[extropy-chat] Re: Why bet only imaginary money?

[Brett Paatsch]

Harvey Newstrom wrote:

> On Sep 4, 2004, at 8:53 PM, Brett Paatsch wrote:
> 
> > Harvey Newstrom wrote:
> >
> >> Why do people want a futures market anyway?  Aren't all the big
> >> technology players already in the the existing markets, so that 
> >> anybody can invest in the technologies they want already?
> >
> > If it was possible to bet against some transhumanists who make wild
> > technological claims then their would be a way of winnowing out those
> > that know what they are talking about from those that don't. The 
> > scientists would stand out from the pseudoscientists.
> [....]
> 
> I wish.
> 
> But I think you misunderstood my question.  I know why you want a 
> market.  What I am asking is what's wrong with the markets that already 
> exist.  Why can't we use those markets to invest in technology and test 
> our theories?  Why do we need a new market, and what would make it 
> different?

On what futures market could I invest *against* the viability of cryonics,
or *against* the Drexlerian vision of molecular nanotech, or *against* the
possibility of friendly AI. 

So far as I can tell the people who are *for* these things don't have
any money to bet with.

Many of these things to me stand out as laudable understandable
human reactions against particular worldviews. I can like and relate
to the sort of person who wants cryonics to succeed, who wants to
have genie machines that liberate all people from hard work and from
having to compete for resources, I can warm to the sensitivity of 
someone that wants higher forms of justice and better clearer more 
humane management by friendly AI, but these folk are too hard to 
effectively constructively criticise because they remove themselves 
from effective criticism by making all critics criticise them for free.  
Its sort of like religious believers who will only take criticism from 
their friends who have to swear an oath of believing to qualify. 

Good criticism is hard time consuming work, pulling apart illusions
that emotionally one would rather share is disillusioning. I want to be
compensated for doing it.  Betting is a way of getting compensation
entirely on the basis of results. And if you fail, if your judgement is
wrong, then the people you reward, you want to reward, they 
deserve it.  Not a cent is wasted on paying useless middlemen who
don't exercise any judgement or take any real risk or even dare
to have much vision.  

If there was a market on which some goals along the pathways to
these things were put out as hypotheses or futures contracts it would
be possible for me to bet *against* what seem to me to be impractical
approaches to improving the human condition (including my own 
condition) and if I was wrong in better on the pessimistic side I'd be
pleased to pay up. Its like a hedging  strategy. I'd have bought 
optimism that was rationally compatible. 

You pit your head against your heart and when you head wins and
your heart looses you at least walk away richer. Then your better 
resourced for next time. But when you bet against an optimist part
of you hopes to lose because if you do lose you have to lose not to
a better heart but to a better head. When you lose to a better head,
you learn. 

I have only a rough understanding of what futures markets are
available in the US.  I suspect I could probably put together a pretty
good portfolio of tech stocks and if I was willing to watch it closely
enough I could probably outperform the market.  I don't say this 
egotistically, I have tried this (though not specifically with tech stocks)
specifically in Australian (in 1991) and in a single year I made a paper
profit of 100%.  I think I actually had a method and that it was not
luck.  

But it was boring. It was boring because I didn't care about the 
stocks. I actually wanted to build something and to do something 
with life not to just make money out-thinking other people in stupid
zero sum games in what seemed like a stale stupid and unimaginative
world. 

None of the stocks that I could invest in in Australia in 1991 were
actively pursuing what I wanted to pursue which was radical life
extension tech. 

I wanted to make or encourage the creation of the sort of businesses
that would make the sort of products that I would want to buy. 

The reason that I'd be keen to bet against some of the techs that
transhumanists believe in is because I have spent a good bit of time 
investigating some of them pretty deeply and I think I know why they
won't work.  I want the sort of folks I like - tech savy humanists to
do well in the world and to prosper - and I think they will do that
better if they get a bit more practical. 

Brett Paatsch