I've long used people's belief that "predictions markets" offer some genuine predictive power as a simple way to dimiss them as ridiculous cranks. Catch a few econ Ph.Ds
that way.
But in recent years, prediction markets have caught the attention of a crowd of Silicon Valley empiricists who believe we can fix much of what ails society by betting on our future the way we wager on stocks or sports games.
These people believe the world is full of bad information — biased news, out-of-touch punditry, loony conspiracy theories. Much of this information is spread by people without skin in the game. (Or worse, people with incentives to lie.) And many people have lost faith in the experts and institutions, such as the government and the media, that once served as trusted referees.
Prediction markets, they believe, offer a better way to search for truth — rewarding those who are good at forecasting by allowing them to make money off those who are bad at it, while settling on the facts in an unbiased way.
You can never go wrong betting journalists will type up your latest scam!
Oh and
lookie here...
The Commission must look and evaluate the hard evidence. Real-world data repeatedly
emphasizes the superior forecasting accuracy of prediction markets to polls and pundits. Because
traders have financial skin in the game, their principal incentive is to predict accurately, instead
of merely supporting a partisan line. In 2020, small-scale prediction markets were one of the few
remaining places where people from different political walks of life interacted with each other
regarding politics [CITATION NEEDED], and it helped to moderate right-wing extremist beliefs about the inevitability
of Trump’s re-election.
...
Ritchie Torres (D-NY 15)
Sean McElwee (Founder, Data for Progress)
Drey Samuelson (Co-founder TakeItBack.org)
Dylan Matthews (Vox)
Joel Wertheimer (Civil rights lawyer)
Ethan Winter (progressive pollster)
