07-29-2003, 05:21 PM
Why's it ridiculous? Seriously.
Economically, it's known that the best way to organize expertise is in markets. This is a market of ideas, where all the analysts are told to put their money where their mouth is. The result is that, quite naturally, the best ideas which have the most solid support get the most money behind them. The analysts that are consistently right win money. The analysts that are consistently wrong lose money. All resulting in an extremely efficient way of collating intelligence information. As it stands now, people in power have to read through a number of intelligence reports organized by a number of teams, and then pick one report to believe on the basis of absolutely nothing more than "it feels more true". This way, strong propositions get strong backing.
This is a ridiculous straw-man slander of this project. The project works more like - assuming that Yasser Arafat is assassinated at some time in the future, what is the United States' optimal response? Analysts will suggest several plans, which go up on the board as "idea futures". Other analysts will suggest more plans, or will review the plans currently posted. The best plans will receive the most backing.
Read. And learn, before you mock.
I, myself, was exposed to the idea through Marc Stiegler's novel Earthweb. While it's definitely science fiction, the idea futures/information markets concept is sound.
Economically, it's known that the best way to organize expertise is in markets. This is a market of ideas, where all the analysts are told to put their money where their mouth is. The result is that, quite naturally, the best ideas which have the most solid support get the most money behind them. The analysts that are consistently right win money. The analysts that are consistently wrong lose money. All resulting in an extremely efficient way of collating intelligence information. As it stands now, people in power have to read through a number of intelligence reports organized by a number of teams, and then pick one report to believe on the basis of absolutely nothing more than "it feels more true". This way, strong propositions get strong backing.
Quote:Let's trade on the probability that Yassar Arafat will be assassinated on September 12, 2003 at 3:34 GMT.
This is a ridiculous straw-man slander of this project. The project works more like - assuming that Yasser Arafat is assassinated at some time in the future, what is the United States' optimal response? Analysts will suggest several plans, which go up on the board as "idea futures". Other analysts will suggest more plans, or will review the plans currently posted. The best plans will receive the most backing.
Read. And learn, before you mock.
I, myself, was exposed to the idea through Marc Stiegler's novel Earthweb. While it's definitely science fiction, the idea futures/information markets concept is sound.