Coming up all over the place. From Sgt Stryker
Here’s my comment on the article:
Its a marketplace of ideas where you actually have to risk something to vote on your ideas. Anyone can sit around with a six pack and say Iran will invade Iraq as soon as we leave, but few would invest money on it.
One question/thought I have is while this might end up being predictive, it also would cause the things not to happen, therefore making them not pay off. If I invest in someone setting off a nuke on Temple Mount in Jerusalem before the end of the year, and it goes up in value, then the Mossad is going to be watching for it and may catch some organization when they try to put their nuke on the mount and stop it. Then my investment contract doesn’t pay, because it didn’t happen.
Of course the solution to this is to make the contracts on attempts to happen. So I say someone will attempt to put a bomb on Temple Mount. Then if they are stopped or succeed the contract pays.
The problem a lot of people have with this is if they succeed the government ends up paying people for predicting the loss of lives. That sounds horrible. But it helps the system get better in the future. If I invest right, the government should have listened to me, and so should other investors. So I develop a reputation as someone who predict well and maybe next time we can prevent a problem. So yes the act sounds horrible – paying someone who predicted the death of others – the ultimate outcome is the prevention of future events.
The real question is “Will it work?” If it improves our ability to predict and stop terrorism, then it is a tool we should use.