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TV-famous horse racing pundit: John McCririck.
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John McCririck endorsing BetFair
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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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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Robin Hanson’-s false good idea: collecting track records.
But his post is the living proof that he is wrong:
And if experts are not used to express scoreable forecasts, then, by essence, you can’-t collect anything. Hence, the superiority of the prediction market method.
Another false good idea from Robin Hanson.
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Should Google subsidize the Lunar X Prize contract on InTrade?
Our good friend Bo Cowgill might have already re-created those prediction markets on Google’-s internal prediction exchange at a marginal cost of zero US dollar. No need for him to “-subsidize”- external prediction markets.
[As an appendix, I precise that I am in favor of opening the enterprise prediction markets to external traders, for some questions.]
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Subsidizing prediction markets is an old Robin Hanson idea that carries quite a heavy price tag.
Conditional prediction markets is a great idea on the paper. Many people (e.g., Mike Linksvayer) like the idea. However, here is what the uncritical Robin Hanson fanboys blogging on Overcoming Whatever won’-t tell you:
Peter McCluskey could have rent a French mistress (or a French gigolo) for a full year with all the money he is spending on Robin Hanson’-s idea. Or vaccinated the whole African continent against Malaria. See Peter’-s comment, at the middle of the webpage, here.
Philanthropy and prediction markets are not mixing well —-yet.
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You’-d be very naive to think that that would work.
Prediction markets fed on primary indicators —-and, in this case, there aren’-t any.
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Inking Markets and NewsFutures are graded 6 / 10.
Consensus Point and Xpree are graded 5 / 10.
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My great friend David Perry of Consensus Point is making a strategic mistake by insisting on discretion and secrecy.
I told him 10 times.
To no avail.
Pissing in a violin in order to create a symphony would have been more fruitful.
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PageRank is important.
One day, we will learn in the Wall Street Journal that a Fortune-500 CEO is fired by the board for a low PageRank.
That will happen one day- you will see.
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The Prediction Market Consultants
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