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LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

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221–230 of 659 posts

Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

#221

So, Russian anime cat girl seems to have cooked a sample and demonstrated some of the claimed properties, although she's explicit that it shouldn't be considered a "replication". https://twitter.com/iris_IGB/status/1685731177523449856

its always the people with an anime pfp that do the most godly shit

Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is always a subtle anti-markets theme on many HN debates, likely from highly educated ans literate posters. I believe we still in this age simply don’t provide proper education on the massive benefits that markets bring to so mang problems I think we are all too aware of markets and their benefits and disbenefits. It's not clear why you think the "education" is missing only in one direction.

You don’t observe a frequent knee jerk like anti-markets reaction from comments across HN? What are good examples of their “disbenefits”?

> What are good examples of their “disbenefits”?

Overwhelmingly unaddressed externalities.

Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t observe a frequent knee jerk like anti-markets reaction from comments across HN? What are good examples of their “disbenefits”?

Any number of the many, many, negative externalities[0], where market transactions are unable or unwilling to capture the often serious negative effects of an activity in its price, that have been documented and researched by economists over the years? Air pollution and greenhouse gases are just two of the biggest examples, with absolutely massive external costs that are not captured in the price. There are even posi…

For the record I believe I agree with you. However I view it as governments are the failure point in the issues you list, not markets. They have outright failed to address the negative externalities as they have been captured by private interests. In my opinion the entire financial system is captured and the regulations they tend to introduce are simply to allow the corrupt private entities further control.

One neat part of anonymous online prediction markets using unregulated digital currencies is how they exist outside this crony capitalist system.

It’s not markets to blame. It’s bad government!

Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

#224
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This type of instictive negative reaction to prediction markets is, unfortunately, common, but, I think, misguided. Prediction markets are one of the (or just, the?) best ways of aggregating knowledge from multiple sources and producing the best predictions. Having good legible predictions of impactful events such as LK-99 replication is extremely useful for society - it would be an invaluable input for a savvy polic…

What do these prediction markets produce ? Some people are saying "yes" and others are saying "no", and the answer is either "yes" or "no", but why bother spending money on predicting when society can spend money on replicating it? Wouldn't an actual replication attempt be more useful? > The latter is a perfectly reasonable thing to do - it's not easy for an average person to "pay off some lab", but if they provide l…

> What do these prediction markets produce? Some people are saying "yes" and others are saying "no", and the answer is either "yes" or "no", but why bother spending money on predicting when society can spend money on replicating it? Wouldn't an actual replication attempt be more useful?

They are producing predictions of future value. It's not clear when you're only considering a single case, but what if you only have enough money to fund two projects and you have 15 applicants? You could pay a panel of experts to evaluate them and now you can only fund one project, or you can exploit the prediction market and fund the projects that seem to have the best chance of success according to the crowd. So in effect, the crowd is funding projects by freeing up funds that would otherwise go towards bureaucracy.

The wisdom of the crowds works given a large and diverse sample of independent predictors. People who don't know anything will vote randomly so their votes effectively cancel each other out, but people who know more about a particular topic will be biased towards correct answers.

Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

#225
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This type of instictive negative reaction to prediction markets is, unfortunately, common, but, I think, misguided. Prediction markets are one of the (or just, the?) best ways of aggregating knowledge from multiple sources and producing the best predictions. Having good legible predictions of impactful events such as LK-99 replication is extremely useful for society - it would be an invaluable input for a savvy polic…

Absolutely and people might be interested that in this case the prediction market for LK-99 is reacting in real time to new tweets from people trying to replicate. The “yes” spike to 32c yesterday was in response to a twitter account posting an image of a levitating grain in a tube. The credibility of that replication attempt was then evaluated by many and the market backed off afterwards. There is always a subtle an…

Agreed. Stock markets are very similar to prediction markets. They are priced based on future projections, technical feasibility and probability of achieving certain milestone, ability to reach market first, internal and external factors, etc. I don't see much difference between a prediction market and a stock market. Theoretically, we could allow both of them and treat them similar. But one major risk I see is that big players can influence it with big money and distort the reality. It becomes a casino, just like the current wall street. Right now, most of the participants in prediction markets are likely knowledgeable in the subject area, or even subject matter experts and it's probably better to leave it that way.

Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

#226
post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like governments aren’t as clever as claimed. The markets would have put all the bad actors out of business permanently and redistributed the resources (like shinny new buildings and engineers) to areas where they would better be utilized. Instead it was turned into an opportunity to launder money at planetary scale. This likely hints to why the truth about the benefits of brutally efficient free markets is dist…

"Real capitalism has never been tried."

And, of course, cannot fail--only be failed.

Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

#227
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're producing the wisdom of the crowd, which is a real and highly accurate piece of information. It's quite difficult and expensive to produce information as fast and reliable by other means. And they don't cost much, it's mostly money being moved around. edit: I interpreted it as asking wether prediction markets in general produce value. In this specific case I'm 100% with you, they're absolutely useless in pred…

The opinion of a crowd is "real and highly accurate"? The opinion of crowds is frequently completely disconnected from reality. Crowds are often an amplifier of individual delusion. As for accuracy, the only thing the opinion of a crowd is accurate about is the opinion of that particular crowd (not even "the crowd" - look at election polling)

The wisdom of the crowds works given a large and diverse sample of independent predictors. People who don't know anything about a topic will vote randomly so their votes effectively cancel each other out, but people who know more about a particular topic will be biased towards correct answers.

Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

#228
post #140
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where? I just see bandwagoning from a shitpost account.

start here then go to comments for branching out https://twitter.com/8teAPi/status/1685960703658860544

nitter link https://nitter.net/8teAPi/status/1685960703658860544

Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

#229

So, Russian anime cat girl seems to have cooked a sample and demonstrated some of the claimed properties, although she's explicit that it shouldn't be considered a "replication". https://twitter.com/iris_IGB/status/1685731177523449856

> If it's a diamagnetism it's a fucking strong one

That's a pretty good point.

Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marketers take a lot of credit for achievements that don't belong to them. Take, for example, Hayek's rather more honest commentary on vacations and human rights generally: > [The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights] is admittedly an attempt to fuse the rights of the Western liberal tradition with the altogether different concept deriving from the Marxist Russian Revolution. It adds to the list of the classica…

I see. So this is about “the right” to take a vacation? What are you talking about and what am I? we seem to live in different realities. I can’t even imagine somehow I would have a government “right” to take a vacation. Who is paying for it? I don’t get it.

Do you think you have a right to take breaks at work? To go to the bathroom? To a safe work environment?

People aren’t machines. We have a complicated social contract that says companies may employ labor so long as they meet certain requirements for safety, health, and treatment.

It’s not unreasonable to see time off as part of the deal. Who’s paying for your bathroom breaks? Same answer.

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