An open letter to Prof Panos about Midas Oracle:
My Dear Honorable Prof Panos,
I am no “stupid“. 
As I stated, Midas Oracle will publish both the good and the bad about prediction markets.
- The scientific view is indeed that prediction markets should be assessed on long series, and that, indeed, failure is, by essence, in the cards. As you stated, Midas Oracle has indeed reflected this view in the past, and will do so in the future.
- That said, it is also important to report what is people’s views on the prediction markets —i.e., that they “fail”, sometimes. Maybe that is not something that *you* want to hear (comes to mind the logo that Robin Hanson chose for his blog), but this is something that I want to publish for one good reason that maybe an Ivory Tower professor cannot understand but that I will try to convey anyway: I WANT MIDAS ORACLE TO REFLECT THE REAL WORLD OUTSIDE. = I want to breathe what people outside breathe, doc.
Midas Oracle will be publishing *anything* about prediction markets —not just the scientific view… the other views, too. It is *not* being “stupid” to go outside, on the streets, and get the temperature of the crowd: “What do you guys think of prediction markets?”. (Answer: They “failed” both Sonia Sotomayor and American Idol.) They are not “research scientists”, but their opinion is interesting nevertheless, and I will tell you why: There is a prediction market industry (not just EPM, Robin Hanson, do take notice), which this blog is also interested in covering. The industry needs to feel exactly what is the crowd’s sentiment on prediction markets. If we do that, then we will be able to propose the right innovations, later on. Marketing starts with sensing.
So, if you tell me that Midas Oracle should censor people’s views, my answer is no. Now, if you tell me that Midas Oracle should publish more scientific reports, I plead guilty as charged. I would like more of them. That is why I try to seduce professors into guest-blogging here —with a moderate success rate since I see that profs are losing their time in comments where nobody sees them as opposed to publishing their ideas on posts, where all of our readers would see them.
As a parting shot, type “panos ipeirotis prediction markets” in Google, and see what comes first.
As an addendum, read Paul Hewitt, whose topic is related to the post title.
One important thing that I teach my students is that information on the Internet persists. If you write something that you later regret, it will be there, available through some crawler that downloaded the information before you manage to change it.
My view is that incorrect views should be filtered or, when propagated, be criticized appropriately. Not being further reinforced with populist headlines like “prediction markets fail **once again**”.
You have data that show a systemic failure across multiple markets? Go ahead and post. You made multiple times your case about predicting decisions for Nobel prize winners (or any market for closed-committee decisions). You said that markets cannot predict such events. You said that before the event. You said “I told you so” after the markets failed. Rightly so.
But posting uncritically every incorrect opinion that reflects the “sentiment of the people,” when you know that the opinion is incorrect, is just stupid. Think twice before posting. Filter your own sentiment. “Do not let your tongue be faster than your brain” said the ancient Greeks.
I call this critical thinking. You call this censoring. I will stick to my opinion and go f**** myself in Greece…
I will try to make another post, because I don’t think I convey my message as I should have.
I wanted to make the point that:
- the statistical and probabilistic approach is honorable,
- but the public don’t use it.
I will try to dig the Nate Silver interviews after The Oscars, to make my point in a better way.
PS: You used the word “stupid”, so I felt I would say something outrageous, too.
http://twitter.com/gtzi/status/1938059437
Why reporting on *one* expired prediction market is no fun… when using the scientific approach
http://www.midasoracle.org/2009/05/28/reporting-scientifically-on-the-expired-prediction-markets-is-no-fun/