To add on to the point about information-theoretic secret-keeping, if Manifold, market participants, and people with secrets want to not leak info in the future, my advice for each group is:
Manifold: as a blanket policy, never delete markets, at least for any reason that is causally related to the topic or question of the market. Even taking a market down quietly or on some unrelated pretext reveals a bunch of information to careful observers, and might result in a Streisand effect that causes the info to reach even non-careful observers.
Market participants: abide by embargoes that you have agreed to abide by. If you have not agreed to keep a secret or abide by an embargo, but learn some privileged information via a friend or acquaintance or other means, you may be ethically in the clear to trade on that information. But consider the reputational consequences that your source might suffer, and your future relationship with them, before exploiting their trust in you or their carelessness for manabucks.
Would-be secret-keepers: Glomarize, even when you don’t actually have secrets to keep. In particular, if you regularly create or participate in Manifold markets, you should not necessarily stop doing so when actually keeping a secret. If you did, people could exploit you by asking you to create or participate in markets, and note which requests you oblige and which requests you turn down. Either make (possibly known-losing) trades that you would have made if you knew nothing, or recuse yourself from all markets on which you might in principle have insider information about, and / or recuse yourself randomly. If you expect to have important secrets to keep (or if you don’t, but want to meta-glomarize), it might be better to institute a blanket policy now of not trading in or creating prediction markets at all.
Agree with the first two, and with the risk brought up in third point but not the conclusion of ‘avoid participating’. What about participating only in an inconsistent way, and responding to all requests that you create/participate in prediction markets with the response that acceding to such requests is against personal policy. That gives you the freedom to participate as you desire, but protects you from info-leaking via antagonistic request probing. Also, consider having an anonymous persona for participating in markets that seem like they might tempt you into revealing secrets you don’t reflectively wish to reveal in that way.
Yeah, there are probably various methods you can use and precautions you can take to participate securely without leaking any significant information. But any such plans are necessarily more complicated and carry more risk of screwing them up than blanket abstention. As the importance of the secrets you have to keep goes up, the benefit of simplicity probably outweighs the benefits derived from participating in prediction markets, especially play money ones.
Where someone personally draws the line on whether to participate or not depends on: the relative value they place on keeping secrets, how many important secrets they have, how much benefit they derive from participating in prediction markets, and how much they enjoy implementing complicated information-theoretic secret-keeping schemes.
These are fairly general, and pretty easy to agree with, ignoring any conflicts of intention (a participant might WANT to leak information or make money, even if there’s an embargo).
Note that #2 and #3 are contradictory. One cannot simultaneously abstain from a question AND participate randomly. More important, in a well-functioning market, making incorrect bets actually costs you—this is an expense to maintain secrecy, and a pretty big and painful one, especially for participants who otherwise love that information markets … provide information.
To add on to the point about information-theoretic secret-keeping, if Manifold, market participants, and people with secrets want to not leak info in the future, my advice for each group is:
Manifold: as a blanket policy, never delete markets, at least for any reason that is causally related to the topic or question of the market. Even taking a market down quietly or on some unrelated pretext reveals a bunch of information to careful observers, and might result in a Streisand effect that causes the info to reach even non-careful observers.
Market participants: abide by embargoes that you have agreed to abide by. If you have not agreed to keep a secret or abide by an embargo, but learn some privileged information via a friend or acquaintance or other means, you may be ethically in the clear to trade on that information. But consider the reputational consequences that your source might suffer, and your future relationship with them, before exploiting their trust in you or their carelessness for manabucks.
Would-be secret-keepers: Glomarize, even when you don’t actually have secrets to keep. In particular, if you regularly create or participate in Manifold markets, you should not necessarily stop doing so when actually keeping a secret. If you did, people could exploit you by asking you to create or participate in markets, and note which requests you oblige and which requests you turn down. Either make (possibly known-losing) trades that you would have made if you knew nothing, or recuse yourself from all markets on which you might in principle have insider information about, and / or recuse yourself randomly. If you expect to have important secrets to keep (or if you don’t, but want to meta-glomarize), it might be better to institute a blanket policy now of not trading in or creating prediction markets at all.
Agree with the first two, and with the risk brought up in third point but not the conclusion of ‘avoid participating’. What about participating only in an inconsistent way, and responding to all requests that you create/participate in prediction markets with the response that acceding to such requests is against personal policy. That gives you the freedom to participate as you desire, but protects you from info-leaking via antagonistic request probing. Also, consider having an anonymous persona for participating in markets that seem like they might tempt you into revealing secrets you don’t reflectively wish to reveal in that way.
Yeah, there are probably various methods you can use and precautions you can take to participate securely without leaking any significant information. But any such plans are necessarily more complicated and carry more risk of screwing them up than blanket abstention. As the importance of the secrets you have to keep goes up, the benefit of simplicity probably outweighs the benefits derived from participating in prediction markets, especially play money ones.
Where someone personally draws the line on whether to participate or not depends on: the relative value they place on keeping secrets, how many important secrets they have, how much benefit they derive from participating in prediction markets, and how much they enjoy implementing complicated information-theoretic secret-keeping schemes.
These are fairly general, and pretty easy to agree with, ignoring any conflicts of intention (a participant might WANT to leak information or make money, even if there’s an embargo).
Note that #2 and #3 are contradictory. One cannot simultaneously abstain from a question AND participate randomly. More important, in a well-functioning market, making incorrect bets actually costs you—this is an expense to maintain secrecy, and a pretty big and painful one, especially for participants who otherwise love that information markets … provide information.