Peter Dorman wrote:
>... I suspect that publicizing the ongoing status of a betting game would
>tend to interfere with discourse just as constant opinion polling does to
>our elections and repeated straw votes would do to a discussion at a
>meeting.
Just about anything that happens at a meeting could distract from
the conversation at hand. But things that would distract a meeting
conversation need not distract a nation's discourse, because
there are already so many other distractions available.
Consider the possibilities of banning betting/trading on sports, on
corn futures, or on IBM stock. Would this create a healthier national
debate on who will win which sport contests, better estimates of future
corn prices, or better estimates of the profitability of IBM market
strategies? Or would fewer people now pay attention to these issues?
My guess is that since there are so many other opportunities out there
for distraction and speculation, banning betting on these topics would
mainly just reduce interest in such subjects.
>My sense is that the biggest gains are likely to come from more effective
>vehicles for promoting discourse than more accurate mechanisms for
>aggregating currently-held opinions.
OK, but the question then is: what does promote healthy discourse on
some particular topic? Three inputs that come to my mind are:
1) More and wider-spread direct personal interest in the topic,
2) More accurate estimates on related topics, topics which one would
refer to in making arguments about this topic, and
3) Ways to publicly identify those whose arguments are insincere.
Betting markets can offer all three of these inputs (the last one via
seeing who is unwilling to "put their money where their mouth is".)
Robin Hanson [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://hanson.gmu.edu
Asst. Prof. Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323
