What Surprised Me

Reflections on my past and future blind spots

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People who follow the news often claim to be “surprised” or even “shocked” by current events.

That’s almost never my reaction.

Sure, I can’t predict the details of the latest happenings. But the broad outlines of the news are tiresomely familiar. Heinous domestic murders. War in the Middle East. Blatant violations of the plain English reading of the Constitution. Chaotic socialist tyrannies in Latin America. Pampered First Worlders blaming their horrible plight (?) on hapless refugees. Civil wars in Africa.

And always, people screaming at each other.

Yet over the years, current events have genuinely surprised or even shocked me a few times. Here are the main surprises I’ve been conscious of so far.

Dexter was great for 95 of the first 96 episodes, but the finale was surprisingly bad.

1. The collapse of the Soviet bloc. I expected that all reformism would ultimately be constrained by Soviet tanks. Instead, the Soviet Union let its satellites go, then shattered into 15 separate countries two years later.

2. 9/11. As the vehicular rammings of the mid-2010s show, any motivated midwit can carry out a major terrorist attack. Since major terrorist attacks are very rare, motivated midwits must be in short supply. QED. Yet one far craftier team of terrorists still managed to carry out this world-shaking attack. (Note: I was not surprised that nothing comparable has happened since).

3. After Obama won, I laughed at a colleague who predicted that complaining about racism in America was finally over. But I was still shocked a few years later when complaining about racism — and renewed “anti-racist” activism — massively multiplied.

4. In mid-2015, I laughed at the idea that Trump would win the Republican nomination. Once he got the nomination, though, I was only moderately surprised that he won the election.

5. I was shocked that transgenderism became so common that I personally know multiple people with trans children. Darwinian evolution just tells us less about human sexuality than I imagined.

6. In 2020, I was not surprised by the emergence of a new, moderately lethal virus. Such things happen a handful of times per century. But I was completely stunned that serious limits on in-person activity lasted more than two weeks in the United States. Indeed, my jaw dropped simply when Disneyland first shut down. I never expected a reasonable policy response, but I counted on ADHD to save us. ADHD did not save us.

7. I was not surprised that Trump refused to concede the 2020 election. Indeed, one premise of my 2016 election bet was that even if Trump lost, he would not admit it. I was however surprised that he managed to come back from January 6, especially at his age.

8. I was surprised that Putin tried a full invasion of Ukraine. I thought he would limit himself to annexing de facto independent territory in Donetsk and Luhansk.

9. I was amazed that AI went from mediocre to excellent so quickly. But not surprised that it’s taking so long for AI to actually replace human workers, even when it conceptually seems easiest.

10. Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs shocked me. I figured he would limit himself to symbolic outrages, but instead he eagerly terrified the stock market for weeks. While he mostly backed off and the stock market more than fully recovered, there’s almost nothing he could do on foreign trade that would shock me at this point.

Is there any common thread, to help me avoid further surprises in the future? The only one I see is Trump, who really is a surprising figure on so many levels. At this point, he’d have to order a dozen summary domestic executions without trial to shock me again. I’d be a little surprised if he didn’t try to run for a third term, though I still wouldn’t give him more than an 8% chance to succeed. He is a wild card, but a wild card that is too elderly to stay in play much longer.

Since I don’t see any other common threads to help improve my forecasting, I’m afraid I have to expect another ten major surprises in my lifetime. What will happen?

Broad strokes: I foresee lots of economic and technological progress combined with the continuation of the Great Political Stagnation. I doubt there will be a nuclear war, but it wouldn’t be a total shocker. I also doubt that dictatorship will collapse in China, but that wouldn’t be a total shocker either. I would be totally shocked and elated if serious life extension technology became widely available before I die.

So let’s root for that! Even unpleasant surprises are a small price to pay to keep enjoying the gift of life.