And the Yay button redirects you to Paypal…

I also like rounds of approval voting and vetting.

John Naisbitt in his 1980s book Megatrends predicted that we would go one further. He maintained that technology would change the face of politics, that the use of personal computers would enable the electorate to participate in the formation of every piece of legislation by voting Yay or Nay.

that’s not futarchy. To be a proper market, the proponents and opponents of the proposition would be betting their own money.

Samuel – I know what you mean but you didn’t get what I was saying. Perhaps I should have said it better.

The problem is computer based systems so centralise such markets that they are opaque and easily controlled. Can you really expect a betting organisation will have pristine computer mediated markets? It takes just a simple bit of code hidden within a million lines to multiply one side of the odds by 1.1, and skew the outcome.

The same goes with elections. It is always easier to fix an election at the central election computer.

Stockmarkets are getting into difficulties now, through HFT algorithms, such that the dark pools are being increasingly favoured – not only to hide transactions but also to get away from the distortions and system gaming which HFT and other AI trading software introduces.

Betting companies are relatively safe at the moment because their revenue rides on their good names. There is no power or ideology component of their businesses (or not much), so it does not make sense for anyone to rig their systems. This will not be the case if politics becomes involved.

In theory Dr Hanson could be right, but the inherent opacity of the platform means there can never be a pure example. And if not pure it becomes useless. If you do not believe me just ask the LNP why they refuse to use Treasury for costings.

There a whiff of positive feedback coming through here.

As a panarchist, I count this as a negative. This addiction to contrived forms of legitimacy is the main source of statism.

“throughout history many civil wars have been caused by legitimacy (and succession) struggles as one group (or individual) tries to seize government.”

This view ignores the many conflicts that have been resolved (and possibly countless others avoided) by drawing borders.

Yeah, democracy is good but would be a lot better with a couple of simple rules such as governments forbidden to borrow money and minister must take a degree of personal and financial responsibility for their decisions. I would pay them very well but then take their house and pension if they made Rudd-like decisions for example.

I live in the other market – so what are you waffling on about.

Opposition

At a July 28, 2003 press conference, Senators Byron L. Dorgan (D-ND) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) claimed that PAM would allow trading in such events as coups d’état, assassinations, and terrorist attacks, due to such events appearing on interface pictures on the project website.[4]
They denounced the idea, with Wyden stating, “The idea of a federal betting parlor on atrocities and terrorism is ridiculous and it’s grotesque,” while Dorgan called it “useless, offensive and unbelievably stupid”.[5] Other critics offered similar outrage. Almost immediately afterwards (within less than a day) the Pentagon announced the cancellation of PAM, and by the end of the week John Poindexter, head of the DARPA unit responsible for developing it, had offered his resignation

Whingers screw everything up, from military intelligence to legally drinking a tax free glass of sugary drink.