usa does it again....

[Zar]

we all know that the US government is made up of moronic chimpanzees, but this is utterly ridiculous:

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon (news - web sites) is setting up a stock-market style system in which investors would bet on terror attacks, assassinations and other events in the Middle East. Defense officials hope to gain intelligence and useful predictions while investors who guessed right would win profits.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...rror_market_10

oh dear!

Zar

[Mirai]

I'll put $50 on January 14th, 2031

[Tactitus]

I don't see that it's a big deal, tbh.

There are already future's markets where you can bet on droughts, wars, and sundry other disasters--natural and man-made--and their effects on the prices of various commodities.

A future's market on political developments might be interesting, in that it could give you some insight into what people think will happen. To the extent they know what will happen, that could be even more interesting.

Perhaps running a future's market is easier than calling them all up and asking them.

[cnaw]

Originally posted by Zar
we all know that the US government is made up of moronic chimpanzees, but this is utterly ridiculous:

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon (news - web sites) is setting up a stock-market style system in which investors would bet on terror attacks, assassinations and other events in the Middle East. Defense officials hope to gain intelligence and useful predictions while investors who guessed right would win profits.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...rror_market_10

oh dear!

Zar

i saw this via drudge. i was disapointed that i have to wait a few days to sign up. =/

http://www.policyanalysismarket.org/

[djbass]

I can just see al Qaeda buying huge stocks on future planned terrorist attacks.

=[DJ Bass]=

[acropolis]

Originally posted by djbass
I can just see al Qaeda buying huge stocks on future planned terrorist attacks.

=[DJ Bass]=

i think that's the idea

[Mushroom]

Originally posted by acropolis
i think that's the idea

The idea isn't that they'll actually pull them off.

[acropolis]

Originally posted by Mushroom
The idea isn't that they'll actually pull them off.

they won't be able to pull them off because the foolish ragheads will be unable to help themselves from tipping the US off to their evil plans.

As everyone knows, there is no one quite so overtaken by greed and a need to make a sound investment as a religious zealot who plans to kill himself soon.

[Woof]

america aint the number one country in the world for nothing you know!

Listen punk asses, anti-america thread are soooo last week. Can't you think of anything new?

Dumb lil ****er

[len!n]

anti-america threads will be in fashion as long as the US administration keeps ****ing up our world.

[Marilyn Manson]

Utterly tasteless. And If the Pentagon needs to resort to mass political fortune-telling as an intelligence source then something is seriously wrong. It is so retarded and beyond belief it probably needs an investigation into how such a suggestion came up.

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally posted by Tactitus
There are already future's markets where you can bet on droughts, wars, and sundry other disasters--natural and man-made--and their effects on the prices of various commodities.

But to have the state directly sponsoring a betting system on atrocities? Come on.

Originally posted by Tactitus
A future's market on political developments might be interesting, in that it could give you some insight into what people think will happen.

That's probably the only possible use this might have. In which case, it has no reason for exisiting - opinion polls can do the job.

Originally posted by Tactitus
To the extent they know what will happen, that could be even more interesting.

Nobody knows what's going to happen in poltiics - we can only make informed guesses about how things will pan out in the longer term. That's what so fundamentally pointless about the whole thing.

[acropolis]

Originally posted by Marilyn Manson
It is so retarded and beyond belief it probably needs an investigation into how such a suggestion came up.

'Poindexter'

Originally posted by Marilyn Manson
That's probably the only possible use this might have. In which case, it has no reason for exisiting - opinion polls can do the job.

Opinion polls suck. People don't know ****.

Originally posted by Marilyn Manson
Nobody knows what's going to happen in poltiics - we can only make informed guesses about how things will pan out in the longer term. That's what so fundamentally pointless about the whole thing.

Money knows a lot.

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally posted by acropolis
Opinion polls suck. People don't know ****.

This was Tactitus' point - it is sometimes useful to understand what people think, no matter how ridiculous those thoughts are on a rational level. Useful politically, anyhow.

As I said, only possible political/intelligence application. In which case, this scheme shouldn't exist, and they should use opinion polls.

Originally posted by acropolis
Money knows a lot.

?

[queball]

Originally posted by Marilyn Manson
This was Tactitus' point - it is sometimes useful to understand what people think, no matter how ridiculous those thoughts are on a rational level. Useful politically, anyhow.

As I said, only possible political/intelligence application. In which case, this scheme shouldn't exist, and they should use opinion polls.



?

They use a range of sources as shown in the image on the Future Map site.
They are taking legal and ethical concerns into account, the amount of money is not big enough to be an incentive. I think this is a nice effort.

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally posted by queball
They use a range of sources as shown in the image on the Future Map site.
They are taking legal and ethical concerns into account, the amount of money is not big enough to be an incentive. I think this is a nice effort.

Well, as long as they use a wide variety of sources, and it's scientific, then I don't object. The Yahoo report was perhaps a bit misleading.

I still find the idea of betting on atrrocities totally morally objectionable, no matter whether there is big money involved, or none at all.

