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Pentagon Lets You Bid on Terrorism?
Elysdir writes "DARPA is creating an idea futures market, the Policy Analysis Market, to try to predict events in the Middle East. See Bloomberg article for more info." Read this article. I mean it. This is amazing.
Update: 07/29 14:45 GMT by J : The
NYT story
claims "The White House also altered the Web site so that the potential events ... that were visible earlier in the day ... could no longer be seen," but those example images are still being served:
Jordanian overthrow,
bidding on assassinations,
cool graphics... Update: 07/29 16:44 GMT by M : Looks like the publicity was too much.
Finally ... a combination of defense and capitalism. I personally think this is a great idea, and want to see more exploration in our country of exotic/non-conventional financial instruments used in very creative ways.
...
What they are doing here is taking the futures markets and orienting them around terrorism. Great idea! Anyone who remembers the mysterious short selling on airline stocks before 9/11 knows that some strange trades always occur in the name of greed.
Many people who respond to this article are going to say "well that's dumb, how can investors predict this stuff?" - they are missing the point. The point here is to allow all sorts of stupid trades, but to notice the weird ones - the ones which eerily mirror intelligence information. If DoD manages to pull off a half-decent TIA system, then this is a very useful component.
It's great that such ideas are being pursued by the government, rather than idle chatter among economists and academics. Somewhat of a shame that all of the ignorant/stupid people out there will shout loudly enough to get this thing shut down, though
if new peace talks
prob(suicide attack within next day) = 1
prob(israel killing 1 hamas leader + 20 civilians within next two day) = 1
end peace talks
It's going on and on and on.. You just HAVE to reckon those people's stuborness!
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
So will people who do too well be brought in for questioning?
We like you. We really do. And we realise it's not your fault you have a government that is more insane than a whole barrow-load of Margaret Thatchers.
Please. Do yourselves a favour. Get rid of them. Vote for the opposition in such great numbers they can't possibly have Bush reappointed without causing a second American Revolution.
The world is watching and waiting...
"Information wants to be paid"
"Sounds REALLY interesting, but hacks like some of our Democratic Presidential hopefuls will want to make hay on the morbidity end of it instead of the usefulness of putting the nation's collective thinking into the war against terror."
Neocons... neocons. You really can't take any criticism of your religion, can you? No shades of gray, only white. Democrats = communists = traitors = evil. Republicans = freetrade = plusgood.
How do you war against "Terror"? What the hell is "Terror"? Terror is an emotion felt by you. I don't feel particularly terrorized, and I don't want the Constitution eliminated because I feel afraid.
Is it really a war against brown Moslems? If not, what the hell are you warring against? bin Laden and his cultists blew up some buildings. Find him. Oh, I must be a Democrat and a fool, 'cause I point out that we haven't found him, but Bush is blowing up brown Iraqis who sort of look like bin Laden, if he weren't a Saudi, rich, and oh yes, still not found.
"Terror" is a nonsense mouth noise with no semantic referent. It was coined to mean anything, so it is used to justify anything.
Any criticism of the necons is now damaging the war on "Terror". Which is undefined and undefinable. So... therefore, anything Bush's critics say must dangerous, counterproductive, traitorous, and shouted down as much as possible for the safety of the U.S.
And, oh yes: since the War on Terror is undefined and meaningless, it can never, ever end. Critics must shut up -- forever. As a matter of fact, locking them up is a good idea. Or let's execute a few of them, as Coulter says, so the others will think twice about becoming traitors.