A collection of all the weird things that happened in 2025 that took me by surprise. The list is shorter than I expected, which surely implies that I have very good world models and has nothing to do with the amount of care I gave this list throughout the year

  • Doing this well in ACX predictions (+associated drama) ~ Jan 2025
  • “I definitely want to read the full GS 2026 economic outlook once it comes out” ~ Me, 2025-02-01, becoming a true finance.
  • The riviera of the middle east ~ 2025-02-26
  • More broadly, Trump seriously trying to do everything he said he would do ~ 2025-04-12
  • Pope Leo XIV being more AI-aware than seemingly anyone else in power? ~ 2025-05-12

    I chose to take the name Leo XIV. There are different reasons for this, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution. In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour. (https://twitter.com/VaticanNews/status/1921186921838997935)

  • Two substantial personal developments (REDACTED) ~ 2025-07-09
  • A substantial career development (REDACTED) ~ 2025-07-15
  • NATO engaging a Russian drone & Russian interference at several major European airports1 ~ 2025-10-03
  • The extent to which the US is now furthering Russian interests, specifically shenanigans around the Ukraine peace treaty. I think this is a broader failure for me here, a mix of “bad things don’t happen” and some narrative thing where I just got used to Trump and Russia to be villains of the politics story and complacency lead me not to question 1) what the long term strategic objectives of Russia actually are 2) what it would mean if my hunch that Trump is either a personal ally or an actual intelligence asset to Putin were true2. ~ 2025-11-19
  • Eurostoxx 50 outperforming the S&P 500. Stonks

I’m sure we’re heading for an even more interesting 2026.

  1. I’m not sure there has been official attribution to Russia, so I’m just speculating here. Could have been anyone. ↩

  2. I’m not sure if this is still my best theory for what’s going on. Could be that the story is a slightly more harmless “autocracies like dealing with other autocracies”. I’d like to understand this better, in particular how big an impact on the world the Social Design Institute and the Internet Institute are actually having. ↩