[acropolis]

Originally posted by Marilyn Manson
This was Tactitus' point - it is sometimes useful to understand what people think, no matter how ridiculous those thoughts are on a rational level. Useful politically, anyhow.

As I said, only possible political/intelligence application. In which case, this scheme shouldn't exist, and they should use opinion polls.

?

They aren't doing this to find out anything an opinion poll could find out.

They are doing this to predict preventable catastrophes.

Are you saying it wouldn't work, or are you saying that you don't believe that's why they are doing it?

[Nusselt]

right, so basically because the CIAFBINSA couldnt prevent sept 11 they now go to the markets for help. The same markets that arent doing to well at the moment.

In fact the same markets that couldnt see Enron/wolrdcom et al werent being to honest. And if you saw that programme about that betting index in london during the course of the war, the man himself said there was no actual connection between the news events and the markets and no logical reason for on to affect the other. Its just that people got nervous when things were going bad.

What im trying to get at is how exactly are the markets going to predict when a group of 4 or 5 men or even say up to 20, who operate in a cell and dont tell others about their plan are going to kerplunk the president of america? unless the markets have their own intelligence agency, they're just relying on the media and the goverment for info. The media generally will report on the goverments view of things (ie orange alert).

So you have the goverment putting out orange alerts from what could be suspect intelligence (how many orange alerts to date? and no WMDs in iraq yet etc) -----------> media picks this up and reports it according to its own particular spin -------------> market looks at media ----------------> goverment looks at market

its like chinese whispers

[acropolis]

Originally posted by Nusselt
right, so basically because the CIAFBINSA couldnt prevent sept 11 they now go to the markets for help. The same markets that arent doing to well at the moment.

You are confusing things here. In the sense at hand, a market is doing well when it accurately predicts the future of the economy. In this sense, the stock market being down and the economy being **** means that the markets are, for the purposes of this project, doing well.

Originally posted by Nusselt
In fact the same markets that couldnt see Enron/wolrdcom et al werent being to honest. And if you saw that programme about that betting index in london during the course of the war, the man himself said there was no actual connection between the news events and the markets and no logical reason for on to affect the other. Its just that people got nervous when things were going bad.

Eh? The stock price of Enron began it's final descent a year before the public found out about the accounting scandals. If that isn't an excellent example of the markets predicting accurately, I don't know what could be.

The trick is simply filtering though. If you filtered properly, you could have read Enron perfectly clearly. (watching short sales, as well as major transactions. etc. if you discount small purchases and sales, there were only sales of enron in 2001)

[queball]

Originally posted by acropolis

Eh? The stock price of Enron began it's final descent a year before the public found out about the accounting scandals. If that isn't an excellent example of the markets predicting accurately, I don't know what could be.

Plus, the people involved in accounting fraud presumably think they won't get found out, whereas terrorists are aiming to get noticed.

"The market" isn't an entity that gets informed about things by other abstract entities - the point is that there exists private knowledge. A betting shop isn't a Delphi method or opinion poll. People bet proportionally to how sure they are. So if I see someone Irish buying large quantities of fertilizer I could put small bets on bombs or bomb threats occuring in the UK over the next week. Depending on how they set their odds I'm sure some people will find it attractive. It will make David Icke a rich man. Even if the twenty people in a cell were amazingly all perfectly loyal, would their families be? Or their doctors?

And if it doesn't work at all, so what?

[acropolis]

Originally posted by queball
People bet proportionally to how sure they are.

That's the sentence I was looking for. That and people that are 'sure' a lot when they shouldn't be will end up broke soon.

PS What is the Delphi method?

Does it involve an oracle by any chance?

Originally posted by Zar
we all know that the US government is made up of moronic chimpanzees

Listen up kid. These guys are far more educated than you will ever be.

[queball]

Originally posted by acropolis
That's the sentence I was looking for. That and people that are 'sure' a lot when they shouldn't be will end up broke soon.

PS What is the Delphi method?

Does it involve an oracle by any chance?

Several. Try Google.

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally posted by acropolis
They aren't doing this to find out anything an opinion poll could find out.

They are doing this to predict preventable catastrophes.

Are you saying it wouldn't work, or are you saying that you don't believe that's why they are doing it?

As long as they are doing it through a scientific method, then I have no objections, but this wasn't exactly what the yahoo item suggested, and unfortunately, I was suffering from a sufficently bad lapse in concentration to believe this.

Sorry.

The State-funded 'disaster gambling' is still awful, though.

[acropolis]

Originally posted by Toccata & Fugue
Furthermore there is the problem of crying fire in a cinema. The resulting panic could be more damging then the actual truth.

This is debatable, but certainly a valid argument.

Originally posted by Toccata & Fugue
It is well known the markets have a hurd mentality, thus you would find peaks and troths round about Yom Kippor and Ramadam and so forth.

The herd mentality so prevalent in stock markets would not exist in such a futures market as they are describing; in their futures market, as more people bought something its value would drop quickly, actively discouraging others from purchasing same.

Originally posted by Toccata & Fugue
Similarly if you bother to check the figures the worst terrorist group in the world are the Columbian government militia's followed closely by the Turkish Government again both open and well documented. Yet the US funds them and doesn't recognise them as terrorists, yet using George Bushes or anyones definition that's what they are.

