The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 803 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Chamath predicts Google Search will lose 10% to 15% usage in 2023
“So I think that, you know, Google could lose 10 or 15% of usage to all these other sites. And that may not make any of those sites that relevant, but it'll have a material measurable impact to Google”
Palihapitiya: Any Democratic nominee will crush Trump in 2024 election
“Because if it is Trump, whoever the Democratic candidate is, I don't think it really matters, will crush Trump.”
Sacks: SBF gave zero donations to the Republican Party
“How many donations did he give to the Republican party? None.”
Sacks: California public workers earn 53% to 100% more than private sector
“The typical government worker in California makes 53% more than their private sector counterpart. And if you factor in all the pensions that have been promised, it's a hundred percent more.”
Chamath: New IRS agents will target middle and upper-middle income taxpayers
“When you apply 87,000 people and task them incrementally with doing a job, it's not going to touch these folks that are already audited. It's going to touch the folks that are not audited, and by and large, a much, much larger majority of middle income and upp…”
Calacanis: Jeff Bezos will run for US president in 2024
“Bezos is going to run for president in 2024. This is why he retired.”
Sacks: 2024 US presidential election will be DeSantis vs. Newsom
“I think it's going to be DeSantis versus Newsom in 24.”
Chamath: Ron DeSantis would win presidential election in a landslide
“DeSantis runs, he's gonna run, he's gonna win a landslide.”
Greenwald: Over 10 million Americans voted for Obama twice, then Trump
“There are literally millions of voters in excess of ten million, depending on how you count, but definitely in excess of ten million. Voters who twice voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 12, and then in 2016 voted for Donald Trump.”
Chamath: $35 trillion in global wealth destroyed in early 2022
“Since the beginning of this year till about yesterday, so I think the number is still going up probably by at least by a trillion dollars. We have destroyed collectively as a society 35 trillion dollars in global market value. Now, to give you a sense of that,…”
Sacks predicts Putin installs a puppet government and leaves within a year
“I don't think he wants this problem long term. It's probably gonna be more like the situation we had in Georgia in 2008. He goes in for a year. He institutes perhaps some sort of puppet government or some government that's more favorable to him, and then he ge…”
Sacks predicts a Democratic midterm landslide defeat if focused on Jan 6
“And if you and the Democrats keep talking about this and focus on it, on MSNBC, to the exclusion of the issues that really matter I'll see you in November because you're gonna get slaughtered in this midterm election. It's gonna be a landslide.”
Chamath: No professional Silicon Valley VCs invested in Theranos
“There's not a single person in Silicon Valley, I think, who put in a single shekel into this thing who actually does this as a real job.”
David Sacks predicts a $13,000 California school choice voucher ballot initiative
“There's going to be a ballot initiative that says that any Parent who wants to send their kid to an accredited school can get a voucher for 13,000 dollars from the state.”
Palihapitiya predicts the Supreme Court will eliminate affirmative action within two months
“In the next month, maybe in the next two months, we're going to sort of see a pretty strict opinion on affirmative action. And if you talk to legal scholars, the overwhelming consensus is this is gone.”
Sacks: Democrats will lose 40 to 50 seats in 2022 midterms
“You're going to see. 40 to 50 seat losses by the Democrats in 2022.”
Palihapitiya: Future COVID variant will overcome vaccines and shut down economy
“At a certain amount of time, you're going to have a variant that that is, you know, basically will overcome all the vaccines we have, will kill enormous numbers of people, including the vaccinated will literally shut the economy down. And that's a probabilisti…”
Sacks claims Gascón's campaign received $5M each from Soros, Hastings, BLM
“Five million came from Soros, five million came from Reed Hastings, five million came from BLM.”
Chamath: Bush traded China's WTO entry for a UN vote on Iraq
“All of a sudden, Bush comes along and says, Well, you know, this seems to be working out. Well, I want to go to war with Iraq, I need to basically get China to vote. Yes. And the Security Council. Okay, what's it gonna take? China's like, admit me to the WTO.”
Chamath Palihapitiya: Bush traded China's WTO entry for a Security Council vote
“George Bush in 2001 had this really seminal decision, which is he had the ability to block China from entering the WTO and instead he left them in. And he traded that for a vote on the Security Council.”
Chamath Palihapitiya predicts flooded nickel mines will double Tesla vehicle prices
“A flood in a nickel mine is going to cause the price of a Tesla to basically double.”
