Found this in the news today.

[Bone]

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….

Is it your contention that the plan does not create incentives to encourage certain criminal acts? Are you further implying that I or other readers do not have the knowledge of the futures market that you may possess?

Just because placing a "wager", or a market order if you will, on a specific event would effect the given probability of that event happening, does not mean that that specific event would be prevented or stopped as you contend. I don't know how you came to that conclusion, but I doubt you'd be able to support it.

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.

The "deadpool" aspect is significant. No one has contended that the sole use of this project would be to predict assassinations. However, it is always necessary to weigh the negative aspects against the positive ones. Saying that it is not practicle to dismiss something based on a single overriding moral repugnancy, is untrue. There can always be elements of a specific thing that no matter how small a percent of the total project, can be so negatively significant as to cast a shadow over the whole project. I recognize there could be positive results to this proposed project. However, I believe the negative aspects outweigh the positive ones.