… for all the wrong reasons: his diet. The topic of this New York Times article is “calorie restriction”. Thus, prediction markets-friend Mike Linksvayer wasn’t able to make a plug for the Foresight Exchange, or for any other prediction exchange(s).
DISAMBIGUATION: MIKE LINKSVAYER IS PICTURED LIVE IN THE SECOND PHOTO, BELOW THE FIRST PARAGRAPHS OF THE NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE, NOT IN THE FIRST VISUAL THAT YOU WILL SEE AT THE TOP OF THE NEW YORK TIMES PAGE.
About Mike Linksvayer: He is a left libertarian living in San Francisco. At days, he is a chief technology officer at a non-profit (read this Halloween T-shirt story to have a good laugh at him), and at nights, he is a Robin Hanson fanboy. Mike Linksvayer swallows just every Robin Hanson’s idea about decision markets. Because he is a friend of prediction markets, a great master of the information technology (so important for the prediction exchanges), and a highly ethical person (though he gives me the impression to have a screw lose, sometimes), I’m delighted that he is part of our group blog, Midas Oracle, as a Comment Author and Post Author (for the last role, if one day he has a good story to share with us). His first comment here was to correct me on political situations where there are no good polls but prediction markets are nevertheless accurate (a highly hypothetical situation he made up in his sick mind fertile imagination, probably).
Post Scriptum: Mike Linksvayer is emblematic of the population of “entropians” “extropians” (a.k.a. “transhumanists“), and people loosely related to that philosophy (like Chris Hibbert), who populate the Foresight Exchange and other sites, and who view Robin Hanson as a semi-God whose concepts (idea futures, decision markets, etc.) will save the Planet Earth and enhance the human race (or so they think). I’d say that I agree with them on a semi-regular basis, and with some nuances —so as to be diplomatic, here.
Addendum: InstaPundit on the NYT calorie restriction article, and Mike Linksvayer’s half rebuttal. (And the blogosphere’s reactions.)
Correction: Tom W. Bell corrects me. It’s “extropians”, not “entropians”… (“unless you mean to make some kind of jibe”, he wrote).
You mean eXtropians, unless you’re poking fun, which is ok.
Yeah, thanks for the correction. I have just posted the correction, prompted by Tom W. Bell, who is also a member of this cult.
Maybe I should do this diet, after all.