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Prediction markets work much better than polls. This is because those who know are willing to bet on it, and those who do not are (rightly) reluctant.[1] Some
by nickff 11y ago
Prediction markets work much better than polls. This is because those who know are willing to bet on it, and those who do not are (rightly) reluctant.[1] Some such as Tetlock have (plausibly) claimed they can do even better than prediction markets, but not by listening to random commenters with no skin in the game.[2]
TLDR; Talk is cheap, and people are much more careful with their wallets than their mouths (or keyboards).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_market https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_market
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_E._Tetlock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_E._Tetlock
- _yosefk 11y agoWell, prediction markets do better than polls, but actual financial markets are in part prediction markets and they do pretty badly at times and sometimes there's a guy who calls a bubble long before it pops. And that guy doesn't necessarily stake a huge fortune on that prediction. So yeah, talk is cheap, and yeah, on average people are more careful with their wallets than their mouths, but on the other hand, people sometimes have interesting things to say, and asking how much money they bet on being right is less interesting to me than asking how they arrived at their conclusions. Now in some cases I will ask someone how much money he'd put on being right, but I'll do that when I think they're either wrong or fairly uninformed and yet very opinionated.