Tag Archives: Robin Hanson

The economist Robin Hanson predicts that some of our computronium-based progeny may colonize the cosmos in a peaceful, cooperative manner, like nice liberal Democrats.

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John Horgan in the WSJ

&#8230-&#8220-like nice liberal Democrats&#8221-&#8230- ha! ha! ha! :-D &#8212- &#8230- like Mike Linksvayer, then&#8230- (depending on your meaning of &#8220-liberal&#8221-)&#8230- :-D

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Previous blog posts by Chris “GadFly” Masse:

  • PROF TOM W. BELL, PLEASE, DO SKIP THE PAGAN CELEBRATIONS, AND, PLEASE, DO RETURN TO YOUR DESK TO FINISH THE DRAFT OF YOUR COMMENT TO THE CFTC. THANKS FOR YOUR PRAGMATIC (NOT ‘ETHEREAL’) CONTRIBUTION TO “THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY”. (There is a hidden slam to Robin Hanson in this title. I wonder whether people will get the joke.)
  • The CFTC is going to close the comments in 3 days. We have 3 days left to convince the CFTC to accept FOR-PROFIT prediction exchanges (e.g., InTrade USA or BetFair USA), and counter the puritan and sterile petition organized by the American Enterprise Institute (which has on its payroll Paul Wolfowitz, the bright masterminder of the Iraq war).
  • TOM W. BELL: “Thanks, Chris. Thanks, too, for being such an effective gadfly. I might well have blown off the whole exercise if you had not kept blogging about how you were awaiting my comment!”
  • What to think of HedgeStreet’s comment to the CFTC
  • The freshest comments sent to the CFTC
  • “To someone like me who trades professionally and also ran for Congress a few years back, InTrade is a marriage made in heaven.”
  • HOW TO DESTROY INTRADE, TRADESPORTS AND BETFAIR: a betting application for FaceBook

PREDICTION MARKETS: Robin Hanson & Justin Wolfers

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I have been chatting with a prediction market practitioner (I won&#8217-t tell you who, and no, it&#8217-s not whom you think of) &#8212-shooting the breeze, and talking about the current state of the prediction market industry&#8230- taking about things and people&#8230- talking up some people&#8230- and badmouthing others ( :-D ).

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At the end, the conversation barged on the issue of &#8220-advisory boards&#8220-. And he told me that Robin Hanson and Justin Wolfers have helped him TREMENDOUSLY &#8212-in terms of solving problems with new software features, case studies, applied research, etc.

Wow.

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InTrades sudden and puzzled interest in… alchemy…!!!

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Dr Arata&#8217-s experiment on cold fusion to be replicated in peer-reviewed scientific journal on/before 31 Dec 2009

This contract will settle (expire) at 100 ($10.00) if Dr Yoshiaki Arata&#8217-s Cold Fusion experiment is replicated in a peer-reviewed scientifc journal on/before 31 Dec 2008.

The contract will settle (expire) at 0 ($0.00) if Dr Yoshiaki Arata&#8217-s Cold Fusion experiment is NOT replicated in a peer-reviewed scientifc journal on/before 31 Dec 2008.

Details of the experiment can be found HERE.

Expiry will be based on publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals, as reported by three independent and reliable media sources.

Due to the nature of this contract please also see Contract Rule 1.7 Unforeseen Circumstances.

The Exchange reserves the right to invoke Contract Rule 1.8 (Time Protection) if deemed appropriate.

Any changes to the result after the contract has expired will not be taken into account – Exchange Rule 1.4

Please contact the exchange by emailing [email protected] if you have any questions regarding this contract before you place a trade.

Important:
Please contact the Exchange if you have any query or uncertainty (including how it may be settled) about this Contract, the Rule above or the Contract Rules before you trade.

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Wikipedia

Robin Hanson on recent developments

Robin Hanson created a &#8220-Cold Fusion&#8221- event derivative market in 1990.

Robin Hanson talked up cold fusion in his first prediction market paper.

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I&#8217-m skeptical.

Google News is mute.

