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

[Robin Hanson]

On 12/22/2004, Brett Paatsch wrote:
>... Robin's futures market idea. If *only* it could be implemented in a 
>real money way, I think it could be, amongst other perhaps even more 
>important things, the great enabling and accelerating "idea" for many 
>other ideas that are discussed in transhuman circles. This is because it 
>would encourage sceptics and potentially knowledgable naysayers to join 
>the discussion ...

Well to be fair, mature implementations many of the other ideas people talk 
about here would also be great enablers.  The question is what are the 
chances of getting mature implementations how soon.  There are far fewer 
technical hurdles to overcome with my concept, but perhaps more severe 
social hurdles.

>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.

>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.



Robin Hanson  rhanson at gmu.edu  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326  FAX: 703-993-2323