07-29-2003, 10:04 PM
I understand that the program has been cancelled. I am simply making sure it is not dismissed as "ridiculous", when it is absolutely not.
That's the point. The Pentagon themselves wrote that, if you'll read their site. The idea futures market is to make sure that the few people who do know what's going on get their information out to where it can be noticed. The key concept is that someone, somewhere, does know what's going to happen. As for information of low reliability, the market system itself weeds that out. If it isn't reliable, it won't be strongly supported, and thus won't be clouding anything.
Quotes like this make me wonder if I'm the only one who understands the idea futures system.
If someone wanted to encourage a terrorist act to earn money, the act itself would drive up the probabilities, meaning that said act would be predicted and therefore, stopped. You can't abuse it. Plus, analysts can also bet against the proposition, so it's not as if money can only be earned if bad things happen. For that matter, one could run idea futures on the best way to democratize Iraq. Would this be met with moral outrage?
I don't understand why people are focusing so heavily on the deadpool aspect. Can idea futures be used to run wagers on assassinations? Yes. Is that their sole use, or their most common use, or even a use of any frequency? No. Just about anything can provoke moral outrage; if we were to ignore things just because of that possibility we'd never get anything done.
Quote:Where the price of orange futures is heavily dependent on weather conditions in Florida, the value of a futures contract on the assassination of a political leader predictive factors that only few may have access too.
That's the point. The Pentagon themselves wrote that, if you'll read their site. The idea futures market is to make sure that the few people who do know what's going on get their information out to where it can be noticed. The key concept is that someone, somewhere, does know what's going to happen. As for information of low reliability, the market system itself weeds that out. If it isn't reliable, it won't be strongly supported, and thus won't be clouding anything.
Quote:Not only that, the plan creates a financial incentive to encourage certain criminal acts.
Quotes like this make me wonder if I'm the only one who understands the idea futures system.
If someone wanted to encourage a terrorist act to earn money, the act itself would drive up the probabilities, meaning that said act would be predicted and therefore, stopped. You can't abuse it. Plus, analysts can also bet against the proposition, so it's not as if money can only be earned if bad things happen. For that matter, one could run idea futures on the best way to democratize Iraq. Would this be met with moral outrage?
I don't understand why people are focusing so heavily on the deadpool aspect. Can idea futures be used to run wagers on assassinations? Yes. Is that their sole use, or their most common use, or even a use of any frequency? No. Just about anything can provoke moral outrage; if we were to ignore things just because of that possibility we'd never get anything done.