| Past Week | Past Month | Past Year | This Season | All Time | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forecasts | 0 | 0 | 71 | 0 | 388 |
| Comments | 0 | 0 | 11 | 0 | 150 |
| Questions Forecasted | 0 | 0 | 13 | 0 | 60 |
| Upvotes on Comments By This User | 0 | 0 | 33 | 3 | 105 |
| Definitions | |||||
Maintaining my forecast.
Some interesting developments in the past month:
(1) A DoD report argues that a Taiwan invasion is not possible by 2027, citing the current state of PLA capabilities (source).
(2) A Vox piece on how an invasion of Taiwan by China might fall below the threshold of war due to the use of gray zone tactics.
Plenty of uncertainties here: (1) unauthorized action by the PLA, (2) a leadership crisis in China if Xi Jinping dies unexpectedly, (3) escalation due to an accident arising from the constant proximity of deployments, (4) developments elsewhere, e.g. in the US
Maintaining my forecast.
Investors were disappointed with Nvidia's Q3 results, despite revenue and earnings exceeding analysts' expectations. This is mainly due to concerns over how long current levels of growth can be sustained for.
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/video/nvidia-revenue-surged-q3-why-143504984.html
Nvidia has a lot working for it - demand far outstrips supply for its flagship Blackwell chip.
Maintaining my forecast, particularly given the timeframe of this question and the passage of time.
Only one interesting thing to highlight from the past month: some speculation regarding Putin's health due to observers noticing an uncontrollable twitch in his leg during a public appearance in Astana, Kazakhstan, in November 2024.
Putin is 72. There is still a chance that he may die unexpectedly and that is probably the main uncertainty that I am going up against in my forecast.
Maintaining my forecast. The timeframe for this question is long enough that I would want to keep the 10% for "yes" without adjusting downwards for passage of time just yet.
Not much is happening on this front to suggest any shift in Huawei's well-established stance regarding adopting O-RAN.
One development that has cropped up in the past month is that Korean telcos are looking to adopt O-RAN in anticipation of a push by the incoming Trump administration.
https://www.chosun.com/english/industry-en/2024/12/23/PR5UFNRUCZCNBGRXOGJRFARJKU/
Same uncertainty factors as the forecast for the other related question - (1) political pressure from the CCP on Huawei to adopt O-RAN, (2) escalation in measures by the US when the second Trump administration begins work (that force Huawei to rethink its current RAN-focused strategy.
Maintaining my forecast. There haven't been any major developments in the past month that suggest a need to adjust the current probabilities assigned to the different outcomes.
One thing I'm keeping an eye on is the upcoming O-RAN Alliance Summit scheduled to take place in March 2025. This Summit is expected to discuss "the future evolution of 3GPP and O-RAN Alliance architectures towards 6G" (source).
As the timeline for this question stretches up to 2027, there is a possibility that things will evolve in 2025 and 2026 once 6G standards are closer to being finalized. The expected timeline for a 6G standard is 2028 (source).
Adjusting the probability of my forecast downwards by 2%, mainly to reflect the passage of time and lack of any major developments that point to Huawei engaging in collaboration with the O-RAN Alliance within the question's timeframe.
A few uncertainties to consider: (1) political pressure from the CCP on Huawei to adopt O-RAN, (2) escalation in measures by the US when the second Trump administration begins work (that force Huawei to rethink its current RAN-focused strategy).
Maintaining my forecast.
Myanmar's junta has concluded the census that it had said was a precondition for holding elections next year. However, the challenges that the junta has faced in conducting the census throughout the country underscores the fact that it does not exercise complete control over more than half of Myanmar's territory.
https://apnews.com/article/census-conflict-election-military-population-8c00211b6f5b07b945fb1b5f6285f54a
There is still no clarity on when the election will be held, and plenty of questions regarding its validity given the junta's dissolution of opposition parties.
https://www.rfa.org/english/myanmar/2024/12/10/election-townships-vote/
https://eastasiaforum.org/2024/12/04/myanmars-elections-will-be-a-china-sponsored-fraud/
The key issue here is "national" - the criteria for this question's resolution actually supports an election held by the junta only in the areas that it controls.
A major uncertainty is whether the ongoing hostilities may tip in favor of rebel groups and lead to a situation where the junta loses control over more territory.
Maintaining my forecast.
The main mover among Muslim-majority countries on normalization has been Saudi Arabia, and there is a very low likelihood of Saudi Arabia going ahead with a normalization deal given the ongoing conflict in Gaza and other considerations such as the condition around the creation of a Palestinian state.
The main factor here would be the end of hostilities between Israel and Hamas. However, all available evidence at this point suggests that Israel has no intention of letting up until it has completely wiped out Hamas
Why do you think you're right?
(1) Resources - it's unclear how the DPRK would balance preparing for a nuclear test vs its current support of Russia's invasion of Ukraine - on top of the other usual budgetary pull factors that any functioning state has to reckon with.
(2) Uncertainty around ROK and US responses - particularly given the recent impeachment and the incoming Trump administration.
The timeframe of the question is key here. If we're looking beyond June 2025, the picture could be a little different, especially once the DPRK is able to capitalize on its support of Russia in Ukraine.
Why might you be wrong?
(1) The DPRK could gain access to Russian testing facilities in return for its support in Ukraine. There are already some signals that things are headed this way due to an apparent shift in Russia's stance at the UN regarding the disarmament of the DPRK: https://www.straitstimes.com/world/united-states/us-alarmed-russia-close-to-accepting-nuclear-armed-north-korea
(2) The DPRK has the capability to conduct a 7th nuclear test - the question of when it happens could therefore be driven more by politics than resource constraints.
https://beyondparallel.csis.org/recent-activity-observed-at-punggye-ri-nuclear-test-facility-2/