Tag Archives: social utility
Is Robin Hanson a market fundamentalist?
Niall O’Connor:
Robin Hanson, is what I would term a market fundamentalist – somebody who believes that markets are the primary mechanism for achieving the public good. Recent events have demonstrated that this creed is morally bankrupt. We are, in the words of Michael Sandel, “at the end of an era of market triumphalism”.
Robin Hanson:
I deny [...]
If prediction market advocates are so confident, why aren’t their claims more specific?
Jed Christiansen was kind enough to reply to my post: If prediction markets are so good at forecasting, why aren’t they being used much more widely?
#1. (Public or enterprise) traders mainly bring to the exchange some bits of information they acquired from some official or semi-official sources. The enterprise traders bring in the information they [...]
If prediction markets are so good at forecasting, why aren’t they being used much more widely?
Jed Christiansen has an awesome industry analysis … which I will disagree with.
Number one, I don’t understand why information aggregation would be a “bottom-up” approach (as opposed to “top-down”). Our traders bring bits of information to the market —but these bits of information were originally produced by the traditional sources (news, political polls, [...]
Obstacles to Prediction Market Adoption
BusinessWeek:
Harrah’s is setting up a pilot prediction market to forecast customer activity in one of its domestic casino operations. [...]
Since the power of prediction markets hinges on effectively tapping into cognitive diversity throughout an organization, Page also argues convincingly that if members of a group do not have enough diversity in their perspectives, prediction markets [...]
Are prediction markets useful?
According to Alan Abramowitz, John Tierney has been “greatly exaggerating the accuracy of the betting markets.” “They follow the polls. That’s it.”
-
-
My comment to Alan Abramowitz and John Tierney:
“They follow the polls. That’s it.”
Yes, they follow the polls. No, that’s not it.
Traders also dig the news of the day and make anticipations about the outcome. [...]
Chris Masse (in his holy greatness) asks the question that so terrifies Jed Christiansen.
-
Terrified.
-
Hearthis post
It wasn’t about the predictions.
Let’s not confuse media visibility with utility. Aside from the depressed Obama-to-win prices on one exchange, prediction market and polling aggregation results for the 2008 election were essentially the same using squared errors. Despite his insane schematics, Emile Servan-Schreiber has a good point about capturing the interest of the public, something that nerdy [...]
My open challenge to AskMarkets co-founder George Tziralis
Dear George,
Congrats for the launch of AskMarkets. Best wishes to your prediction exchange and consulting firm.
Here’s the perfect opportunity to ask you the “question that kills”:
What was the social utility of the political election prediction markets during the 2008 campaign?
In other words, why should the media have informed people about the InTrade probabilities at a [...]
The fact that Emile Servan-Schreiber (usually, a smart man) treats the 2008 US presidential elections, as seen thru the lens of the NewsFutures prediction markets, so lightly, making it a race of spermatozoids swimming their way to the Oval Room, shows you that the prediction market luminaries are incapable of giving you any clear and convincing demonstration that their prediction markets has had a social utility during the 2008 race for the White House.
Download this post to see the NewsFutures widget below.
Widget by NewsFutures
Hearthis post
My open challenge to InTrade CEO John Delaney
-
-
InTrade CEO John Delaney:
Our #1 untapped resource is the vast collective intellect that we have only started to use. Harnessing the “wisdom of the crowd” has a very big potential role in improving all of our lives. If we do it, we all have a voice and will feel part of the solution as well [...]
Recent Comments