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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 27, 2024

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https://manifold.markets/news/chinataiwan

More markets where people put their (play) money where their mouth is with regards to their predictions, and I encourage everyone with strong opinions to do the same.

I tried to set up a (real-money) bet with someone over this (well, technically on nuclear war, but these have very high correlation), but was unable to finalise terms. There are a number of issues with betting "yes":

  1. Are you going to survive to enjoy your winnings?
  2. Is the counterparty going to survive to pay you?
  3. Are the mechanisms to allow and force the counterparty to pay you going to survive?
  4. Is money going to be worth as much in "yes" worlds as "no" worlds? (Probably not, so you need better odds than the naïve ones.)

#1-3 can be solved with some innovation, although they make things more complicated. #4 is just a straight-up "prediction markets will underpredict this because equilibrium price =/= real probability".

NB: I have taken some steps to survive nuclear war (moving to Bendigo instead of Melbourne, bottled water in my bathroom cabinet), so I've put some money where my mouth is already.