UFO As Aliens Odds, Spending
The following are some (lognormal fit) median estimates from some X polls I just ran.
First, if we knew for a fact that at least one apparently incredibly-abled UFO sighting in last century was really incredible and not from a then-current human Earth power, it would make sense to spend ~1.0% of world income, or ~$1.2T/yr, on researching and studying UFOs.
Second, the actual median estimate chance of that fact is ~1.3x10^-5. So if the best amount to spend on UFOs were proportional to this chance, that would imply ~$15M/yr UFO spending, which is at the low end of the ~$20-50M/yr that five LLMs estimate the world actually spends. Third, poll median best spending on UFOs is ~$65M/yr, near the high end of that range. So polls roughly endorse the status quo.
I personally estimate a >1% chance, three orders of magnitude larger than that median chance estimate. This puts me in the top 20% of poll respondents. For this, proportionality implies >$12B/yr spending, which makes sense to me. That is, I think we spend way too little on this topic.
Can we find betting odds here? I find bookies offering 20:1 and 100:1 odds on discovery of alien life anywhere in the next year, and one 100:1 bet on finding aliens in the next decade. I also find an equal-parties 150:1 odds bet on finding clear evidence of UFOs as aliens in five years, and an offer at those odds for three years. These seem to me much more consistent with a >1% than a 10^-5 total chance.
I thus see great social gains from better consensus betting odds on this topic, which could come from more liquid betting markets on this, and might induce more appropriate much higher spending levels.
My understanding is that many betting markets have problems getting a percentage lower once it is near the 1% range. Vitalik Buterin wrote about (successfully) betting on Trump not becoming president after the 2020 election https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2021/02/18/election.html I've seen markets that just didn't support making any profit betting a probability further down than that.
Betting odds are often calculated to be not too big so a big payout is avoided, but big enough to attract some cash. That is, they are probably taking advantage of a relatively small number of alien enthusiast without risking too much given they aren't putting any significant effort into assessing the tiny real odds, and remember that tiny odds take a lot of accessing to be accurate. In the absence of a larger and more competitive betting market, I think those odds are likely way off, not just a bit, but orders of magnitude off.