When explaining Manifold at EAG, I realized we now have the track record to show effectiveness and impact. This warrants prediction market zeal!

Effectiveness

• Really good calibration over 1.5 years
  • Even markets with few bettors are reasonably accurate
• Play money works — on par with real money
  • No gambling addiction problems either!
    • [i] 🙏
• User created questions work
  • Incorrect resolutions exceedingly rare
  • Market of markets — better criteria attract more traders

Impact

• Thousands of calibrated markets
• Important questions including lk-99, covid lab leak, elections, ai benchmarks

In short, we’ve discovered the holy grail. We have real, useful prediction markets, with a proven track record. We are in possession of a powerful new solution to crowd-sourced knowledge.

If it’s working among our few thousand users, imagine what can happen with more users and more markets on every topic. We can revolutionize science, governance, and technology.

It’s now our duty to let the world know! We should get fired up!

Zeal can be rational when it is warranted. Careful study of the evidence implies prediction market zeal is warranted.

Go forth and be a prediction market fanatic! Preach the good news: Something very important is happening at Manifold. Our prediction markets will save the world.

Strategy change

We should change our messaging to be all about how important and useful prediction markets are. We should be serious and fanatical. “Prediction markets will change everything.”

• Prediction market fanaticism is a fantastic marketing strategy
  • It will fire people up, make them more active, and get them to spread the site much, much more.
• TODO
  • Change copy on our home to align with new mission
  • Print t-shirts that say: “Prediction markets. They f***ing work!” and include calibration chart
  • Make our tweets include high-stakes language about our mission
  • Write a substack article on this

Article

The results are in, and the conclusion is stunning. Prediction markets are not just a niche tool of limited use. They are a general purpose knowledge generator, producing accurate forecasts across every field, from science to politics to popular culture.

Over the last year and eight months, Manifold has built a growing track record that shows our prediction markets accurately forecast the future. Moreover, those forecasts are important and actionable.