First, I have a confession to make: I don’t really care how much money gets donated to the Singularity Institute, nor am I trying to drum up money for some other cause. I mainly want you all playing games.
I approve. In a loosely related example I was recently accepted a 4:1 karma bet proposed on how Alicorn would respond a comment. I mention this because turning predictions into bets is an exercise in calibration. It is staking (the usual trivial amounts of) status more specifically on predicted outcomes rather than on eloquence of expression or, more importantly, aiming ‘predictions’ at whatever is expected to give the greatest political payoff rather than what is correct.
As a general policy, it’s probably not wise to have significant bets riding on the subjective opinion of someone aware of the bet. I would have been sorely tempted to spin my evaluation of the comment if what I said determined where some money went and I had a preference between the various options.
Good point, I do consider that bet to be an anomalous example of the class ‘disagreements that can be resolved to testable predictions that can be bet on rather that rhetorised about’.
I approve. In a loosely related example I was recently accepted a 4:1 karma bet proposed on how Alicorn would respond a comment. I mention this because turning predictions into bets is an exercise in calibration. It is staking (the usual trivial amounts of) status more specifically on predicted outcomes rather than on eloquence of expression or, more importantly, aiming ‘predictions’ at whatever is expected to give the greatest political payoff rather than what is correct.
As a general policy, it’s probably not wise to have significant bets riding on the subjective opinion of someone aware of the bet. I would have been sorely tempted to spin my evaluation of the comment if what I said determined where some money went and I had a preference between the various options.
Good point, I do consider that bet to be an anomalous example of the class ‘disagreements that can be resolved to testable predictions that can be bet on rather that rhetorised about’.