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Price for Dr Yoshiaki Arataa€™s Cold Fusion Experiment at intrade.com

Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • VIDEO: The financial markets hacker who will impress Jason Ruspini
  • VIDEO: WeatherBill caught on tape
  • You, the Midas Oracle readers, are a bunch of lazy bastards…!!!… — Take that, loafers…!!!…
  • Prediction Markets within the Forecasting Community
  • Devoting the whole NBC Nightly News bulletin to Tim Russert’s passing was worst than beaming out porn.
  • COLD FUSION: The purpose of this post is to give you the scientific explainer link I forgot to publish (at inception) in my previous post.
  • Forecasting Election Outcomes

Prediction & Decision Markets – Robin Hanson Edition

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Presentation:

Prediction &amp- Decision Markets – (PPT file) – by Robin Hanson – 2008-04-17

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And, that one, for your curiosity&#8230- really fascinating ( :-D ):

Evolutionary Game Theory of Interstellar Colonization – (PPT file) – by Robin Hanson – 2008-05-26

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Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Kudos to BetFair’s e-mail marketing team?
  • Conditional prediction markets about oil price and SegWay sales… Like the idea, Robin Hanson?
  • Justin Wolfers [*] is the most cited prediction market economist
  • The Orb @ Texas Tech University
  • IS IT SAFE TO LOCATE A PREDICTION EXCHANGE NEAR A RIVER???
  • RIVER RISING. POWER PLANT CLOSED. IOWA ELECTRONIC MARKETS AT RISK? DEVELOPING…
  • U.S. COAST GUARDS DEPLOYED TO SAVE THE IOWA ELECTRONIC MARKETS

Could information go backward in time?

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Applied to the psychological arrow of time, that would mean that we could remember the future, instead of the past. We would make a killing on prediction markets if we knew in advance how all contacts would expire. :-D

But, in micro physics, strange things are common. Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote about the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox, lately, but he got all things wrong.

I did a quick research on the Internet and found out that Olivier Costa De Beauregard is still hot on his interpretation of the EPR paradox &#8212-interpretation which introduces the concept of &#8220-zigzagging causality&#8221-, and which abides by both the physics of quantum mechanics and Einstein&#8217-s physics of general relativity.

Timelike Nonseparability and Retrocausation &#8211- PDF file

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My thoughts:

  1. Reading Eliezer Yudkowsky at Overcoming Bias is a waste of time.
  2. It&#8217-s better to read the best physicists directly, when you are interesting in an issue.
  3. Robin Hanson and Olivier Costa De Beauregard should meet around a round of white Porto. They both studied (and are fond of) both physics and philosophy.
  4. As always, the solutions to complex problems (e.g., the EPR paradox) are crazy. &#8220-Zigzagging causality&#8221- is crazy, but it might well be the solution.
  5. Discoverers like Robin Hanson and Olivier Costa De Beauregard were often called on their craziness. When Louis De Broglie first heard about the &#8220-zigzagging causality&#8221- idea, he suggested to his secretary that Olivier Costa De Beauregard had a screw lose. Robin Hanson is familiar with that kind of reaction. :-D

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Google Search thinks that Midas Oracle has more value than the New York Times and Freakonomics when the topic is Googles enterprise prediction markets. How do you like that, Bo? Its cool, no?

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Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Excellent article about enterprise prediction markets and Inkling Markets —with a good word for Robin Hanson, who invented MSR.
  • HubDub limitations
  • BetFair Developer Program use Joomla! as their blog software (and CMS).
  • Lawsuit aiming at compelling the office of the United States trade representative to produce a copy of its compensation settlement with the European Union over the United States’ withdrawal of gambling services from the General Agreement on Trade in Services.
  • Iraq War = “not necessary”, “a serious strategic blunder” — US News Media = “complicit enablers” in the manipulation of the public (“the propaganda campaign”) — George W. Bush turned away “from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed.”
  • JASON RUSPINI’S CROCKERY: The Brain states forcefully that they are not “event futures”, but “binary options”. Still, as soon as he premieres prediction markets on tax rates at InTrade, he calls them “tax futures” —of course.
  • Tasmania’s Prime Minister who licenced BetFair Australia departs “abruptly”.

Prediction markets = the future of journalism -said, from day one, Emile Servan-Schreiber of NewsFutures. Emile, if you have balls, lets do it -all together.

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My yesterday&#8217-s post about the Obama&#8211-Clinton prediction markets was the most popular Midas Oracle story of that Monday. Hummmm&#8230- No idea why&#8230- I was not helped by Google Search or by an external blogger. Sounds like our Midas Oracle web readers and feed subscribers liked it &#8230- for some reasons I have yet to discover fully.

Anyway.

