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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

Markets doesn't really care about methods do they? How can a market communicate the method(s) being used to outsiders? It can't. The only real market output is a "price" that others can base future decisions on.

Great thing is that when you compare "markets" (which integrate information from whatever forces are bearing on it, statistical analysis might be one) with "decision makers" (people who sometimes literally make decisions based on their "gut" or a "roll of the dice" and where luck might win out for some time) the market should correct eventual "mistakes" quicker and be less wrong in general.

Funny how easily people can forget what markets really do!

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Benquo's avatar

One interesting aspect of this distinction, reflected I think in all four examples you gave, is that the relation between forum and method is not strictly hierarchical. Decisions as to how meals are cooked, for instance, mainly plays the role of background when choosing a restaurant, but in practice each particular choice of restaurant marginally alters the whole situation of how meals are cooked. Cf. discussions about law and constitution, Nomic, etc.

Along the same lines, while "we" might want to consider switching to prediction markets as the forum for evaluating new ideas, there is still the matter of who "we" is and figuring out that that's what we want. Of course a bunch of people could simply walk away from the academic forum model, but this represents a coordination problem (itself a reason to approach the transition initially through an academic lens just because it's the status quo).

In addition we may want to preserve an understanding of the relation between things we learn through prediction markets and things we have learned through the academic process. This could be dealt with (at least in principle) through either forum.

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