From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Aug 05 2003 - 13:42:16 MDT
My local newspaper printed an editorial disparaging to the PAM, though
it blamed Poindexter as the architect of it, innacurate as that is.
Here is a letter to the editor I just sent off to them:
To the Editor,
I happen to know Robin Hanson personally. He is the fellow, an
assistant prof at George Mason University, who came up with the whole
idea behind the Pentagon's Policy Analysis Market, which you so snidely
call the "Terror Futures Market". I also happen to have read quite a
few of his scholarly papers, so I believe I am far more informed than
you are to render judgement on the PAM as a means of predicting future
terrorist events.
It turns out that markets are far better at predicting future events
than intelligence services that governments run. Why? Because a market
turns every participant in it into an informer to the rest of the
market on what they know that may impact the market. This is a far
better intelligence gathering network than any government could ever
afford on its own.
Many liberal politicians that you editors admire think that the PAM is
"morbid", "sick", even "evil", simply because it tries to reward people
for correctly predicting future events. Like some modern day Cassandra
(and I'll note that she wasn't popular in her day either), the PAM
would accurately predict events far better because it essentially
bribes terrorists, their associates, family members, and neighbors into
becoming informants to the rest of the world on their activities.
What I would like to know is, are investors in the PAM any LESS morbid
than you buying life insurance on your spouse's life? At least with the
PAM, only an attempt need be made for investors to win. Nobody HAS to
die. The PAM is intended to help prevent terrorist attacks.
For you to collect on your wive's insurance, she has to die. In this
respect, I'd say that you are far more morbid to buy life insurance on
a family member than to invest in the PAM. I think you owe an apology somewhere...
=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
- Gen. John Stark
Blog: Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com
Flight sims: http://www.x-plane.org/users/greendragon/
Pro-tech freedom discussion:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exi-freedom
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