Oracle Bones
An Oracle Bone is a dated, falsifiable prediction filed before the event resolves, kept in public view, and scored later. The form borrows its discipline from the Shang oracle-bone tradition: the question, the reading, and eventually the outcome are all written down.
Each bone names a visible signal, makes one claim, states the falsifier, and returns later for judgment.
Why oracle bones
The author first encountered oracle bones in Taipei at the National Palace Museum — 國立故宮博物院 — where Shang dynasty turtle plastrons and ox scapulae sit behind glass, small, cracked, and astonishingly alive. They are among the earliest surviving evidence of written Chinese: questions put to the ancestors, heat applied, cracks read, and the record inscribed for later eyes.
For someone learning 中文, that is hard to forget. The bones make writing feel less like a school subject and more like a civilizational technology: a way of asking the future to show itself, then keeping a record of what was asked.
Why these predictions
This project borrows the form, not the claim to supernatural authority. The author has a background in international affairs, China and Taiwan, Mandarin, Hong Kong banking, corporate strategy, and machinery/equipment markets. So we are trying a small public experiment: file predictions about world events, trade, institutions, markets, and legitimacy before they resolve, then return later to see whether the reading was right.
The predictions come from an internal Court of Oracles we keep for this purpose. The Court includes an Astronomer, who notices the signal; a Historian, who remembers and scores old bones; a Diviner, who makes the prediction; a Scribe, who records it; and a Jester, who argues the other side before the prediction is filed. The Jester is a Shakespearean addition to the Chinese court — keeping the oracles entertained, at least, and occasionally keeping them honest.
Filed bones
- Bone #002 — U.S.–China Managed Trade · filed May 15, 2026 · judge by July 31, 2026