Comments on: More on Terrorist Oddsmaking

By: Apathy, Inc

Apathy, Inc — Wed, 30 Jul 2003 17:46:03 +0000

Terror Markets

There’s been something of a debate among the blogosphere over the idea of a market to predict terror attacks. Some argue that it’s fundamentally sound, some argue that it’s possibly the stupidest thing, ever. Many fall in between. Count me…

By: Joshua

Joshua — Wed, 30 Jul 2003 17:36:50 +0000

Of course the real fun would have been once the program took off it would soon turn from a terrorism predictor to terrorism influencer and terrorism financer. The various market indexes are a terrific mid to long term indicator of the overall market viability but they are terrible at short term and individual stock predictions. Much more than just the information about the company information influences the day to day valuation. And to really talk about the terrorist situation would be like telling wall street that the any time a company shot up in value the government would shut it down. How do you think that would effect the traders and the accuracy of predictions. The real stock market rewards companies that do well. The terrorist market would punish them. This changes it from a positive reinforcement feedback system to a negative reinforcement system. That makes a bit of difference in the modeling. Without drifting off into a bunch of statistical analysis jargon it is a fallacy to assume that the futures based system is appropriate for prediction of events that should be prevented.

By: Ross Angeles

Ross Angeles — Wed, 30 Jul 2003 15:38:15 +0000

Dumbass idea or not, the fact that this is shockingly immoral should deter anyone from suggesting it. Imagine if you offered a similar pool based on the likelihood that chioldren would be raped by catholic preists? Or one that tries to predict the next time a pregnant woman will be killed by her husband?

It’s one thing to need to honestly deal with the sad neccesity of military actions from time to time, it’s quite another to encourage people to gleefully profit from this kind of thing.

It’s sickening that anyone could consider predicting the future of war as a get rich quick opportunity, and furthermore it’s sickening that people would actually see this and think “good idea”. For a political party so obsessed with “decency” and values, the republicans sure tend to take the low road as often as possible. Then again, perhaps I’m being too optimistic: Perhaps American society really is on its last legs, and this is but yet another symptom of our sad decline.

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 30 Jul 2003 14:37:13 +0000

I view the market data as an efficient aggregation of honest expert opinion. While it would not be the be-all and end-all of intelligence (nor do I think it was ever intended to be) it seems like a handy way to guage what a given population (say, intelligence officials, scientists, foreign policy experts) really think is going to happen.

It is simply a way of assembling information, and solid research indicates it is more efficient and accurate than other traditional methods.

It is insufficient to point out flaws in markets and ipso facto conclude the DARPA plan was a “dumbass idea.” We would have to compare those weaknesses to the weaknesses existing in whatever we’re doing now.

Recent performance does not exactly commend our intelligence agencies’ methods. They should be allowed to think outside the box.