All of your examples seem much better than the index case I am arguing against. Commonsense morality attaches much less distaste to cases where those âin perilâ are not crisply identified (e.g. âhow many will die in some pandemic in the futureâ is better than âhow many will die in this particular outbreakâ, which is better than âwill Alice, currently ill, live or die?â). It should also find bets on historical events are (essentially) fine, as whatever good or ill implicit in these has already occurred.
Of course, I agree they your examples would be construed as to some degree morbid. But my recommendation wasnât ârefrain from betting in any question where we we can show the topic is to some degree morbidâ (after all, betting on GDP of a given country could be construed this way, given its large downstream impacts on welfare). It was to refrain in those cases where it appears very distasteful and for which thereâs no sufficient justification. As it seems Iâm not expressing this balancing consideration well, Iâll belabour it.
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Say, God forbid, one of my friendâs children has a life-limiting disease. On its face, it seems tasteless for me to compose predictions at all on questions like, âwill they still be alive by Christmas?â Carefully scrutinising whether they will live or die seems to run counter to the service I should be providing as a supporter of my friends family and someone with the childâs best interests at heart. It goes without saying opening a book on a question like this seems deplorable, and offering (and confirming bets) where I take the pessimistic side despicable.
Yet other people do have good reason for trying to compose an accurate prediction on survival or prognosis. The childâs doctor may find themselves in the invidious position where they recognise they their duty to give my friendâs family the best estimate they can runs at cross purposes to other moral imperatives that apply too. The commonsense/âvirtue-ethicsy hope would be the doctor can strike the balance best satisfies these cross-purposes, thus otherwise callous thoughts and deeds are justified by their connection to providing important information to the family
Yet any incremental information benefit isnât enough to justify anything of any degree of distastefulness. If the doctor opened a prediction market on a local childrenâs hospice, I think (even if they were solely and sincerely motivated for good purposes, such as to provide families with in-expectation better prognostication now and the future) they have gravely missed the mark.
Of the options available, âbringing moneyâ into it generally looks more ghoulish the closer the connection is between âsomething horrible happeningâ and âpayday!â. A mere prediction platform is better (although still probably the wrong side of the line unless we have specific evidence it will give a large benefit), also paying people to make predictions on said platform (but paying for activity and aggregate accuracy rather than direct âbet resultsâ) is also slightly better. âThis familyâs loss (of their child) will be my gain (of some money)â is the sort of grotesque counterfactual good people would strenuously avoid being party to save exceptionally good reason.
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To repeat: the it is the balance of these factorsâwhich come in degreesâwhich is determines the final evaluation. So, for example, Iâm not against people forecasting the ânCoVâ question (indeed, I do as well), but the addition of money takes it the wrong side of the line (notwithstanding the money being ridden on this for laudable motivation). Likewise Iâm happy to for people to prop bet on some of your questions pretty freely, but not for the ânCoVâ (or some even more extreme versions) because the question is somewhat less ghoulish, etc. etc. etc.
I confess some irritation. Because I think whilst you and Oli are pressing arguments (sorryâânoticing confusionâ) re. there not being a crisp quality that obtains to the objectionable ones yet not the less objectionable ones (e.g. âYou say this question is âmorbidâ - but look here! here are some other questions which are qualitatively morbid too, and we shouldnât rule them all outâ) you are in fact committed to some sort of balancing account.
I presume (hopefully?) you donât think âchild hospice sweepstakesâ would be a good idea for someone to try (even if it may improve our calibration! and it would give useful information re. paediatric prognosticiation which could be of value to the wider world! and capitalism is built on accurate price signals! etc. etc.) As youâre not biting the bullet on these reductios (nor bmgâs, nor others) you implicitly accept all the considerations about why betting is a good thing are pro tanto and can be overcome at some extreme limit of ghoulishness etc.
How to weigh these considerations is up for grabs. Yet picking each individual feature of ghoulishness in turnand showing it, alone, is not enough to warrant refraining from highly ghoulish bets (where the true case against would be composed of other factors alongside the one being shown to be individually insufficient) seems an exercise in the fallacy of division.
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I also note that all the (few) prop bets I recall in EA up until now (including one I made with you) werenât morbid. Which suggests you wouldnât appreciably reduce the track record of prop bets which show (as Oli sees it) admirable EA virtues of skin in the game.
