The Midterms and the Day After

In this episode (recorded 11/1/18), we continue our discussion of the political climate in the US ahead of the midterm elections on Tuesday. We talk about the impact of the “migrant caravan” story and President Trump’s threat to end birthright citizenship; why most conspiracy theories are false; humiliation in forecasting and in politics; the Missouri Senate race; the fight over the US Supreme Court; the possibility of violence after the midterms; and Trump’s claim that he can effectively amend the 14th Amendment by executive order.

Listeners still have a couple more days to take advantage of political betting site PredictIt’s midterm promotional offer (check out our interview with PredictIt’s Will Jennings here). Sign up by Election Day (November 6) to get up $20 of your first deposit matched by using our link:

www.predictit.org/promo/NONPROPHETS20

GO VOTE, AMERICA!

You can find NonProphets on Blubrry, iTunes, Stitcher and Google Play. As always, if you have questions, ideas for future episodes, or would like to suggest a possible black swan event, you can use our contact page or e-mail us at (nonprophetspod [at] gmail.com). If you enjoy this podcast, please rate us and recommend us to your friends.

Will Kavanaugh Be Confirmed?

In this episode (recorded 9/18/18), we discuss Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court in light of allegations that he tried to rape a fifteen-year-old girl when he was in high school. We talk about the PredictIt market for how many votes Kavanaugh will get in the Senate by October 31; the nature of the allegations against Kavanaugh; how hearings might affect midterm elections in the US; the altercation at an Emmy party between Mark Burnett and Tom Arnold about the rumored Trump Apprentice tapes; and a also few Things Scott Cares About.

You can find NonProphets on Blubrry, iTunes, Stitcher and Google Play. As always, if you have questions, ideas for future episodes, or would like to suggest a possible black swan event, you can use our contact page or e-mail us at (nonprophetspod [at] gmail.com). If you enjoy this podcast, please rate us and recommend us to your friends.

Scared Money

In this episode (recorded 9/4/18), Atief and Robert discuss the upcoming midterm elections in the US. We talk about what information we use to forecast the midterms; whether the median voter theorem still holds; local races in Missouri and Hawaii as well as other races we find interesting; and the importance of voter turnout.

Listeners who are interested in trying PredictIt to make real bets on political events like the midterm elections—check out our interview with PredictIt’s Will Jennings here—can get up $20 of their first deposit matched by using this promotional link:

www.predictit.org/promo/NONPROPHETS20

Don’t forget to submit your interesting forecasting questions to us at (nonprophetspod [at] gmail.com) for a chance to win a genuine collectible Korea Singapore Summit coin.

You can find NonProphets on Blubrry, iTunes, Stitcher and Google Play. The intro music for this episode is a clip from “Midnight” by A Tribe Called Quest. As always, if you have questions, ideas for future episodes, or would like to suggest a possible black swan event, you can use our contact page or e-mail us at (nonprophetspod [at] gmail.com). If you enjoy this podcast, please rate us and recommend us to your friends.

Odds and Ends

In this episode (recorded 5/31/18), we catch up on what we’ve been doing while we’re not podcasting. Atief talks about the importance of the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision in Lucia v. Securities and Exchange Commission for administrative law judges and for the administrative state. Robert talks about his experience as a delegate at the recent Hawaii State Democrats Convention. Then we talk with Atief about his experience as a new parent and his philosophy of parenting. We close with a discussion Atief’s purchase of the amazing commemorative Korea peace talks coins being sold by the White House Gift Shop.

You can find NonProphets on Blubrry, iTunes, Stitcher and Google Play. As always, if you have questions, ideas for future episodes, or would like to suggest a possible black swan event, you can use our contact page or e-mail us at (nonprophetspod [at] gmail.com). If you enjoy this podcast, please rate us and recommend us to your friends.

Homage to Catalonia

In this episode (recorded 10/4/17), we begin with a discussion of the Catalan independence referendum (Catalan President Carles Puigdemont just issued a confusing suspended declaration of independence while we were posting this). We go on to talk about how we can reduce the impact fake news in the wake of fake stories that emerged after the Las Vegas Strip shooting. We close with a conversation about the chance of a copycat shooting and the prospects for gun control in the US.

