country we're betting is legal, I
Speaker 2: will be betting, probably not ten K, but betting some
Speaker 2: money on that.
Speaker 1: All right, Well you heard it here first, Nate. Does
Speaker 1: this mean that I should quickly open a sportsbook account
Speaker 1: and bet that I don't have? It's probably I've never
Speaker 1: done any sports betting. By the way, ever, in my.
Speaker 2: Minus war twenty is fifty five percent animals at sixty,
Speaker 2: So the answer is probably probably not okay, right, I
Speaker 2: mean because like, well, if you get like all the
Speaker 2: bonuses from the sports betting account, then sure, right, like
Speaker 2: a reason why I like you don't want to make
Speaker 2: Like in theory, these long term future's bets are fairly profitable, right,
Speaker 2: but in principle, if I am betting now on January,
Speaker 2: that ties up my capital for for several months, right,
Speaker 2: And then theory that like takes like a little tax
Speaker 2: on it, where like in theory, if that's in the
Speaker 2: s and P. Five hundred over four months, then you
Speaker 2: make whatever two and a half percent or something like that,
Speaker 2: And so like that's a little bit of a tax.
Speaker 2: It's meaningful. But then look, I don't know, I think
Speaker 2: it's a good bet. I'm gonna make that bet when
Speaker 2: I can.
Speaker 1: All right, sounds good.
Speaker 2: And we have a question for Maria what cognitive bias.
Speaker 2: They're all excited they went to the cognitive bias New
Speaker 2: Year's party, And can you imagine and like different cognitive
Speaker 2: biases at a.
Speaker 1: Post that would be a hilarious skit.
Speaker 2: Well, what kind oftive bias will win the second annual
Speaker 2: Daniel kind of a Memorial Cognitive Bias of the Year
Speaker 2: Award for twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Right, So we just had the Golden Globe Awards, and
Speaker 1: now cognitive biases are looking to see which one of
Speaker 1: them is going to win. I am going to vote
Speaker 1: for the recency effect as the bias of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: And what the recency effect also known as the availability bias?
Speaker 1: It means that basically, we overvalue what's happening, what just happened,
Speaker 1: things that are easily available to memory, and kind of
Speaker 1: forget the rest, right, Like it's a kind of amnesia
Speaker 1: where you forget selectively forget history and what's come before,
Speaker 1: and you overwet your decisions based on the information and
Speaker 1: the events that have just happened and that are most
Speaker 1: easily accessible in your mind. And I think we already
Speaker 1: started to see that. You know, it's funny, I just
Speaker 1: made the joke about the Golden Globes, but you already
Speaker 1: saw that in the goal in globes where basically no
Speaker 1: one talked politics, right, it was like, if you remember
Speaker 1: what happened after Donald Trump's first election, everyone had it
Speaker 1: in their speech and there was all this stuff, and
Speaker 1: this time it was just like, h okay, right, like
Speaker 1: moving moving on, We're not gonna we're not going to
Speaker 1: talk about it. We don't we don't really care. And
Speaker 1: so it just goes to show that, you know, our
Speaker 1: memories are short, and we accept kind of new normals
Speaker 1: very very quickly. And I think we'll we'll see a
Speaker 1: lot of collective forgetting happening in the year twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: I was host. I don't know if it's the same
Speaker 2: or the opposite. I was going to kind of go
Speaker 2: with the with the hot hand bias, right. I think
Speaker 2: Trump and Republicans are likely to overreach and overestimate their popularity,
Speaker 2: and like we talked about before, being president is hard.
Speaker 2: But we'll see.
Speaker 1: I think I think that's also quite likely that's they're
Speaker 1: not they're not mutually exclusive. I think both of these
Speaker 1: things could absolutely be true. Yeah, and we'll be back
Speaker 1: right after this. Let's move on to a multiple choice
Speaker 1: around about TikTok Okay, what's going to happen to TikTok
Speaker 1: a banned in the US? So Alpha Jen Alpha Riots
Speaker 1: b sold to a non Chinese company, C, nothing remains
Speaker 1: under Chinese corporate control or D none of the above.
Speaker 2: So Trump has asked the Supreme Court to pause the
Speaker 2: law that could ban TikTok. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, Marie,
Speaker 2: why aren't you in foremost, will I cheat by looking
Speaker 2: at polymarket?
Speaker 1: I think it is going to be sold to a
Speaker 1: non Chinese company, because so that's that's option B. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's going to be banned. I think that's
Speaker 1: too politically kind of risky. And Donald Trump does not
Speaker 1: like to do something that's going to hurt his popularity
Speaker 1: that much. But he you know, with tariffs, et cetera,
Speaker 1: it's not like he cares that much about alienating China
Speaker 1: on some level. So I think that that might be
Speaker 1: the compromise that that ends up that ends up winning out.
Speaker 1: So sold to a non Chinese holiday market, all right, tell.
