[J] What problems do our prediction markets solve?

• Problem 1: Doing good journalism

  https://twitter.com/NathanpmYoung/status/1478693525130731520

• Problem 2: Making better personal decisions

  • E.g. Should I try a keto diet?

• Problem 3: Resolving ideological questions with a bottom-up mechanism for truth

  • Helps people refine their worldview.
    • E.g. Is climate change important? Is capitalism evil? Is one political candidate better than another?
    • Not directly relevant to yourself, but then again, what you think about these big questions can be important to your life in how you talk to others and how you set your goals.
  • It sounds like fluff, but that’s because it often is everywhere else. However, prediction markets can actually make progress on these questions!

• Problem 4: Having fun

  • Many people enjoy competitive games
  • This can overlap with other use-cases
  • You are learning as you see probabilities update. Improving your model of the world is actually one of the reasons it’s fun. In contrast to, say, a play-money casino site.

We can create user stories based on these identified problems!

A background point: We solve all these problems because the prediction market mechanism is sound.

• A competitive marketplace with scarce points will lead to accurate forecasts!
• The incentives are right with prediction markets in a way that’s not true for nearly every other kind of public information: articles, blogs, tweets, polls – and maybe even scientific research!

Conclusion: Prediction markets are unique, important, and if they are easy enough to use and share, they are useful for a broad range of applications, including, at the highest level, shaping our perspective, reorienting our goals, and building a better world.

Sinclair James 1:1