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In tonight’s ABC debate, the moderator asked four Democratic presidential candidates to respond to the "fact" that experts think there is a 30% chance a US city will be nuked in the next ten years. No one challenged this estimate, and they fell over themselves to show how seriously they take such a threat.
This estimate seems way too high to me. Ideosphere says there’s a 15-22% chance of a nuke in the US in the next two years, which seems even further off. (If I can find my ID & password there, I’ll bet against it.) A real money prediction market could offer a more objective estimate – could it also convince the public, and the candidates, to focus on more realistic threats?
(Don’t bother to complain such a market might pay terrorists to do it – they could make far far more money from such an act trading in existing financial markets.)
Nuked US Futures
There's a well known bias (the causes are controversial) that makes it hard to make prices move below 5% or above 95%
"Well known" to you, maybe. Thanks for the information. Any advice on where to go for more "tips for Prediction Market newbies"?
Rolf Nelson wrote: my uninformed hypothesis is that the Foresight Exchange prices are currently "sticky", that people place[d] buy orders in 2005, and then abandoned their accounts, rather than reduce their buy orders every year [...]; and that there are not enough currently-active traders able and willing to compensate for this. As an example, USAGeo still had Buy orders at 1, even days after the Dec 31 2007 deadline had passed and the event had not happened.
The facts are inconsistent with your suggestion.
There's a well known bias (the causes are controversial) that makes it hard to make prices move below 5% or above 95%. But there are plenty of cases where the prices move slowly over time reflecting event that don't take place. Draft, and NucW are two picked arbitrarily. Even USAGeo shows a clear trend over time, even if it didn't stabilize at 0. The last 20 trades (covering the last three months of the claim) were all at 1. (Why would anyone offer it for less?)