One Robin Hanson fanboy admits that prediction markets, by essence, can’t foretell meta disasters implicating the destruction of all world-wide prediction markets themselves.

Posted on June 18, 2008 by Chris F. Masse

Hal Finney on the probability of the Large Hadron Collider destroying the universe:

Unfortunately this is one kind of question where an Idea Futures market would not work too well, because people who correctly bet that the reactor will destroy the earth may not be able to collect their winnings. This would cause the market to under-estimate the risks.

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Ha! ha! ha! :-D

The debate is raging at Overcoming Bias. One commenter has posted the abstract of a paper claiming the LHC is dangerous…

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About Chris F. Masse

Founder and President of Midas Oracle
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3 Responses to One Robin Hanson fanboy admits that prediction markets, by essence, can’t foretell meta disasters implicating the destruction of all world-wide prediction markets themselves.

  1. Eric says:
    June 18, 2008 at 10:05 PM

    Wouldn’t it be dead simple to have this work out?  Specify the contract pays out at $1 if the world still exists after the collider starts running, $0 otherwise.  The folks who think the world will end short the contract; the expiry of the world is equivalent to the contract expiring at zero.

  2. Chris F. Masse says:
    June 19, 2008 at 5:27 AM

    @Eric: Will the short-sellers have an incentive since they know they will not be able to collect if they are right?

  3. Pingback: Brand-new scientific report certifies that starting off the Large Hadron Collider is NOT going to destroy the Earth. Glad to hear that. It means that any bets entertained on the LHC issue will be able to be collected in the end. | Midas Oracle .ORG

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