Comment by tptacek
1 day ago
I agree with Thompson about these kinds of prediction markets, but predicting horrible catastrophes is one of the prosocial early use cases of these things.
1 day ago
I agree with Thompson about these kinds of prediction markets, but predicting horrible catastrophes is one of the prosocial early use cases of these things.
Agreed, as long as it's a catastrophe that the bettors can't cause, but for which advance warning can mitigate harms.
For instance, I'm in favor of bets that a certain astroid will strike the earth at a certain time and place. A signal from the prediction markets might cause somebody to evacuate in a scenario where they'd otherwise cry "fake news."
Let's not bet on whether the water will remain drinkable, because the last thing we need is for somebody to have an incentive to poison it.
> For instance, I'm in favor of bets that a certain astroid will strike the earth at a certain time and place. A signal from the prediction markets might cause somebody to evacuate in a scenario where they'd otherwise cry "fake news."
I understand the point you're making, but in this case, you're still incentivizing someone somewhere to not attempt to the best of their ability to intervene in that astroid. Bets that truly can't cause any change in behavior that might affect the outcome are a mostly theoretical category, in my opinion.
If the bet can't cause any change in behavior then the whole thing is useless. The whole point is to do some good with it. The constraint is that the bettor can't alter the outcome.
Another one would be discovering malware in a PR and betting loudly enough that it won't get merged. The bet is how you make your certainty rise above the bot noise and attract extra attention on the maintainers' part.
Granted that's also theoretical, but it's worth theorising about how we'll get things done in a world where the only way to be heard is to put your money where your mouth is.
1 reply →
In the prediction markets, there's a fine line between predicting and manifesting.
I mean, I'm talking about things like hurricanes and earthquakes and forest fires, not running death pools.
I think I see where you're coming from, but if we're using them to predict hurricanes, it's likely just meteorological data arbitrage. All else seems like random chance; hardly an example of an oracle.
> forest fires
Fire bug
> earthquakes
Dynamite the fault
> hurricanes
Crazy, but, hear me out: mirrors in space warming the Atlantic, mirrors in Africa warming the atmosphere ("solar power"), Trump wanting to nuke a hurricane, etc.
Pandemic? Go harvest bats and put them in a cage with chickens. You don't even need a molecular bio lab.
Stock market crash? Bombs. Terrorist attacks.
Energy prices? Derail a train carrying fuel cars. Bonus points if it's in a major metro and has a blast radius. Or, I dunno, start a war with Iran.
This could get really bad.
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