Friedberg: California spent $100M on a no-bid vaccine website contract
“There was a hundred million dollars spent on Accenture to build the vaccination website. No bid contract.”
Sacks predicts California Governor Gavin Newsom will be recalled
“Look, this is why Newsom is going to get recalled is because crime and education are just fundamental issues.”
Sacks predicts Gavin Newsom will be recalled over closures and crime
“And if these two things don't turn around, I think Gavin Newsom is going to get recalled.”
Palihapitiya: Wind and solar will make oil extraction economically infeasible by 2024
“The cost of wind and the cost of solar is going to make pulling the oil out of the ground economically and feasible within three or four years.”
Sacks: Pfizer delayed vaccine trial announcement to avoid influencing the election
“And so Pfizer had this news weeks ago. Now I understand their reason for not wanting to appear to be influencing the outcome of the election. So I, that's why they held onto it.”
Sacks predicts there will not be a second COVID lockdown
“There's not going to be a second lockdown.”
Chamath Palihapitiya predicts California will fail to pass police reform legislation
“We are not going to have police reform of any kind in California, which is where you'd think would be the first state where people got their act together and said, okay, if we really believe that we need to reform police we can do it in our own backyards, but …”
Sacks predicts no new U.S. gun control legislation for a generation
“There's not going to be any new gun control legislation for a generation because of the looting and writing that's going on Gun sales are at an all-time high.”
Scientific organizations have definitively shown that glyphosate is non-carcinogenic
“A lot of scientific membership organizations very definitively and clearly show that glyphosate is non-carcinogenic.”
Sacks: High chance Biden's VP pick becomes president within two years
“There's a very high chance that this VP pick will become the president, given Biden's age and everything going on in the world. And we've just seen crisis after crisis this year. I think there's gonna be more shoes to drop. And this person that we don't even k…”
Sacks: Ubiquitous mask wearing is sufficient to stop exponential viral growth
“Wide-scale use of masks, sort of ubiquitous mask wearing is sufficient to control the virus, meaning to stop the exponentiality of the virus.”
Chamath Palihapitiya predicts Donald Trump will win the 2020 election
“I think that Donald Trump is overwhelmingly likely to win as a function of people's frustration about the lockdowns.”
Chamath: Cities will open green zones for antibody-tested individuals within six weeks
“I think that the emerging evidence will soon be hard to ignore that we have a denominator problem, which means that we're not testing enough, and that these IgG and IgM tests will come online at scale in the next two weeks. And that we will establish, ah, dema…”
Friedberg says IPCC forecasts in Al Gore's climate movie were disproven
“Al Gore published a movie called Inconvenient Truth. And he used these IPCC forecasts that as of now have been disproven, and many of the assumptions in those forecasts were not correct.”
Friedberg: New tech cuts AI power cost per token by 10,000x
“There are technologies now that are reducing the cost of power per token of output by 10,000 X.”
Kratsios: 70% of US STEM PhD Candidates Are Non-American
“The idea that, you know, seven out of 10 STEM-related PhD candidates in the United States are not American.”
Kratsios: Median age of NIH intramural researchers is 71 years old
“The median age of an intramural researcher at NIH is 71 years old.”
Calacanis: Poorest NYC communities most favored stop-and-frisk policing
“The people in the poorest communities were the most in favor of stop, ask, and frisk.”
Friedberg: College administrative staff grew from 10% to 60% in 30 years
“We've seen administrative staff grow from 10% to 60% in the last 30 years.”
Calacanis: Studies show $12–$20 minimum wage causes no unemployment or automation
“All of the studies now show when you go to 12 to 20 dollars an hour, there's no difference. Doesn't cause any economic hardship for those companies. And it doesn't cause unemployment or automation.”
Sacks: China Produces More Math and Science Graduates Than Rest of World
“They're graduating more math and science graduates every year than the rest of the world combined.”
Gelsinger: Intel did not build a new factory for a decade
“It hadn't built a new factory in a decade when I got there.”
Sacks: No other country in the world has birthright citizenship policy
“By the way, I don't think any country in the world has this policy. It's kind of a crazy policy.”
Friedberg: At least 15 Fortune 500 companies left California since 2019
“Since 2019, at least 15 Fortune 500 companies have moved out of California, moved their headquarters out, not to mention all the local franchises and everything that moved out. 2100 companies that are mid or large size have moved out of California since 2019.”