[ExI] My prediction

Sun Jan 4 16:57:16 UTC 2026

From: John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> 
Subject: Re: [ExI] My prediction

On Sat, Jan 3, 2026 at 2:56 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> > wrote:

>> we don't have an objective way to determine who qualifies as a reasonable person.

>…True but that's not important because we do have a subjective way to determine who is a reasonable person…  John K Clark

Of course, but what we need is are criteria which can be used to adjudicate wagers, where only very precise language is used, where adjudication criteria are completely objective.  In that area, you will not find criteria such as “reasonable people will agree” for we don’t have a way to determine who constitutes reasonable people.  We already know that opinions vary widely in every group of people, regardless of how they are grouped.

Here is an example of wording in PredictIt, regarding a constitution referendum in Bangladesh:

This market shall resolve to Yes in the event that, in a referendum election held by the end of February 2026, voters in Bangladesh approve a ballot initiative with the effect of amending the Constitution of Bangladesh.

If no such referendum election is held by the end of February of 2026, this market shall resolve to No.

PredictIt’s decisions and determinations under this rule shall be at PredictIt’s sole discretion and shall be final.

The wording about 2025 being the last normal year is too vague and undecidable.  We already had a very unusual event, the US military grabbing Maduro without any US personnel being killed (I woulda bet big against that outcome (I don’t know how the hell they did it (but that in itself doesn’t mean 2026 can be judged an abnormal year (if every previous year must be classified as normal (which isn’t specified (can we have had SOME abnormal years previous (how many?  (was 1990 abnormal because Noriega was captured?  (but if 1990 was an abnormal year the bet can still go on as worded perhaps (because it doesn’t specify that 2026 must be the FIRST abnormal year.)))))))))

I will freely admit that grabbing Maduro was a damn weird event, but you see where I am going with the inquiry and why: everything should be objectively measurable.

Example, clearly the spot price of DRAM shot way up in 2025.  The way a bet would be worded: “The spot price of 16Gb D4 as reported by DRAMeXchange, BofA Global Research, will go up by more than a factor of 2 in the calendar year 2025.”

That is a big deal, for I am told (please verify or refute) that AI is not only ravenously power hungry, but also is a memory monster, demanding DRAM with the enthusiasm of the beloved muppet devouring cookies.  If so, investing in domestic DRAM fabs would make sense, as would investing in the wager about the price of DRAM.

In any case, precise language is necessary.  Think like a mathematician on this.

spike

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20260104/62b47bac/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 28521 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20260104/62b47bac/attachment.jpg>