– Michael Anissimov: Kurzweil’s Failed 2009 Predictions
– More at the Next Big Future —- (an excellent blog)
Ray Kurzweil (Robin Hansons guru) got his 1999-2009 predictions … all wrong.
Reply
Copenhagen Prediction Market
Felix Salmon is cautiously bullish on prediction markets.
QUESTION: Tell me what you think of the (public, real-money) “-prediction markets”- (a.k.a. betting markets) without citing the names of either Robin Hanson or Justin Wolfers. Thanks. Are they useful, really? If not, then why are econ bloggers in love with them?
FELIX SALMON (#):
I used to be a bigger fan of them, before I discovered their enormous transaction costs:
http://www.felixsalmon.com/004529.html
If and when somebody makes an easy legal and cheap prediction market, I think it will be very useful indeed. For the time being, they’-re interesting and fun.
Prediction market blogger quits InTrade.
New Year Update
Posted by Jesse Livermore on Sunday, January 3, 2010
I’-ve been gone for a while. There just hasn’-t been that much happening on Intrade, and I’-ve been focusing on neuroscience.
Intrade has definitely gotten tougher over the past year. I think the 2008 election drew in a lot of people who weren’-t very good at politics or gambling. By now those people have either lost their money or gotten better. Hopefully the 2010 elections will draw in a new crop.
In the mean time, Intrade’-s management has not done a great job in developing the brand. My impression is that volume is off by more than 50% compared to last year. Chief difficulties:
– Absolutely no advertising whatsoever.
– Diminished interest in politics in an off-year.
– Getting money onto the site requires a lot of determination and a visit to a gas station to buy a Netspend card.
Future updates on this blog will be less-than-daily, basically when I have an opinion about politics that I feel like sharing.
Which industry is more detrimental to society – finance or gambling?
Felix Salmon (#):
Finance, at least in its virulent form of the past 20 years or so. Macau is in much better shape than Iceland, or Dubai. Millions of people genuinely believe they can and will get rich by day-trading stocks and options and whatnot- the ranks of professional gamblers are much smaller and much less delusional.
The people who know the most about finance are the people who work in it.
BetFair is the best innovation that happened to horse-race betting.
#1 innovation of the decade = Peer-to-peer wagering
“-In 2000 two men who liked to play card games and make a bet or two created the Ebay of betting –- an exchange where players could bet with each other.”-
InTrade has a higher PageRank than BetFair. No change.
Google has just updated its external PageRank servers. (The PageRank is updated internally in a continuous way, but Google updates its external servers once a quarter or so.)
– InTrade is 7/10. BetFair 6/10. HSX 6/10. HubDub 6/10.
– BetFair’-s blog (Betting @ BetFair) is 5/10, proving, once again, that it is a mediocre publication run by mediocre people. BetFair’-s second blog (BetFair Predicts) is 4/10. Midas Oracle is 6/10.
– For the record, the goal to attain (for both exchanges and publications) is 7/10.
