[extropy-chat] Noisy future day (was: silent night)

[Brett Paatsch]

Robin Hanson wrote:

> There are far fewer technical hurdles to overcome with my concept, but 
> perhaps more severe social hurdles.

Its because the technical hurdles are comparatively small that I think
the social hurdles are probably less so as well. Into social I am reading
also legal and political.

I think I could have predicted that the terrorism prediction application
would get hit on the head by politicians and the political process (and
I think I agree with them in that instance) but I don't see why other
applications such as predicting the rate at which classes and instances
or hyped scientific claims couldn't still be politically and legally doable.

My impression is that the gambolling laws were not really laid down
to *intentionally* prevent the free development of this sort of thing,
but rather than this sort of thing is getting hit as collateral damage if it
is. If that is the case it might not be that hard to get a for real money
prototype up somewhere in the world (perhaps the UK, perhaps
Gibraltar, possibly here in Australia - I'm just guessing and picking up
on hints in what I've read).

For a real money market, personally I could accept paying domestic
tax on winnings, especially if I could claim a deduction on any losses.

I really see this a far closer to commodities trading where what I'd
be hedging would be my time  versus my money. Both are valuable
to me.

What I can't do at present is propose contracts along the lines of say,
that stem cell research will see kidneys, livers, hearts, eyes, generated
and available for off the shelf purchase by 2015.

Maybe this is a smart bet, or a dumb bet, or even a poorly formed
bet, but I can't see why governments of the world should care that I
want to make that SORT of bet with others who want to bet with
me.  And if a lot of folk with inside knowledge on the tech state of
the art get involved in such bets them we (ie. people and governments
observing the bets) would get accurate indications of how far away
certain things are in the world not just in their own country.

>If the main thing stopping Robin's futures market ideas from being
>>implemented ... is wowserish laws, then what would that say about the 
>>state of the world? We'd be living in a world where the best sort of free 
>>speech and the purest forms of the free market are already effectively 
>>denied to individuals who want to interact in ways that have no harmful 
>>bearing on others at all.
>
> Well surely a great many large social advances are prevented by laws. That 
> is the nature of law as we know it - it is a crude instruments, costly to 
> change, and the people who are effectively in charge of it know just about 
> as little as it is possible to know about its effect.

I had the opportunity to see that that is true on a number of different 
fronts
over a couple of decades. Most recently I've seen it play out in Australia
where I was involved in lobbying for progressive stem cell laws.

>>It can be hard to develop what seem to be good ideas into real commercial 
>>opportunities. And Robins futures market idea is pretty esoteric. The 
>>applications for it in science and technology prediction and acceleration
>> are not likely to be easily understood by legislators.
>>
>>My gut tells me that once started in a for real money way the idea will 
>>take off in a big way, but I don't completely trust my gut, and if Robin 
>>and others feel the same way and find other things more attractive or 
>>urgent to do with their time then it might not get started at all
>
> Well things are looking the best they've looked in the fifteen years
> I've been at this.  The CFTC is considering making them more legal - I was 
> just  at conference on this.  And a few dozen companies are experimenting 
> with internal markets.

As a person that wants to use the service "more" legal doesn't really
help me.  How much more is more on the sliding scale of legal :-)

Things are either legal (and lawful) or illegal and unlawful. Its that
simple.

Unfortunately, there are a great deal of laws, many of them badly
made and it is almost impossible for a person who is not a lawyer
(and for many lawyers) to stay on top of them all especially if the
market one wants to operate in is an international one.

If I could find a way to help you make this real Robin I'd be
interested in doing it.  I took a look at the link Adrian offered
to your web site but some of the links relating to the state of
the laws were dead.

If transhumanists around the world are looking for something to
focus on that would make a practical difference then I'd suspect
that finding a way to make it possible for two analysts
(transhumanists or otherwise) to place a bet over the internet
legally might be just about the best thing they could do. And
understanding why their governments won't allow them to, if they
won't would be very informative too.

It might not be obvious that its about the best thing they could
do. But I reckon it would be anyway.  Perhaps I'm subjective.

Brett Paatsch

PS: It is progress to have private companies looking at doing
projects on this internally but for my money that is still missing
the main point. It needs to be for real money and it needs to
be a near global market so that the right subject matter experts
(who and whatever they are) can get involved in it.

A real money prototype might seed into something else but
without the real money it just isn't real to me at all.  Everyone
values their time and their money. A lot of the other stuff are
fuzzy values.