RE: Politicians attack idea futures

From: Damien Broderick (damienb@unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Tue Jul 29 2003 - 22:52:07 MDT

  • Next message: Emlyn O'regan: "RE: Senators Denounce Policy Analysis Markets"

    At 09:31 AM 7/30/03 +0930, Emlyn wrote:

    >I've run this idea by a sample of people working with me today, and they
    >were repulsed by it.

    Of course they were. It's the way it was presented.

    >It's depressing, because it seemed like an obviously
    >excellent idea to me when I first heard about it

    It sounded exactly like a variant on Delphi forecasting to me, with
    incentives and (I assume) cost deterrence against frivolous entries. Had it
    been sold that way, it might have been widely accepted:

    `Ten heads are better than one. Decades of studies show that the collective
    estimates or intuitions of a group of ordinary people with ordinary
    information from their lives are often more accurate than the assessments
    of experts. This surprising result forms the basis of the new Homeland
    Intuition program, where people will share and combine their understanding
    of the world and its risks (calls will attract a small charge).'

    Something along those lines. Ah well.

    Damien Broderick



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