All of your examples seem much better than the index case I am arguing against. Commonsense morality attaches much less distaste to cases where those âin perilâ are not crisply identified (e.g. âhow many will die in some pandemic in the futureâ is better than âhow many will die in this particular outbreakâ, which is better than âwill Alice, currently ill, live or die?â). It should also find bets on historical events are (essentially) fine, as whatever good or ill implicit in these has already occurred.
Of course, I agree they your examples would be construed as to some degree morbid. But my recommendation wasnât ârefrain from betting in any question where we we can show the topic is to some degree morbidâ (after all, betting on GDP of a given country could be construed this way, given its large downstream impacts on welfare). It was to refrain in those cases where it appears very distasteful and for which thereâs no sufficient justification. As it seems Iâm not expressing this balancing consideration well, Iâll belabour it.
#
Say, God forbid, one of my friendâs children has a life-limiting disease. On its face, it seems tasteless for me to compose predictions at all on questions like, âwill they still be alive by Christmas?â Carefully scrutinising whether they will live or die seems to run counter to the service I should be providing as a supporter of my friends family and someone with the childâs best interests at heart. It goes without saying opening a book on a question like this seems deplorable, and offering (and confirming bets) where I take the pessimistic side despicable.
Yet other people do have good reason for trying to compose an accurate prediction on survival or prognosis. The childâs doctor may find themselves in the invidious position where they recognise they their duty to give my friendâs family the best estimate they can runs at cross purposes to other moral imperatives that apply too. The commonsense/âvirtue-ethicsy hope would be the doctor can strike the balance best satisfies these cross-purposes, thus otherwise callous thoughts and deeds are justified by their connection to providing important information to the family
Yet any incremental information benefit isnât enough to justify anything of any degree of distastefulness. If the doctor opened a prediction market on a local childrenâs hospice, I think (even if they were solely and sincerely motivated for good purposes, such as to provide families with in-expectation better prognostication now and the future) they have gravely missed the mark.
Of the options available, âbringing moneyâ into it generally looks more ghoulish the closer the connection is between âsomething horrible happeningâ and âpayday!â. A mere prediction platform is better (although still probably the wrong side of the line unless we have specific evidence it will give a large benefit), also paying people to make predictions on said platform (but paying for activity and aggregate accuracy rather than direct âbet resultsâ) is also slightly better. âThis familyâs loss (of their child) will be my gain (of some money)â is the sort of grotesque counterfactual good people would strenuously avoid being party to save exceptionally good reason.
#
To repeat: the it is the balance of these factorsâwhich come in degreesâwhich is determines the final evaluation. So, for example, Iâm not against people forecasting the ânCoVâ question (indeed, I do as well), but the addition of money takes it the wrong side of the line (notwithstanding the money being ridden on this for laudable motivation). Likewise Iâm happy to for people to prop bet on some of your questions pretty freely, but not for the ânCoVâ (or some even more extreme versions) because the question is somewhat less ghoulish, etc. etc. etc.
I confess some irritation. Because I think whilst you and Oli are pressing arguments (sorryâânoticing confusionâ) re. there not being a crisp quality that obtains to the objectionable ones yet not the less objectionable ones (e.g. âYou say this question is âmorbidâ - but look here! here are some other questions which are qualitatively morbid too, and we shouldnât rule them all outâ) you are in fact committed to some sort of balancing account.
I presume (hopefully?) you donât think âchild hospice sweepstakesâ would be a good idea for someone to try (even if it may improve our calibration! and it would give useful information re. paediatric prognosticiation which could be of value to the wider world! and capitalism is built on accurate price signals! etc. etc.) As youâre not biting the bullet on these reductios (nor bmgâs, nor others) you implicitly accept all the considerations about why betting is a good thing are pro tanto and can be overcome at some extreme limit of ghoulishness etc.
How to weigh these considerations is up for grabs. Yet picking each individual feature of ghoulishness in turn and showing it, alone, is not enough to warrant refraining from highly ghoulish bets (where the true case against would be composed of other factors alongside the one being shown to be individually insufficient) seems an exercise in the fallacy of division.
#
I also note that all the (few) prop bets I recall in EA up until now (including one I made with you) werenât morbid. Which suggests you wouldnât appreciably reduce the track record of prop bets which show (as Oli sees it) admirable EA virtues of skin in the game.
Iâm tapping out of this discussion. I disagree with much of the above, but I cannot respond to it properly for now.