I don't know much about Maduro specifically, but my model of dictators isn't necessarily that they're consciously evil or deliberately callous to the suffering of their people for their own personal benefit. Maybe a little bit, probably a lot more so than the nicest person you know, but not necessarily much more so than the average person.
Instead I think they practice a lot of bad epistemology and are totally delusional about what are the best policies to enact. Even as their policies bring down their nation, I think they delusionally find other stuff to blame, like America or "the Jews" or evil capitalists or communist saboteurs or what have you, varying by specific dictatorship. There are lots of examples of dictators taking actions that aren't only bad for their nation, but are bad for themselves and lead to the weakening of their regime.
That's part of why I really like the idea of futarchy, making people put money on the policies they support, so the people with the actual succesful policies make more money and have more influence in the future. Good intentions aren't enough, good epistemology is necessary too.
YES!! They like power sure, but the real failure is that they become unwilling to change their mind and policies in response to unfavorable evidence.
One way to see this is to observe the near complete lack of any mechanism in totalitarian states for the leader to ensure they get accurate reports. I mean, if I was a dictator I'd have a special department whose job was to report on both the views of the populace (surveys) and ensure that I was being given accurate information. And I'd make sure that decieving me about the true state of affairs was the most severely punished crime. But that kind of thing never happens.
Unfortunately, futurachy doesn't do as much to help with this as you might think. The whole system depends on an impartial and correct evaluation of outcomes which is the very thing that is at risk.
Not to mention, that there are significant problems tying the system to actual actions. The theory is great when the prices in the prediction market don't have an effect on what happens and resolution doesn't impact the events. But once those happen, you get issues. For instance, big banks will have an incentive to take big positions on a prediction they won't go bankrupt at a certain datw (if they do the execs don't get bonuses anyway) and now movement in that prediction market itself influences the likelihood of the outcome it is trying to predict and it's unclear how this works out.
I like prediction markets alot but I don't think you can tie them directly to action in a good way.
>Not to mention, that there are significant problems tying the system to actual actions. The theory is great when the prices in the prediction market don't have an effect on what happens and resolution doesn't impact the events. But once those happen, you get issues. For instance, big banks will have an incentive to take big positions on a prediction they won't go bankrupt at a certain datw (if they do the execs don't get bonuses anyway) and now movement in that prediction market itself influences the likelihood of the outcome it is trying to predict and it's unclear how this works out.
The specific way I'd want it implemented is that we make prediction markets extremely prestigious, but maybe not even put much real money in them. And we'd evaluate things on a case by case bases, and have our government listen to people who get things right in the most impressive cases.
So someone who correctly predicts the economy will expand/contract 2 years out from a certain policy being followed- you listen to that person in the future. The guy who gets it dead wrong- you ignore that guy and kill his career as a pundit.
It's not just whoever has the highest income from prediction markets. Like you said, markets can be rigged, they can resolve in ways that fulfill their letter but not their spirit, someone could earn a ton of money if they do fast trades after the truth comes out but before the market gets resolved.
So prediction markets should be used as a tool to find the best people to listen to, not as an arbiter of truth themselves all the time.
My worry isn't rigging them. There are decent responses to that -- though I disagree with the suggestion you don't want them highly capitalized (see below).
The problem is that once everyone is using the prediction markets their current prediction affects the outcome. So they may succeed in predicting the outcome but it may not be a good one.
For instance, consider predictions about whether we will enter a recession or that NGDP rises. Issue is that whether that happens depends highly on expectations which in turn depend on the prediction market. Sure, the market may correctly predict the outcome but it also causes the outcome which creates pressure for the system to choose self- consistent solutions which may not always be desierable.
--
The problem with not putting much money in them is that prestige is no longer guaranteed to be optimized when you optimize expected value of monetary rewards. The proposal to "kill the career" of experts who get it wrong. That will lead to them not wanting to purchase the undervalued but unlikely outcomes. You can try to fix that but once the money isn't the object you get all the problems of current illiquid prediction markets.
How much contemporary info do we have on Maduro or Chavez before they became leaders? Chavez a lot, I assume. Would you be able to create a list of traits/statements that, using only pre-leadership info, identify a high % they’d be bad leaders? And one that, when applied to other politicians (either from Venezuela or elsewhere) had a high % of excluding those that we know ended up not being tyrants? And how to disentangle that from local institutions/laws/restraints? It’s easy to imagine a country with more robust protections against authoritarianism that, even having elected a Chavez, would have heavily limited his bad results.
Suppose - just suppose - that Joe Biden was funding some other country (say, in the Middle East), that was involved in mass murder of civilians, perhaps verging on genocide. Suppose that Biden was doing this for political reasons, perhaps because he thought it might help him stay in power.
Would that this article says about Maduro - that he's a pervert for power - be true of Biden?
Just once in my lifetime, I would like to be able to enthusiastically cast a ballot for a candidate who runs with one campaign promise and one promise only:
I will faithfully carry out the duties and responsibilities as described and limited by the Constitution.
No other promise of "fixing" this thing or that thing. No other promise of "helping" this subsection of the population or that subsection. No promise of "working across the aisle" to achieve this or that social engineering project.
The framers of the constitution were not perfect- but that is actually the beauty of the document. These deeply flawed persons were well positioned to understand the pitfalls and trappings of power.
A child's approach to the world. There are monsters lurking everywhere and our task is to identify them so our heroes and protectors can come to our rescue. Good luck with that. How about we adults reform our political systems to prevent monsters from taking control in the first place? What would THAT project look like?
I don't know much about Maduro specifically, but my model of dictators isn't necessarily that they're consciously evil or deliberately callous to the suffering of their people for their own personal benefit. Maybe a little bit, probably a lot more so than the nicest person you know, but not necessarily much more so than the average person.
