Terror Futures Market is a red herring...

[Postman]

designed to divert the topic of discussion away from impeaching this fascist mis-administration for ther lies justifying invading Iraq....The whole idea is stupid and as you can see, successful in knocking Bush's lies off the talk circuit.

[mkregel]

1. A red herring

that could DESTROY the Bush admin....

I dunno I don't think its a red herring at all, unless its part of the plan to eliminate support from thousands of Republicans who won't stand for this....

This is big...potentially the final straw...

Democratic candidates should grab onto this and NOT LET GO!

Pull the whole "restoring dignity to the whitehouse" angle

[charlie]

2. It's been scrapped anyway

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N29203133.htm

[tridim]

3. Well, according to this guy

http://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg03309.html

They've been working on it for 'several years'.

From: Robin Hanson
Subject: DARPA markets on MidEast
Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 07:27:22 -0700
I've been involved for several years in helping DARPA to create some markets to help aggregate info on political, military, and economic changes in the Middle East, and the effect of US policy on such changes. For those interested, we are finally going public with some info on these markets: www.PolicyAnalysisMarket.org

[radwriter0555]

5. He's been involved in DARPA for a number of years?

How is that possible?

[radwriter0555]

7. Check out this info on Robin Hanson.....

http://hanson.gmu.edu/ideafutures.html

I suggest you click on the links within his site here... cause you're in for a bit of a shock...

Idea Futures
(a.k.a. Prediction Markets, Information Markets)
by Robin Hanson

(This is my top web page on idea futures. Go here to find my publications on idea futures.)
The Idea Our policy-makers and media rely too much on the "expert" advice of a self-interested insider's club of pundits and big-shot academics. These pundits are rewarded too much for telling good stories, and for supporting each other, rather than for being "right". Instead, let us create betting markets on most controversial questions, and treat the current market odds as our best expert consensus. The real experts (maybe you), would then be rewarded for their contributions, while clueless pundits would learn to stay away. You should have a free-speech right to bet on political questions in policy markets, and we could even base a new form of government on idea futures.
One can subsidize a market on a question, offering extra rewards to those who bet right on this question. This subsidy is an "information prize", offered to those who first provide information on a question, in contrast to an "accomplishment prize", given to those who first accomplish some task. Instead of patronizing academic basic research via proposal peer-review, we should use prizes more.

Publications Idea Futures has been described in many publications by myself and others, including both academic journals and popular media.

Web Games There are many web sites which let one bet on sports, but the Foresight Exchange (FX, previously called Idea Futures) was the first general web betting game, and was the first to allow users to introduce new claims to bet on. Begun by Sean Morgan, it won the 1995 Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica for world's best web site. Over 1500 players now bet play money on over 200 questions of their choosing. Check out the current betting odds, an independent 'Zine, and m o r e. The game's developers once formed a business, Ideosphere (now wholely owned by Kumo Software) that now seems defunct. Recently other play-money markets have appeared, such as Hollywood Stock Exchange, Invisible Hand Electronic Market, Fanatasy Futures, and NewsBet. (I have no relation with or stake in any of these ventures.) I think the odds in these markets are often too optimistic, but they do pretty well considering, and a real money market would do much better.

(Another web market, Java Idea Futures, isn't really an Idea Future in the above sense; they trade perhaps-not-yet-written Java Applets.)

[htuttle]

4. Actually, it's kind of a warmed-over Enron idea

Enron was into creating futures markets where none existed before, in addition to ripping off it's stockholders and the State of California.

One of the little 'markets' they created was a market for futures on the weather -- people could bet on the weather. The idea was that corporations in seasonal businesses (like farming and ski hills) could hedge against 'bad' weather (for their business) by buying a futures contract on rain, or snow, or drought, or whatever they were worried about. It looks better on paper than it worked in practice.

Poindexter just took that idea and ran with it, with the idea that people who 'really knew' would be involved in purchasing futures, and thus affect the price of them, thus 'predicting the future'.

Only someone who'd been working in the basement of the Pentagon for a long time could think of something that ridiculous and expect it to actually work, of course.

[Fovea]

6. It is a piss poor red herring

as it points people right back to 911 and the 'security lapses' it is supposed to supplant

[yellowcanine]

8. i agree

Also, it reminds everyone that the bushies are clueless about how to actually fight terror.

[realFedUp]

9. and this "red herring" took up Congressional time

this morning...I don't think representatives enjoy being
played for fools this often.