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Prediction Markets: Tales from the Election

vitalik.ca

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Re: Prediction Markets: Tales from the Election

#51

Post by pessimizer »

DC1350 wrote: post #26
IAmEveryone wrote: post #5

I've always had the impression that the cryptocurrency community was trending rightwards. So it's good to see some quantifiable evidence of it. Which leaves the question: why? Technology as a whole is centre-left, so there's something else going on. One common theme seems to a loss of trust in any institutions, and democracy itself: "the FED is just a private bank" isn't far away from "the mainstream media is lying",…

Why do you believe that technology is centre-left? Crypto is basically a libertarian fantasy come true.

Center-left is a liberal euphemism for normal. It's what you assume everybody is when you're part of the urban middle-class and don't really talk about politics.

Re: Prediction Markets: Tales from the Election

#52

Post by vonwoodson »

avarun wrote: post #21
Supermancho wrote: post #15

What I read was a story of making money from some niche prediction market sites (that I would never touch). There is also quite a bit of handwaving, eg "I saw more and more arguments from Very Smart People whom I respected arguing that the markets were in fact being irrational and I should participate and bet against them if I can. Eventually, I was convinced." and showing some math from trivial arbitrary scenarios t…

...it's written by Vitalik Buterin. Of course he thinks Ethereum is good?

Thank you for pointing out the obvious: That even on HN people talk before they know even they tiniest thing about who or what they are talking about.

Re: Prediction Markets: Tales from the Election

#53

Post by fallingfrog »

viklove wrote: post #44
fallingfrog wrote: post #35

I think what we’re seeing is that the set of people making bets on political outcomes leans sharply Republican. It’s selection bias. There may be a broader message there about representation too: if you are sitting in a meeting and 8 people think something is going to happen, but you disagree, and they are all upper class men (for example), and you’re a lower class woman, you probably have a better than 1 in 9 chance…

You should start a quant firm employing only lower class women, and use their insight to decide which companies to invest in. If your hypothesis is correct, you'll be filthy rich in no time at all.

That’s actually a pretty good idea.. but in the short term and during a speculative bubble, you make the most money by chasing what everyone else is also investing in, so it pays to have groupthink. The approach you suggest would probably work though if you could be patient over the course of the whole business cycle, 20 or 30 years.

Re: Prediction Markets: Tales from the Election

#55

Post by rmb177 »

ErikAugust wrote: post #3

"The best way to predict the future is to create it." I always thought the the problem with prediction markets is you have the incentive to make the prediction come true. And that gets ugly fast. But hell, I guess that's what all this is at the end of the day.

Rumor on PredictIt was one of the reasons they shut down tweet markets was Andrew Yang's campaign received email threats in regards to him tweeting.

Re: Prediction Markets: Tales from the Election

#56

Post by Supermancho »

vonwoodson wrote: post #52
avarun wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...it's written by Vitalik Buterin. Of course he thinks Ethereum is good?

Thank you for pointing out the obvious: That even on HN people talk before they know even they tiniest thing about who or what they are talking about.

> That even on HN people talk before they know even they tiniest thing about who or what they are talking about.

Regardless of the author (I don't bother to google every author) the content is as stated. It's a crypto-ad and not much else.

Re: Prediction Markets: Tales from the Election

#57

Post by didibus »

> There just really are far fewer people than I thought who are actually motivated enough to take a weird opportunity even when it presents them straight in the face

It Me hehe

I feel my only motivation is fomo, but I'm actually not interested in putting in the effort and time with associated stress, my job already delivers on a lifestyle I'm happy with, so the potential additional money isn't enough to push me to act.

Re: Prediction Markets: Tales from the Election

#58

Post by DC1350 »

fallingfrog wrote: post #45
DC1350 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a positive vs negative liberty difference. Decentralization and unregulated currency is aligned with the right wing ideas about freedom.

The original meaning of “right wing” meant supporters of monarchy or aristocracy. (The supporters of the aristocracy sat on the right in the Estates General assemblies right before the French Revolution, the commoners on the left). What you are describing is a free market libertarianism that denies or pretends that class doesn’t exist at all, which generally serves the interests of economic aristocracy.

Yes - I just finished reading a book about the French Revolution and it was surprising how far the modern definition of right vs left has strayed. Imagine living in a time when the leftists were pro-war nationalists who loved prison and the death penalty! But in the current political climate, libertarian market ideas are generally included in the basket of ideas labelled 'right'. That's all I meant.

Re: Prediction Markets: Tales from the Election

#59

Post by NovaJehovah »

nojito wrote: post #54

Prediction markets, more specifically predictit, have an hard extreme bias towards the right. I was basically printing money last year.

You may be correct, but since we are dealing with long tail events, I really doubt that we have anywhere close to enough data to make statistically significant empirical statements about bias. You are almost certainly being results-oriented.
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