how about 99/1? pretty wild to me that you would say
I have generally found the fears of democracy failing in the US to be hyperbolic and without much good evidence. The claims are also very “vibes-based” and/or partisan rather than at the object level.
and then only offer 90⁄10 odds. Are you saying you think there is a ~1 in 20 chance the next election is not going to be free and fair? I would not consider freaking about about 1⁄100 to be hyperbolic, much less 1⁄20.
Also It would be nice to break this up a little bit more. Here are some things I would probably bet you on, though they need to be clarified and thought out a bit more.
Trump will commit more than x crimes during his presidency.
Trumps secretaries will commit more than x crimes during his presidency
Trump will attempt to run for a third term
The winner of the republican primary in the next two presidential elections will be a MAGA
In the next x years, a future president or (sufficiently) high up politician will not be convicted of any crimes conditional on their party controlling the justice department
If I’m willing to bet, I need to take “edge”. I am not going to bet at my actual odds since that gives no profit for me.
1⁄2. I think nearly every president committed crimes, for example, war crimes. This mainly depends on what he is prosecuted for as opposed to what is committed.
If the constitution is amended that seems fine. I’m fine to bet on something like this though.
I’m not sure why that matters. People can elect people you and I disagree with ideologically.
I don’t think I understand this one. Can you clarify?
I feel like people are converting their dislike of Trump into unwarranted fears. I don’t like Trump but it’s not helpful to fear monger.
This is pretty patronizing. You don’t know me but do you really think the average person on the EA forum needs that explained?
hence why I wrote 1⁄20 (95-5). If you believe the chance is <1/100 you are 10x. Given the asymmetry of my/other users knowledge of your internal probability, I understand offering the best possible odds for yourself that you still think the other side would take, but it’s a bit of an icky norm to come on here and play poker when people might assume you would be happy to take a 2x-5x bet. More importantly the bet you offered proves nothing in my mind since anywhere between a 1-5% chance of the next election being rigged would still be really really bad and worth hyperventilating about.
If you want, read my comment to lark. I don’t think my resolution criteria are good. It’s rather that I don’t personally expect the next election to be rigged ( I would be on the same side of the 90⁄10 bet as you) but I do expect trump to continue to denigrate the checks and balances that we have in this country, whether it be official laws or unofficial norms, hence why I am trying to pose intermediate questions. I’ll try to improve the original questions though.
1⁄2 - just specify a specific crime that we think most presidents don’t commit and would obviously be worth prosecuting.
3 - really? You think this wouldn’t be a clear step towards autocracy?
4 - The general position of MAGA’s is that the 2020 election was stolen. 5- Admittedly a Pretty awful market, just ignore this one
Again I don’t think even these modified versions are good, but I think we can still do better.
Trump will commit more than x crimes during his presidency.
This lacks an objective resolution criteria, and ‘number of crimes’ in the US is often a fairly random number because a single act can give rise to multiple violations. Also, committing crimes is very different from being an autocrat—you could be an autocrat and obey the law, and you can be a democrat and break the law.
Trumps secretaries will commit more than x crimes during his presidency
Similar issues.
Trump will attempt to run for a third term
Not as bad, but seems insufficient. Michael Bloomberg ran for a third term as NYC mayor, even though this required changing the rules just for him, but he was not an autocrat.
The winner of the republican primary in the next two presidential elections will be a MAGA
This is subjective, and also insufficient, as whatever ‘MAGA’ is, it is not the same as an autocrat.
In the next x years, a future president or (sufficiently) high up politician will not be convicted of any crimes conditional on their party controlling the justice department
This also seems insufficient to demonstrate autocracy—for example to my knowledge Obama was never convicted of any crimes when his party controlled the Justice Department, but he was not an autocrat.
I think the best thing to bet on is the probability of winning the next election. Unfortunately this doesn’t work nearly as well as it would have a few weeks ago, but I think think it is the best approach.
Completely agree—I think all of my markets are bad. However the direction I’m trying to move in by proposing these questions is to operationalize steps along the way towards autocracy. You could semi replicate this but saying ok well will one of the next 5 elections going to be rigged (if you believe you can operationalize this), but even if you could set up a futures market for it I don’t think you will get all that much market efficiency from it.
Betting on the prob of next election is going to paint a very incomplete picture. There is a world in which we are 99% the next election is not going to get rigged but acts during this admin would credibly increase the chance of future riggings by a lot. For instance lets assume trump himself as no interest in being an autocrat. Then he wouldn’t rig the election purposely right? And yet the fact that we now have a precedent that you won’t be prosecuted for essentially anything if you win the presidency surely changes the incentives of future politicians who are considering meddling.
This is literally my position. I think the next election is >90% to be “relatively fair”, but I also think trump is going to do a ton of stuff that paves the way for a future election to not be fair. Picture below to help explain thesis.
how about 99/1? pretty wild to me that you would say
and then only offer 90⁄10 odds. Are you saying you think there is a ~1 in 20 chance the next election is not going to be free and fair? I would not consider freaking about about 1⁄100 to be hyperbolic, much less 1⁄20.