Speaker 2: Me it's a forty three percent chance that TikTok has
Speaker 2: banned in the US before May twenty five, and so
Speaker 2: like if you exchect it out to anytime, that's surprisingly high.
Speaker 2: But like, so we do this law in place right
Speaker 2: that required it to be sold, So Trump will kind
Speaker 2: of have to go out of his way to prevent that, right,
Speaker 2: And I guess you're right, right because like, I think
Speaker 2: Trump concluded that like TikTok was probably helpful to him
Speaker 2: in the general election, right, Like it seemed to be
Speaker 2: boosting a lot of the campus protest type of stuff. Right,
Speaker 2: But Trump is also hawkish on China. I'm going to
Speaker 2: follow the polymarket logic. I'm gonna go that like TikTok
Speaker 2: will be banned in the US with above fifty percent
Speaker 2: probability by the end of the year, not by May.
Speaker 2: I'm going n trusting the market here by May. And
Speaker 2: then yeah.
Speaker 1: All right, so we'll see what happens. Does it get
Speaker 1: banned or does it get sold to a non Chinese company.
Speaker 1: Apparently the loser of this has to post to TikTok.
Speaker 1: We'll see about that. I'm not committing, not committing.
Speaker 2: I haven't thought it. So if I'm wrong, So if
Speaker 2: you're wrong, TikTok is banned, so you don't have to post.
Speaker 2: That seems unfair.
Speaker 1: That is unfair. Yeah, it's true. Well, we'll we'll figure out.
Speaker 1: We'll figure out another That is funny. That is very funny.
Speaker 1: All right, let's do a lightning round for pop culture.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you care about this, but I've
Speaker 1: been following Will the Oasis brothers have a fight on
Speaker 1: stage during their twenty twenty five world tour? Absolutely they will.
Speaker 1: Those people, those two guys cannot coexist. I think they've
Speaker 1: thrown shit at each other every single time they've been
Speaker 1: on stage, or one of them has stormed off every
Speaker 1: single time that they've tried to do a reunion tour.
Speaker 1: If they care about their bottom line, I think the
Speaker 1: only reason they're having a reunion tour is because one
Speaker 1: or both of them wants money. They'll probably try not
Speaker 1: to do it at the very beginning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it might be a fake fight, but like they'll
Speaker 2: have it. I mean that's a pretty logical bet.
Speaker 1: I agree. All right. Kim Kardashian visiting mar A Lago.
Speaker 2: Is she taking a stance on Trump?
Speaker 1: No, but I think she will because I think she
Speaker 1: you know, she was married to Kanye for so long
Speaker 1: or whatever he's calling himself now. Yeah, yeah, so I
Speaker 1: think I think there's a good chance that she that
Speaker 1: she goes there, and she's also very business savvy, so
Speaker 1: I think she will do whatever's better for her bottom line.
Speaker 1: And I think that she'll she'll probably uh that that
Speaker 1: means coosing up to Trump, So I would I would
Speaker 1: say there's a good chance she doesn't.
Speaker 2: I have no opinion. I'm proud to have no opinion.
Speaker 1: Sounds good. Best Picture winner? Do you have an opinion?
Speaker 2: Uh, I know it's about dyla movie good.
Speaker 1: I have not seen it yet, so so I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'll put uh, let's put the Brutalists there. Seems like
Speaker 1: it seems like a good one. Oh, this is interesting.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna have to speculate on this chance
Speaker 1: that Nate wears skinny jeans, which are supposedly back. So
Speaker 1: so you know with one hundred percent certainty whether it's
Speaker 1: yes or no.
Speaker 2: And I don't. I don't know where's it. Where's a
Speaker 2: threshold for seini jeans?
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know. This is very interesting, and
Speaker 1: I think it's probably different for men and women because
Speaker 1: straight leg jeans for women are not skinny jeans. For women,
Speaker 1: they really have to be like skin tight. But I
Speaker 1: feel like for men there's more of a there's like
Speaker 1: more of a window for them to be like a
Speaker 1: little bit less than skin tight. I'm gonna I can't
Speaker 1: even speculate on this. Well, no, okay, I'm.
Speaker 2: Turning forty seven years old in a week, Marie, I'm
Speaker 2: not going to be wearing skinny jeans. I don't think.
Speaker 1: All right, well, I'll talk to your partner about this
Speaker 1: and see. I think it depends on it depends on
Speaker 1: how the styles go.
Speaker 2: If I win, if I win an event at Monte Carlo,
Speaker 2: then I'll celebrate by buying some All right, let's do
Speaker 2: skinny jeans in Europe. Let's do it.
Speaker 1: And finally, do you have a long shot bet for
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, the thing that probably isn't going to happen,
Speaker 1: but you look like a genius if it does.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I actually do have one.
Speaker 1: What is it?
Speaker 2: Remember the drone thing?
Speaker 1: Yeah, the New Jersey dress.
Speaker 2: There are efforts of all these like drones over New
Speaker 2: Jersey and then it kind of went haywire and then
Speaker 2: it died out yep, and you know, people forgot about it.
