[extropy-chat] Futures idea game (was Nano-assembler feasibility - politics)

[Alejandro Dubrovsky]

On Sun, 2004-04-04 at 23:56 -0400, Harvey Newstrom wrote:

> 
> ______________________________________________________________________
> 
> On Sunday, April 4, 2004, at 09:53 pm, Alejandro Dubrovsky wrote:
> 
> 
>                 100%: Original Star Wars rereleased in theatres 
>                 <http://www.ideosphere.com/fx-bin/Claim?claim=SW1b>
>         This supposedly wasn't a wrong prediction.  It got judged at a
>         100 (it
>         paid one cent per million dollars in tickets in the US (up to
>         100 off
>         course))
> OK.  I see how to read the judgments now.  That will help a lot
> ininterpreting these!
> 
> But I am still confused how the original Star Wars was judged 100%
> tohave been re-released *in theaters*.  It says"If the Star Warsmovie
> is not re-released to theatres by 1/1/99, the claim pays $0." Was
> there a theater re-release of the original Star Wars that Imissed?  I
> thought they just released a DVD.
> 
I got no idea about star wars, sorry.


> 
>                 100%: Non-Intel PCs dominate market 
>                 <http://www.ideosphere.com/fx-bin/Claim?claim=NIPC>
>         Another one where it looks like an interface screwup.  Look at
>         the
>         graph.  It jumps from about 35 to 100 and back instantly
>         (twicethough).
> How can people quote this stuff as authoritative for their claims,
> butthen ignore it for opposing claims?  If the graphs aren't
> reliable,why trust any of them?
> 

Quote this stuff as authorative?  who?

>                 90%: Unix
>                 irrelevent<http://www.ideosphere.com/fx-bin/Claim?claim=UNIX>
>         So is this one
> Even with your other points about anomalies or inaccurate titles,there
> are still numerous claims like these that were widely supportedand
> just outright wrong.  My point that these predictions don't
> proveanything still stands.  Widespread market consensus is not
> goodevidence that the prediction must be right.
> 

If that is all you are claiming, I agree wholeheartedly.


> 
>                 80%: Netscape wins browser war 
>                 <http://www.ideosphere.com/fx-bin/Claim?claim=NSWN>
>         Read the claim. It got judged at 54, so 80% at top is not bad.
>         You can go through the rest at your own time.   Main point:
>         don't read
>         the title, read the details, and look at the graph
> Yes, I admit that I did skim these very quickly and expected thetitle,
> date and graph to be accurate all the time.  It now appears tome that
> they are full of errors or anomalies, and only the text andfinal
> judgment can be trusted(?).  Even so, you refuted less than halfof my
> examples.  There are still many obviously wrong ones.  All I amsaying
> is that these predictions are often wrong.
> 
I didn't go over the rest because i don't have the time.  I don't know
if they are the Unix type or the Clinton type.  "These predictions are
often wrong" i will agree with.  I was just clarifying that most of what
you pointed out as being incorrect predictions were not really so.  

Regarding the graphs with sharp peaks that quickly drop back to the
average, I don't see why anyone would quote them as market values.  In a
small market like this one, one individual can drive the price to
whichever point he/she wants for a very small time (even if we assume
they are not just interface fuckups).  The fact that they were extremely
quickly corrected should point out that those peak values were not the
market's consensus.  Considering the low volume rate and the low number
of participants, i'd guess any fluctuation shorter than 4 or 5 days is
to be ignored.

Just to clarify, i'm not implying that these values are any more than
the weighted average of the opinion of a bunch of people who are
interested in the subject matter, and they should carry no more weight
than that implies (but no less either).  

alejandro