Toward Info Accounting In Competitive Forecasting – PPT file – by Robin Hanson – 2008-10-15
An interesting set of slides —though it’s about the technicalities of value assessment, and not about the big picture.
Toward Info Accounting In Competitive Forecasting
Toward Info Accounting In Competitive Forecasting
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- By on October 24, 2008 at 3:36 PM
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Well I thought it was about the big picture …
The big picture would be the result of such a method:
- Are prediction markets useful (on top of being accurate)?
Yes, and we aren’t likely to get that big picture until we get serious about habitually accounting carefully for the costs and benefits.
I understand that, and that’s why I hope many prediction market experts will look at those interesting slides.
(As I said, they are “technical” in a way, that’s why our casual readers should be told about that.)
I’m surprised to see the term “competitive forecasting” so carelessly used to refer to something unrelated to its origin as a specific NewsFutures tool. Then again, I’m not surprised to see Consensus Point (via its Chief Scientific Officer) following in this way in NewsFutures’ footsteps. Then again, if you’re going to follow, calling yourself “The Leader”, as the new CP website so loudly brags, seems inappropriate.
Emile, do you see the phrase as a trademark referring to your specific tool? We need a term broader than “prediction markets” to describe the class of related tools, and I thought the phrase you coined was a good choice for that.
Nothing to do with matters of trademarks and the like, but I wonder what percentage of PM consultants’ forecasts can be described as “decision markets”, i.e. conditional markets? Seems like that’s where their value should be demonstrated because of smaller timescales, regulatory issues, etc I hope those are the projects Dr. Hanson recently referred to when he said that he was considering a blogging hiatus.
RE: “matters of trademarks”
The issue has everything to do with the matters of trademarks.
Emile chose, in 2006, a generic brand (“competitive forecasting”) for his product. It was a mistake.
A good brand that stands up over the years is something that does not describe what you are doing.
http://www.midasoracle.org/2008/10/24/competitive-forecasting-newsfutures/#comment-22266
A good brand is something that people and scholars won’t use to describe something.
If they do, your brand is toasted. (And trampling the carcass of one scholar, chosen as a scapegoat, won’t help anything.)
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PS: Remember Google fighting against journalists using the verb “to google” as the equivalent of “to search the Web”? The Google lawyer has a good case, here, because “Google” means nothing by itself. Page and Brin made up this word completely. Emile should have done that, instead of beating to death the only scholar who, ironically, has the same good views as Emile does on matters about the informational value of the prediction markets.