Speaker 2: I think there's like a one in three chance that
Speaker 2: later reporting reveals that the initial spark of something was
Speaker 2: something real.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's I think that's a really interesting prediction.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because the issue is like, once it became this
Speaker 2: big viral thing. Then like the signal to noise ratio
Speaker 2: went way down and people were like just seeing like playings,
Speaker 2: learning at new work and every old you know, the
Speaker 2: moon and shit like that, right, But like you did
Speaker 2: have like the initial reports seemed more credible and like
Speaker 2: also like if you were like and there are a
Speaker 2: lot of military bases around there, if you were like,
Speaker 2: I don't think it's anything like super exciting, right, but
Speaker 2: like let's say you were testing out some new type
Speaker 2: of surveillance drone, right and you're running them back and
Speaker 2: forth between different military bases, and the US military, by
Speaker 2: the way, like has lots of drone technology, doesn't deny
Speaker 2: that it's an important part of a defense arsenal these days, right,
Speaker 2: I think it's like reasonably likely that like they were
Speaker 2: doing this a little too much, and like some people
Speaker 2: who were noticing carefully detected a change and the number
Speaker 2: of drones relative to baseline, and then kind of people
Speaker 2: that carried away and they were like and their denials
Speaker 2: weren't very They were like, well, there are lots of
Speaker 2: things in are drones in the sky, which is true, right,
Speaker 2: and became more and more true. Was more reports surfaced
Speaker 2: but if you were doing that shit, like let's say
Speaker 2: you have like a little pilot project or no puninitendies
Speaker 2: unpiloted project, you probably cut the fuck out of that
Speaker 2: once you once you get scrutiny on it, right, So
Speaker 2: I think there might have been something real there. I
Speaker 2: think the media was like not very basying in how
Speaker 2: I thought about the story, right, And like the military
Speaker 2: has drones, and like there ever reports about activity over
Speaker 2: over air force bases for years that are fairly credible
Speaker 2: and reported batlets like the Wall Street Journal, and I
Speaker 2: thought people were much too smug about that. And in
Speaker 2: the in the Trump era, there's a certain type of
Speaker 2: story where like where greater skepticism of the establishment I
Speaker 2: think might be might be helpful. Yeah, so that's my
Speaker 2: weird I wouldn't take it even money, But like I'd
Speaker 2: say one in three that some credible news outlet publishes
Speaker 2: a story probably opaquely sourcing, like yeah, there was a
Speaker 2: little something there, It was no big deal, but like
Speaker 2: people weren't totally making this up, and there was like
Speaker 2: a discrete increase for a couple of weeks Stare in
Speaker 2: New Jersey.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that sounds very plausible. To me, you
Speaker 1: know when I you know, living in Vegas near a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of military bases, you actually see
Speaker 1: weird shit in the sky all the time, including drone displays,
Speaker 1: and so I think that you know, there, you're just
Speaker 1: kind of used to it. You're like, there's Nellus, you know,
Speaker 1: there's all this stuff, and I think that there, I'm
Speaker 1: actually I think your prediction is a pretty solid one.
Speaker 1: Mine was not nearly as fun or as interesting or
Speaker 1: as technology well sort of technology oriented. But I'm predicting
Speaker 1: that twenty twenty five is going to be the year
Speaker 1: that we see a nuclear power resurgence, That all of
Speaker 1: the countries that have brought their power plants offline are
Speaker 1: going to bring them back online, and we're going to
Speaker 1: see the first new nuclear power plants open for a
Speaker 1: long time. That what makes you say that AI energy
Speaker 1: needs our power, We need power. Yeah, energy needs are
Speaker 1: are rising and companies don't know how to meet them
Speaker 1: and nuclear This will make them much friendlier to nuclear
Speaker 1: power than they ever have been before. And I'm actually
Speaker 1: very pro nuclear power. I think this is a good thing.
Speaker 1: I think that could be one of the good consequences
Speaker 1: of AI because I think it's a really nice, clean
Speaker 1: energy source. So that's my prediction on that note, Nate,
Speaker 1: I think you have to get to an airport right
Speaker 1: You're you're in Tokyo, You're about to fly, and I
Speaker 1: need to get to a comedy show. I am seeing
Speaker 1: Alex Adelman and I'm very, very excited about that. So
Speaker 1: yes we will. We're both having two exciting destinations. Mine
Speaker 1: a little bit more exciting than yours.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm going to the airport. I'm not even
Speaker 2: the nice airport in Tokyo, go to Henata.
Speaker 1: All right, there we have it. Safe travels and we'll
Speaker 1: see you next week. Happy twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: Everyone.
Speaker 1: Let us know what you think of the show. Reach
Speaker 1: out to us at Risky Business at Pushkin dot FM.
Speaker 1: Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Konnikova.
Speaker 2: And byb Nate Silver.
Speaker 1: The show is a co production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Isabelle Carter. Our associate producer
Speaker 1: is Gabriel Hunter Chang. Our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.
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