gwern comments on New Year's Predictions Thread - Less Wrong

18 Post author: MichaelVassar 30 December 2009 09:39PM

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Comment author: gwern 25 August 2010 06:16:25AM *  1 point [-]
  1. http://predictionbook.com/predictions/1710

    Kind of vague, but I suppose it's not too hard to do a search and note that the NYT only mentioned Intrade a few times in the 2000s and more in the 2010s.

  2. http://predictionbook.com/predictions/1709

    I have no idea how one would measure this one. I'm sure that at any high school you could find a student willing to wager with you on any damn topic you please.

  3. Not including a prediction for middleclasses. Already true if you count sports, as many prediction markets such as Betfair do.
  4. http://predictionbook.com/predictions/1711
  5. http://predictionbook.com/predictions/1712

    Agree with orthonormal that this is seriously over-optimistic. The only site I even use today that I did in 2000 would be Slashdot, and I haven't commented there in a dog's age.

Comment author: magfrump 25 August 2010 10:16:13AM 0 points [-]

I probably meant for claim 3 to exclude sports.

Comment author: gwern 25 August 2010 12:34:03PM 0 points [-]

Well, then you're using a variant definition of prediction market, and before I can feel confident judging any prediction of yours, I need to know what your idiosyncratic interpretation of the phrase is.

Comment author: magfrump 25 August 2010 07:59:25PM 0 points [-]

I agree that I wasn't making the most coherent claim, and since it's been a long time I can't guarantee fidelity of what I originally intended.

But my best guess would be, trying to phrase this as concretely as possible, was that I meant to predict that either

a) sports betting agencies would expand into non-sports venues and see significant business there

or b) newer betting agencies not created to serve sports would achieve similar success

I would be "disappointed" if "non-sports" meant something like player movement between teams and "excited" if it meant something like unemployment rates and vote shares in elections.