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A few months ago, I had a truly and quite literally "revolutionary" idea, and I jokingly called it "Assassination Politics": I speculated on the question of whether an organization could be set up to legally announce that it would be awarding a cash prize to somebody who correctly "predicted" the death of one of a list of violators of rights, usually either government employees, officeholders, or appointees. It could ask for anonymous contributions from the public, and individuals would be able send those contributions using digital cash.

bshanks writes "apparently, markets are the best way known for large groups of humans to aggregate their information and make predictions. Information markets are (i think) markets designed to elicit various types of predictions. Successful information markets include the Iowa Electronic Market, which predicts political events more accurately than major news polls, and the Hollywood Stock Exchange, which predicts box office revenues and Oscar winners." Paul Johnson appears to have verified this experimentally (if informally):

A number of years ago a colleague at Columbia Business School, Paul Johnson, created an exercise to demonstrate the exquisite capability of markets to discern value. The game is based on the Academy Awards-the highest accolades handed out in the film industry. The basics are very simple:

*Each student receives a single piece of paper with a listing of 12 Academy Award categories and the nominees for each. On the front of the page are relatively well known categories, such as best film, best actress and so on. The back page has more obscure categories-best adapted screenplay, best cinematography and such. The forms are distributed roughly three weeks in advance of the actual awards event.

*Students are asked to select the winners in each category. In order to play, students must contribute $1 to a pot, with the student with the most correct answers winning the pot. Hence, there is a modest economic incentive to answer the questions right.

*About 125 students participated in 1998. All guesses were generated independently, as students were forbidden from consulting with one another. The results were impressive in 1998. Similar results have been generated year-in and year-out:

*The "consensus," defined as the most popular selection for a given category, correctly identified 11 of the 12 actual category winners. Remarkably, the only category the consensus missed, it missed by only one vote.

*The best individual accurately picked 9 of the 12 category winners.

*The average individual only picked 5 of the 12 winners-less than 50%. The message from this exercise is that lots of agents and independent errors in their judgements lead to efficient results. The market tends to be much smarter than the average person. In fact, the standard error in equilibrium prices declines with roughly the square root of the number of investors.

This observation is not particularly new-in fact Francis Galton made the same point in the late 19th century-but it is often overlooked. Further, this simple model does not include meaningful economic incentives or learning. If incorporated, these elements would make the results even more robust.

So it

Missingmatter found?

Listing of previous methods:

1. Take a smoke break & discuss philosophy/politics.

2. Ginko Biloba & Selenium: Selenium will act as a neuro-transmitter and deliver the Ginko. The Ginko thins the blood causing increased circulation to the brain (and the rest of your body).

3. If I can't "get in the zone" I mentally note the problem as "important" and work on something else for a few minutes (usually 30) and then go back. This helps (see missing matter's article).

4. Adjusting blood sugar (more for energy, less to be more on edge).

5. Reading a new book about software theory or a new language at least once/month.

6. Caffeine usually drains me more in the long run, I try to just drink it in the morning. I drink tea (Rooiboss, Ginseng, Orange, random herbs) in the afternoon.

missingmatter has a Slashdot-style interview with Bruce Sterling going on right now. There's still time to submit a question.

missingmatter has a Slashdot-style interview with Bruce Sterling going on right now. There's still time to submit a question.

Posted to missingmatter yesterday... Slashdot is so 24 hours ago...

Posted to missingmatter yesterday... Slashdot is so 24 hours ago...

Aren't you the guy who updates the Slashboxes? Why are old, dead sties still listed in the Slashbox list, while new interesting ones like missingmatter never get added?