PPX: The PopSci Prediction Exchange

TychoCelchuuu

<div class="IPBDescription">Gambling + Science = What Could Go Wrong?</div>Perhaps some of you are familiar with the wisdom of crowds or whatever the technical term is. It's what's behind the stock market and stuff like that (and for some reason it's different than whatever makes people idiots when they're in big groups). What it boils down to is that large groups of people are better at making predictions than one person, even if that one person has a PHD or is <i>really smart</i> or, as is rather unlikely, both.

Enter <a href="http://ppx.popsci.com/" target="_blank">The PPX</a>. That stands for "The PopSci Prediction Exchange" and "PopSci" stands for "Popular Science" which stands for about 5 bucks in newstands across the United States.

The PPX is like a giant stock market, but instead of betting on companies you bet on ideas, and instead of spending money you use magic money, which the science-men tell us still gives accurate predictions. Say, for example, that you think George Bush is a Grade A idiot and has tasked NASA to spend billions of dollars on something that won't work (going to Mars or whatever). Well, what you do is, you buy a lot of shares of "NASA is not going to make it to Mars by 20XX." That example's a little bad because most of them are affirmatives (in this case you short* the share "Nasa Totally Makes it There") but you get the idea.

My account's "TychoCelchuuu" but I haven't started any trading yet. I'm still scoping the place out. I'm ranked 5090th which isn't too bad considering I haven't spent a cent.

So in a nutshell it's fun if you like science. Haven't you always wanted to get more involved in whether or not robots will control the future than the occasional "I bet robots will control the future?" Now you can finally bet play money online about it! Go to it.

*Short's a stock thing. The tutorial at the website once you sign up explains it.

Swiftspear

This works for the stock market because corporate companies are legally required to report their financial results and product lines accurately, and the stock markets are entirely controlled by majority opinion. Basically, because the stock market is controlled by mass human popular opinion, the most accurate way to predict it is to measure mass human popular opinion.

Applied to virtually anything else it falls apart for several reasons: Perspective is irrelevant to science/reality, News organizations are protected by "freedom of speech" they aren't obligated to produce non biased or accurate story content, Likewise scientific journalists aren't required to report fact they report theory. Simply put, whenever you ask a question who's result is governed by human opinion, for example "will the Iphone succeed in the market?", a human must either choose to like or dislike the Iphone based on the information they have available to them, and that information will also be available to everyone else. Different people will choose a stance for various reasons, some of those reasons are legitimate, and some are stupid, but the thing is, we're not trying to determine if the Iphone is acctually a good phone, we're just trying to determine if it will sell well, and that factor is determined by how many people choose to buy it. Even if it's the worst phone on earth, if most people decide they want one it will sell well. Therefore there is literally no way even the smartest guy on earth can predict the sale potential of the product based on all the information available anywhere nearly as accurately as a random poll can. The smart guy will over weigh certain research factors such as product quality and marketing campaign effectiveness and he therefore can't possibly predict as accurately as a bunch of people basically just telling you weather they like the product or not.

You really wanna go for a mind trip? Do some research on question phrasing. I bet I can produce a whole bunch of "ideas" on that site that skyrocket and directly contradict opposing views simply by wording things in a suave way.

On topic: Why do they phrase the "stock" titles as a question when I don't have the ability to make a yes/no answer? If I buy the stock am I voting for yes or no?

Redford

This concept, though not deeply understood until recently, was still used extensively. The reason horse and dog betting tracks make money is that the odds directly relate to the number of people who have bet on that horse or dog. This means that an animal with a low payout has actually been selected by a large majority of people to be a winner. This is why you seldom win on a long shot - the collective logic of the entire stadium is going against you.

Omegaman

*head asplode*