Also It would be nice to break this up a little bit more. Here are some things I would probably bet you on, though they need to be clarified and thought out a bit more.
Trump will commit more than x crimes during his presidency.
Trumps secretaries will commit more than x crimes during his presidency
Trump will attempt to run for a third term
The winner of the republican primary in the next two presidential elections will be a MAGA
In the next x years, a future president or (sufficiently) high up politician will not be convicted of any crimes conditional on their party controlling the justice department
If I’m willing to bet, I need to take “edge”. I am not going to bet at my actual odds since that gives no profit for me.
1⁄2. I think nearly every president committed crimes, for example, war crimes. This mainly depends on what he is prosecuted for as opposed to what is committed.
If the constitution is amended that seems fine. I’m fine to bet on something like this though.
I’m not sure why that matters. People can elect people you and I disagree with ideologically.
I don’t think I understand this one. Can you clarify?
I feel like people are converting their dislike of Trump into unwarranted fears. I don’t like Trump but it’s not helpful to fear monger.
This is pretty patronizing. You don’t know me but do you really think the average person on the EA forum needs that explained?
hence why I wrote 1⁄20 (95-5). If you believe the chance is <1/100 you are 10x. Given the asymmetry of my/other users knowledge of your internal probability, I understand offering the best possible odds for yourself that you still think the other side would take, but it’s a bit of an icky norm to come on here and play poker when people might assume you would be happy to take a 2x-5x bet. More importantly the bet you offered proves nothing in my mind since anywhere between a 1-5% chance of the next election being rigged would still be really really bad and worth hyperventilating about.
If you want, read my comment to lark. I don’t think my resolution criteria are good. It’s rather that I don’t personally expect the next election to be rigged ( I would be on the same side of the 90⁄10 bet as you) but I do expect trump to continue to denigrate the checks and balances that we have in this country, whether it be official laws or unofficial norms, hence why I am trying to pose intermediate questions. I’ll try to improve the original questions though.
1⁄2 - just specify a specific crime that we think most presidents don’t commit and would obviously be worth prosecuting.
3 - really? You think this wouldn’t be a clear step towards autocracy?
4 - The general position of MAGA’s is that the 2020 election was stolen.
5- Admittedly a Pretty awful market, just ignore this one
Again I don’t think even these modified versions are good, but I think we can still do better.
These seem like poor things to bet on:
Trump will commit more than x crimes during his presidency.
This lacks an objective resolution criteria, and ‘number of crimes’ in the US is often a fairly random number because a single act can give rise to multiple violations. Also, committing crimes is very different from being an autocrat—you could be an autocrat and obey the law, and you can be a democrat and break the law.
Trumps secretaries will commit more than x crimes during his presidency
Similar issues.
Trump will attempt to run for a third term
Not as bad, but seems insufficient. Michael Bloomberg ran for a third term as NYC mayor, even though this required changing the rules just for him, but he was not an autocrat.
The winner of the republican primary in the next two presidential elections will be a MAGA
This is subjective, and also insufficient, as whatever ‘MAGA’ is, it is not the same as an autocrat.
In the next x years, a future president or (sufficiently) high up politician will not be convicted of any crimes conditional on their party controlling the justice department
This also seems insufficient to demonstrate autocracy—for example to my knowledge Obama was never convicted of any crimes when his party controlled the Justice Department, but he was not an autocrat.
I think the best thing to bet on is the probability of winning the next election. Unfortunately this doesn’t work nearly as well as it would have a few weeks ago, but I think think it is the best approach.
Completely agree—I think all of my markets are bad. However the direction I’m trying to move in by proposing these questions is to operationalize steps along the way towards autocracy. You could semi replicate this but saying ok well will one of the next 5 elections going to be rigged (if you believe you can operationalize this), but even if you could set up a futures market for it I don’t think you will get all that much market efficiency from it.
Betting on the prob of next election is going to paint a very incomplete picture. There is a world in which we are 99% the next election is not going to get rigged but acts during this admin would credibly increase the chance of future riggings by a lot. For instance lets assume trump himself as no interest in being an autocrat. Then he wouldn’t rig the election purposely right? And yet the fact that we now have a precedent that you won’t be prosecuted for essentially anything if you win the presidency surely changes the incentives of future politicians who are considering meddling.
This is literally my position. I think the next election is >90% to be “relatively fair”, but I also think trump is going to do a ton of stuff that paves the way for a future election to not be fair. Picture below to help explain thesis.
My problem with this is that it’s not falsifiable.
Read a history book?
edit: this was super rude but yea my point is there is lots of literature you can comb through to think about if my graph is accurate.
edit 2: What exactly are you saying is not falsifiable?