People Over Process

Chip pointed out what should have been obvious from the get go about Jyte: it’s great for a rumors and predictions market. Here I was just thinking that it was a clever way to establish “assertions” (claims) using crowd sourcing instead of just central authorities.

Should, Is, and Will

Currently, most Jyte claims I look at are “should” claims, e.g.:

Or,

Or the more general,

Now, a rumor claim is more like an “is” that’s yet to be made public, while a futures claim is more like a “will.”

Parameters for Futures Claims

Pleasantly enough, I listened Philip Tetlock’s talk to The Long Now Foundation about his long-term study of experts making predictions. As with (most) all Long Now Foundation seminars, it was great! The discusion of foxes vs. hedgehogs and who was better over-all at making predictions was nice: though I wonder if anyone admits to and/or wants to be a hedgehog. More to the topic at hand, Tetlock said that futures markets — where experts gather to make predictions — is actually a great way to forecast, PR disasters aside.

One of the key mechanics of doing it, however, was the be specific as possible, including time gates. For example, saying that the USSR is going to collapse is less useful than saying the USSR is going to collapse in 2-5 years. Imagine the difference between the value of that prediction in 1955 vs. 1985. Saying how it will collapse is even more useful.

So, to that end, I’m going to play around with using Jyte for predictions and (as appropriate) rumor checks. Anyone got some good ones? How about this self-referential one:

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