  1. I&#8217-m minding a grand &#8220-Midas Oracle Project&#8220-, and you can join it.
  2. Emile believes that prediction markets represent &#8220-the future of journalism&#8220-. I am trying to mind, specifically, what form could take the &#8220-prediction market journalism&#8220-.
  3. The idea is this: We need to put the charts of prediction markets inside news stories, and those stories should incorporate the meaning of the probability fluctuations (a la Justin Wolfers).
  4. If we stay in our armchairs, nothing will happen, because most of the old-school journalists and bloggers don&#8217-t think much of the prediction markets. The prediction market infiltration in the Mediasphere and the Blogosphere is like a weak stream, right now. I don&#8217-t have the patience to wait until &#8220-2020&#8243-.
  5. I don&#8217-t think that much will come out of the prediction exchanges. The BetFair blog and the InTrade newsletter are 2 pieces of crap &#8212-they compete in content quality with the Mongolian edition of the News Of The World.
  6. If you look at the evolution of the media, you see that the old-school, dead-tree publications are slowly dying, and are replaced by professional blog networks &#8212-look especially in the IT industry, with TechCrunch, etc. What you have is writers who publish only for the Web, and who fill a vertical niche. (And, the Washington Post is now publishing content from&#8230- guess who.)
  7. Needless to say, prediction market journalism is costly. Now, go directly to point #8, because that&#8217-s where the beef is.
  8. Yes, I have &#8220-heard of Christmas&#8221- :-D , and I understand Robin Hanson&#8217-s reasoning. [*] That&#8217-s where my funding idea lays. The idea is to think hard about who &#8220-might actually be willing to pay&#8221-. I am thinking of a class or organizations that &#8220-might actually be willing to pay&#8221-, provided 2 things. Number one, that I operate a certain twist on my form of prediction market journalism. Number two, that this project becomes the project of many prediction market people, or, better, of the whole prediction market industry &#8212-not just Chris Masse&#8217-s one. Those 2 things are essential.
  9. So, Emile, wanna join the &#8220-Midas Oracle Project&#8220-?

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[*] APPENDIX:

The &#8220-high IQ&#8221- Robin Hanson:

Chris, you’ve heard of Christmas I presume. Many people circulate lists of items they might like for Christmas. If you did, would you circulate a list of million franc/dollar gift ideas for people to give you? Would you consider that list more honest/logical than a list of gifts of roughly the price you think others might actually be willing to pay?

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Robin Hanson would be better off lobbying for prediction markets with the people who will be in power next November -that is, the Democrats, not the right-wing people of the American Enterprise Institute.

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Does Robin Hanson read the political prediction markets which he co-invented? If he read them, he would see that we&#8217-re going to get a big Democratic swipe, in November 2008. The American people will get rid of the neo-cons, the warmongers, and other right-wing nuts.

Then, if you wanted to &#8220-lobby&#8221- for the prediction markets, you would get your message thru using either a Democratic or bi-partisan vehicle &#8212-not the right-wing American Enterprise Institute. What weight will those right-wing people carry next November? They&#8217-ll be finished &#8212-until a brand-new Newt Gingrich alike pops up in the years 2020.

Get a ride in K Street with the right people, doc &#8212-that is, in our case, like it or not, the leftists.

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ROBIN HANSONS PUBLIC ADMISSION: He signed Bobs petitions, not because he heartfully endorsed them fully, but because he wanted to please Bob, didnt want to be left out of the party, and was persuaded that his own blue-sky proposals wouldnt make it -and other irrational excuses for not saying the tru

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Robin Hanson:

Hal and Silas, endorsing this proposal does not mean that I would not prefer other proposals- it just means I prefer this to the status quo. Chris Masse is an example of someone who has difficulty accepting this endorsement concept.

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Doc,

Why wouldn&#8217-t you:

  1. Gather with yourself and determine under what precise circumstances you want the real-money prediction markets (which you co-invented with the IEM people) to flourish in your country-
  2. Then, consult with your peers (Wolfers et al.) on whether they&#8217-d agree with you-
  3. Publish a petition that lays out how the real-money prediction markets would blossom in America-
  4. Add, at the bottom of that petition, an appendix laying out what would be, for you, an acceptable Plan B-
  5. Hummmm&#8230-.??&#8230- Sounds more logical to me.

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Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Prediction Markets
  • Meet professor Justin Wolfers.
  • Become “friend” with me on Google E-Mail so as to share feed items with me within Google Reader.
  • Nigel Eccles’ flawed “vision” about HubDub shows that he hasn’t any.
  • How does InTrade deal with insider trading?
  • Modern Life
  • “The Beacon” is an excellent blog published by The Independent Institute.

A historical Robin Hanson fanboy cant believe his hero signed Bobs ill-informed and unwise petition.

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Hal Finney:

My concern is that the small stakes limit of $2,000, the limits on who can operate markets, and the limitations on the scope of markets, will lead to spotty coverage which will preclude a robust evaluation of the merits of prediction markets in general. After all, we have intrade.com already which provides spotty coverage of a number of issues – how much more will this add?

Maybe &#8220-gambling can save science&#8220-, but I don&#8217-t see how these steps would show it.

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Proof that you can be &#8220-high IQ&#8221- and still lack judgment (in small ways).

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P.S.: Over that the micro slam above, I have the highest esteem and respect for Robin Hanson &#8212-a prediction market pioneer.

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