The intro music is a clip from “Ibitha” by Lonely Island. You can find NonProphets on Blubrry, iTunes, Stitcher and Google Play. As always, if you have questions, ideas for future episodes, or would like to suggest a possible black swan event, you can use our contact page or e-mail us at (nonprophetspod [at] gmail.com). If you enjoy this podcast, please rate us and recommend us to your friends.

Football With Knives

We kick off this episode (recorded 6/21/17) with a discussion of Romanian politics and tax policy. We move on to the recent special election in Georgia’s 6th congressional district to replace Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price, the Republican healthcare bill’s prospects in the Senate, whether military action could make President Trump more popular, and whether Nancy Pelosi makes it harder for Democrats to win elections. We close the episode by talking about  “Trump’s Mirror”, Kansas’s experiment in conservative economics, and how the Supreme Court might rule in the upcoming partisan gerrymandering case.

Here’s a link to the Frank Rich interview of Chris Rock we mention in the podcast. You can find NonProphets on Blubrry, iTunes and Google Play. As always, if you have questions, ideas for future episodes, or would like to suggest a possible black swan event, you can use our contact page or e-mail us at (nonprophetspod [at] gmail.com). If you enjoy this podcast, please rate us and recommend us to your friends.

Episode 24: Striking Syria

We start this episode (recorded 4/5/2017 and updated 4/7/2017) by discussing where the U.S. will rank next year in Transparency International’s global Corruption Perceptions Index.

Next we talk about whether we thought the U.S. would strike Syria in response to Bashar al-Assad’s apparent use of chemical weapons in Idlib. Events moved quickly—the U.S did in fact launch 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airbase the day after we recorded. So we added a new segment we recorded after the attack to the discussion looking at why we didn’t think a strike was more likely.

We go on to talk about the “nuclear option”, whether the Senate will get rid of the filibuster for legislation, and the Democrats’ chances of retaking Congress. We close the podcast by putting in a plug for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and recommending you use a virtual private network when you’re online.

You can find NonProphets on Blubrry, iTunes and Google Play. As always, if you have questions, ideas for future episodes, or would like to suggest a possible black swan event, you can use our contact page or e-mail us at (nonprophetspod [at] gmail.com. If you enjoy this podcast, please rate us and recommend us to your friends.

Episode 19: Trump Administration Best Bets

In episode 19 (recorded 2/12/17), we discuss the odds President Trump will be impeached, the odds that Trump will win the Nobel Peace Prize, which Trump administration official will be the first to leave office (and decide that at 12-1 odds National Security Advisor Michael Flynn is our best bet to leave office first), what’s wrong with New York Knicks management, whether compromising Russian footage of Trump will appear on RedTube, whether Trump and Melania will split up, whether the Affordable Care Act will be repealed or amended in 2017, who the next justice to leave the Supreme Court will be, and whether the Trump administration will withdraw from the Iran deal.

You can also find NonProphets on Blubrry, iTunes and Google Play. As always, if you have questions, ideas for future episodes, or would like to suggest a possible black swan event, you can use our contact page or e-mail us at (nonprophetspod [at] gmail.com). If you enjoy this podcast, please rate us and recommend us to your friends.

Episode 13: Holiday Forecasts!

In Episode 13 (recorded on 12/7/16), we try to predict the 2017 Pantone color of the year (go here to read about how Pantone selects its color of the year). Robert and Scott guess primrose yellow while Atief bets it will be island paradise. The day after we recorded Pantone announced the color of the year will be greenery, which Scott had as his alternate choice.

We then try to forecast Amazon’s 10 top holiday best-sellers and the opening weekend domestic box office of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. We close the podcast with a brief discussion of the chance that Democrats could push through Merrick Garland’s appointment to the Supreme Court in the brief recess before the new Senate is sworn in.

The intro music for this episode is a clip from Hilo Hattie, “Santa’s Hula”. As always, if you have questions, ideas for future episodes, or would like to suggest a possible black swan event, use the contact page or e-mail us at (nonprophetspod [at] gmail.com). And if you enjoy this podcast, please rate us on iTunes and recommend us to your friends.