Why not experiment at GMU?

Have the students run the university using Futarchy principals. They pick the goals, then you use markets.

You can even start on a smaller scale, a class.

Report back on your experiment.

Foresight 2010 debate: Futarchy from Monica Anderson on Vimeo.

Download this post to watch the video —if your feed reader does not show it to you.

Who cares about that Mencius Moldbug anyway?

Previously.

- Paul Hewitt comments on Eric Crampton’s blog.

- Paul Hewitt comments on Robin Hanson’s blog. Many exchanges with Robin Hanson. Read it all.

- Paul Hewitt:

[...] My point is that the case for prediction markets has not been made, at all. There is a tiny bit of proof that they are as good as alternative methods, and in a very few cases, very slightly better. Also, you need to be aware that even the slightly better prediction markets had the benefit of the alternative forecasting institution available to it. That is, the official forecasters at HP were also participants in the ever-so-slightly better prediction markets. [...]

–> I personally stay away from any discussion about conditional prediction markets (and futarchy). I prefer focusing on the ‘simple’ prediction markets.

It is a long text, so I will post again about it, in the near future. (Happy Xmas, by the way.)

ADDENDUM: Saturday, January 16, 2010: Debate between Robin Hanson and Mencius Moldbug

Debate between Robin Hanson and blogger Mencius Moldbug about futarchy, “a subject on which fur has flown over the blogosphere.”

Exactly. Robin Hanson, do act on your proposal —instead of doing blah blah blah. The flaw(s) in the futarchy idea will appear in plain light, then.

Yes of course new ideas for organizations should be tried first in smaller organizations. Do let me know of any small orgs interesting in experimenting.

Here’s how to contact Robin Hanson:

• rhanson
• AT
• gmu
• DOT
• edu

In the title of the e-mail, state, “I am your man for your futarchy experiment“.

Why doesn’t Robin Hanson implement his grandiose idea on a small organization (like George Mason University), as opposed to a national government, to see whether it makes sense? I suspect it doesn’t. Prediction markets have very, very slightly improved the world since 1988, my good doctor Hanson. That does not make a strong case for using prediction markets in decision making —let’s call that “collective decision making“, by the way.

Nick, I never said there are prediction markets that don’t influence decisions. On modeling factors to get trade existing, I mean any one factor is enough. On coercivity, I proposed a mechanism for governance, and described how it can be applied in both voluntary and coercive contexts. I get that you hate coercive governance, and want me to rail against it, and refuse to offer it any assistance, but I didn’t discuss that because it isn’t directly relevant. I have discussed moral hazard; if you refuse to read my publications, how can you know what I have or haven’t commented on?

Nick’s answer:

This grossly mischaracterizes my position and my reason for raising the subject. In fact I have written that coercion is quite necessary for legal procedure. (Notice that I am providing links rather than vague general claims that I dealt with this issue somewhere, and you have to root through all my old obscure papers to find where I did). My objection here is not ideological, it is that when you add coercion to an economic transaction, the outcome is usually quite different than a voluntary transaction. You can’t model them the same way. Standard economics assumes voluntary transactions and I have found that economists usually make gross errors when modelling coercive transactions. You are sweeping this crucial factor entirely under the rug in the explanations you’ve written for the general public — if you are also, as it’s quite reasonable to suspect, neglecting this crucial factor in your papers, the output from these Holy Writs, without having read which Thou Shall Not Comment on the straightforward political proposal allegedly justified therein, the conclusions reached by these vaunted works are likely to be wrong.

As for those publications, I have read your *public* publications on futarchy, i.e. those written for the general intelligent public and not just for specialists who share your particular set of hidden economic assumptions. I’ve also read enough of your technical papers on other subjects to know that this is not a very worthwhile way to figure out what you’re up to. Like most academics, you are very poor at stating your assumptions — you have a set of hidden or tacit assumptions and hidden special meanings of words, presumably shared with the journal referees, which cannot be readily reverse-engineered by the intelligent layman. So, like most of the supporters of your proposal, I read your clearer restatements, in the form of blog posts and summaries. In the case of futarchy, the proposal you are making is clear enough, it is the justifications that are obscure. And in your statements to the general public from what I’ve seen you have not dealt at all with coercion or moral hazard, nor have you answered any of my objections here. If you had seriously dealt with these problems before it shoudn’t be so hard for you to answer my objections now, but instead all we’re getting from you is ad hominem argument.

I’m not proposing to implement futarchy full stop one day; I’m proposing to run a series of increasingly large trials. That would give you the data you want.

Wow, modesty and humility. Mark the day.