Instead I think they practice a lot of bad epistemology and are totally delusional about what are the best policies to enact. Even as their policies bring down their nation, I think they delusionally find other stuff to blame, like America or "the Jews" or evil capitalists or communist saboteurs or what have you, varying by specific dictatorship. There are lots of examples of dictators taking actions that aren't only bad for their nation, but are bad for themselves and lead to the weakening of their regime.
That's part of why I really like the idea of futarchy, making people put money on the policies they support, so the people with the actual succesful policies make more money and have more influence in the future. Good intentions aren't enough, good epistemology is necessary too.
YES!! They like power sure, but the real failure is that they become unwilling to change their mind and policies in response to unfavorable evidence.
One way to see this is to observe the near complete lack of any mechanism in totalitarian states for the leader to ensure they get accurate reports. I mean, if I was a dictator I'd have a special department whose job was to report on both the views of the populace (surveys) and ensure that I was being given accurate information. And I'd make sure that decieving me about the true state of affairs was the most severely punished crime. But that kind of thing never happens.
Unfortunately, futurachy doesn't do as much to help with this as you might think. The whole system depends on an impartial and correct evaluation of outcomes which is the very thing that is at risk.
Not to mention, that there are significant problems tying the system to actual actions. The theory is great when the prices in the prediction market don't have an effect on what happens and resolution doesn't impact the events. But once those happen, you get issues. For instance, big banks will have an incentive to take big positions on a prediction they won't go bankrupt at a certain datw (if they do the execs don't get bonuses anyway) and now movement in that prediction market itself influences the likelihood of the outcome it is trying to predict and it's unclear how this works out.
I like prediction markets alot but I don't think you can tie them directly to action in a good way.
>Not to mention, that there are significant problems tying the system to actual actions. The theory is great when the prices in the prediction market don't have an effect on what happens and resolution doesn't impact the events. But once those happen, you get issues. For instance, big banks will have an incentive to take big positions on a prediction they won't go bankrupt at a certain datw (if they do the execs don't get bonuses anyway) and now movement in that prediction market itself influences the likelihood of the outcome it is trying to predict and it's unclear how this works out.
The specific way I'd want it implemented is that we make prediction markets extremely prestigious, but maybe not even put much real money in them. And we'd evaluate things on a case by case bases, and have our government listen to people who get things right in the most impressive cases.
So someone who correctly predicts the economy will expand/contract 2 years out from a certain policy being followed- you listen to that person in the future. The guy who gets it dead wrong- you ignore that guy and kill his career as a pundit.
It's not just whoever has the highest income from prediction markets. Like you said, markets can be rigged, they can resolve in ways that fulfill their letter but not their spirit, someone could earn a ton of money if they do fast trades after the truth comes out but before the market gets resolved.
So prediction markets should be used as a tool to find the best people to listen to, not as an arbiter of truth themselves all the time.
My worry isn't rigging them. There are decent responses to that -- though I disagree with the suggestion you don't want them highly capitalized (see below).
The problem is that once everyone is using the prediction markets their current prediction affects the outcome. So they may succeed in predicting the outcome but it may not be a good one.
For instance, consider predictions about whether we will enter a recession or that NGDP rises. Issue is that whether that happens depends highly on expectations which in turn depend on the prediction market. Sure, the market may correctly predict the outcome but it also causes the outcome which creates pressure for the system to choose self- consistent solutions which may not always be desierable.
--
The problem with not putting much money in them is that prestige is no longer guaranteed to be optimized when you optimize expected value of monetary rewards. The proposal to "kill the career" of experts who get it wrong. That will lead to them not wanting to purchase the undervalued but unlikely outcomes. You can try to fix that but once the money isn't the object you get all the problems of current illiquid prediction markets.
How much contemporary info do we have on Maduro or Chavez before they became leaders? Chavez a lot, I assume. Would you be able to create a list of traits/statements that, using only pre-leadership info, identify a high % they’d be bad leaders? And one that, when applied to other politicians (either from Venezuela or elsewhere) had a high % of excluding those that we know ended up not being tyrants? And how to disentangle that from local institutions/laws/restraints? It’s easy to imagine a country with more robust protections against authoritarianism that, even having elected a Chavez, would have heavily limited his bad results.
Suppose - just suppose - that Joe Biden was funding some other country (say, in the Middle East), that was involved in mass murder of civilians, perhaps verging on genocide. Suppose that Biden was doing this for political reasons, perhaps because he thought it might help him stay in power.
Would that this article says about Maduro - that he's a pervert for power - be true of Biden?
Yes - and without this perversion, he surely would LOSE power. Only perverts can become - and stay - powerful. Just as Caplan says.
"Politicians would compete for popularity by promising and doing things that power-lusters hate to do."
they usually do do the former, rarely the latter - including Maduro - that' the problem
Cool. Now do Justin Trudeau.
Just once in my lifetime, I would like to be able to enthusiastically cast a ballot for a candidate who runs with one campaign promise and one promise only:
I will faithfully carry out the duties and responsibilities as described and limited by the Constitution.
No other promise of "fixing" this thing or that thing. No other promise of "helping" this subsection of the population or that subsection. No promise of "working across the aisle" to achieve this or that social engineering project.
The framers of the constitution were not perfect- but that is actually the beauty of the document. These deeply flawed persons were well positioned to understand the pitfalls and trappings of power.
A child's approach to the world. There are monsters lurking everywhere and our task is to identify them so our heroes and protectors can come to our rescue. Good luck with that. How about we adults reform our political systems to prevent monsters from taking control in the first place? What would THAT project look like?
Disempower GOVERNMENT. THAT's what that project would look like.
I know - I'm not much help.
Socialists will always default to evil. It was inevitable.