Enough already with coming soon. I am fed up with promises. I want this prediction market TV journalism project to be executed this year, in 2008.
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Yearly Archives: 2008
When Robin Hanson realizes that ALL the prediction market luminaries BUT HIM have joined the LinkedIn group on Prediction Markets, he will rush to ask for an invite.
Join the LinkedIn group on “-Prediction Markets”- —-WE ARE NOW 79 MEMBERS.
Don’-t forget to make the group badge visible on your profile —-OTHERWISE, THE DAMN PURPOSE IS DEFEATED.
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If you want your affiliation with the “-Prediction Markets”- group to appear on your LinkedIn profile (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR NETWORKING), click on “-Edit Public Profile Settings”-, and check the “-Groups”- option.
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Since 2002, when research was formally separated from investment banking, the quality of research on Wall Street has deteriorated, and many top analysts have left the business.
– Banks are no longer allowed to pay their analysts from any revenue derived from investment banking, only from trading operations.
– An investment banker can’t call a research analyst at the same firm without a lawyer chaperoning the conversation.
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New York Times
Good parallel is drawn, in the article, with journalism.
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FAMOUS SCIENTIST TO ROBIN HIGH IQ HANSON: Science, which is a very long-term endeavor, does not need your stickin idea about scoreable predictions and track records. Please, go back to minding economic issues in your Ivory Tower, and let us run science our way, on our timing. Thanks. Appreciated.
Overcoming Whatever:
I don’-t really think the comparison with sports/business/weather forecasters really holds up, for a prosaic reason —- in particle physics, the timescale for experiments is years and decades, not days. There is no way to efficiently grade/reward people on the accuracy of their predictions, and correspondingly no real incentive for anyone to make very quantitative predictions.
On the other hand, it’-s not as if there is no incentive to be right. If you devote your life to working out the ramifications of low-energy supersymmetry and it’-s not there, you won’-t get fired (if you have tenure), but on the other hand your life’-s work will be useless. Which is a pretty big incentive.
Posted by: Sean Carroll [from Cosmic Variance] | August 11, 2008 at 12:25 PM
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Sean, I don’-t understand the relevance of the timescale to the efficient grading of predictions. Given enough forecasts we can see a signal of accuracy above the noise of luck in individual forecasts. I agree that the longer the timescale the weaker are incentives from any given reward tied to scoring. But I’-m not really focused on incentives in this post – I’-m focused on whether it is reasonable for folks to crow about being vindicated when they weren’-t willing to make scoreable forecasts.
Posted by: Robin Hanson | August 11, 2008 at 12:35 PM
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Scientists don’-t want to make scoreable forecasts.
Hence, it is impossible to collect track records.
Period.
Robin Hanson’-s idea has no application —-over than vanity blogging.
Let’-s go back to our prediction markets (where traders work, for free, as info collectors).
Let’-s not waste our precious time on fruitless ideas.
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Did HSX co-founder Max Keiser give up on his prediction market TV journalism project? His website, predictionmarkets.tv, now redirects to a clunky YouTube video webpage.
2 interesting links – Monday Morning Edition
– 2 pieces of research by HP Labs’- Social Computing Lab, headed by Bernardo Huberman.
– The Economist on how the US stock markets (not the “-prediction markets”-) can predict political elections. A bad piece, in my view.
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