Actually, the official US definition of terrorism specifically states that terrorists are sub-national, so by definition (of the US) any action by the Columbian government (or by the US) cannot be terroristic. Which is why Bush always refers to Iraq and Afghanistan as states 'sponsoring terrorism' instead of 'committing acts of terrorism'

Originally posted by Marilyn Manson
As long as they are doing it through a scientific method, then I have no objections, but this wasn't exactly what the yahoo item suggested, and unfortunately, I was suffering from a sufficently bad lapse in concentration to believe this.

Sorry.

The State-funded 'disaster gambling' is still awful, though.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'scientific' here.

But I find the "that's a despicable idea" argument valid as well.

[queball]

Originally posted by Marilyn Manson
The State-funded 'disaster gambling' is still awful, though.

Would State-provided home insurance be immoral, too?

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally posted by queball
Would State-provided home insurance be immoral, too?

No, because that's not seriously distasteful. Unless you're Nod or some weirdo.

Perhaps (a)moral was a bad turn of phrase.

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally posted by acropolis
I'm not sure what you mean by 'scientific' here.

I mean not some rag-tag business that has little in the way of guiding logical or rational principles and goals, and not something that has dubious purposes and more dubious methodology.

[acropolis]

It's kind of a moot point now.

But I can't wait to find out what Poindexter comes up with next.

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally posted by acropolis
It's kind of a moot point now.

You appear to have to be a 'member'.

You may as well just flush everything down the pan, now. This thread has ruined my day. People are starting to talk about economics now, and then Nod will come in and want to discuss Ayn Rand, and then Dante will come in, and we'll be discussing dialectical materialism and John Locke for the rest of our lives, and **** anyone who has an actual interest in 'proper' political reality, those people can just go home, whilst the intellectual life of GD is empoverished beyond repair, whilst Nod gets fat on cocoa beans, and rides the Thatcherite express to sloth and Gemorah, whilst von Hayek toots his toot. Well, I won't stand for it. I'm going to write to Henry Kissinger, and then he can come here and piss all over your principles and your philosophy, and attack Benin single-handedly. And he will win. What'll you do then, eh? How will you apply the works of Hegel and Spinoza to that then, you wild fools?!?

The moral is that in the end, Henry Kissinger and I win. And there is not a damn thing you can do about it.

[acropolis]

Originally posted by Marilyn Manson
You appear to have to be a 'member'.

You may as well just flush everything down the pan, now. This thread has ruined my day. People are starting to talk about economics now, and then Nod will come in and want to discuss Ayn Rand, and then Dante will come in, and we'll be discussing dialectical materialism and John Locke for the rest of our lives, and **** anyone who has an actual interest in 'proper' political reality, those people can just go home, whilst the intellectual life of GD is empoverished beyond repair, whilst Nod gets fat on cocoa beans, and rides the Thatcherite express to sloth and Gemorah, whilst von Hayek toots his toot. Well, I won't stand for it. I'm going to write to Henry Kissinger, and then he can come here and piss all over your principles and your philosophy, and attack Benin single-handedly. And he will win. What'll you do then, eh? How will you apply the works of Hegel and Spinoza to that then, you wild fools?!?

The moral is that in the end, Henry Kissinger and I win. And there is not a damn thing you can do about it.

Since when do I have "principles"?

And not only are your Kissinger wet dreams a long shot (I think he's nervous that he'll get nabbed by those crazy Dutchmen at the ICC) but Spinoza would definitely disapprove.

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally posted by acropolis
Since when do I have "principles"?

I was addressing it to you all, collectively.

And don't pretend you aren't turned on when Nod shakes his philosophical booty.

Originally posted by acropolis
And not only are your Kissinger wet dreams a long shot (I think he's nervous that he'll get nabbed by those crazy Dutchmen at the ICC)

You pretend in your false wisdom to know the mind of German-American machivalellians.

Such nonsense. When you achieve learned perfection, only then shall you see that Henry's motives are divinely inspired, and cannot be penetrated by simple 'human' vehicles of understanding. And he is not in the least bit tainted by being morally ambiguous in his policy making during office. Not at all. No corruption whatsoever. None.

Originally posted by acropolis
but Spinoza would definitely disapprove.

Lies. Heresy!

[Obliterate]

They've axed the plan now anyway

[Tactitus]

Originally posted by Obliterate
They've axed the plan now anyway

Bah; the Pentagon is overruled by the only entitty that's less qualified: the Congress.

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally posted by Tactitus
Bah; the Pentagon is overruled by the only entitty that's less qualified: the Congress.

Clearly, the decision should have been left to us.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally posted by Marilyn Manson
The moral is that in the end, Henry Kissinger and I win. And there is not a damn thing you can do about it.

Ah but don't you see? Then we will have already won.

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally posted by JonnyBGood
Ah but don't you see? Then we will have already won.

If Henry strikes you down, then you will not become more powerful than we could possibly imagine. You will be destroyed, and so will the rebel alliance.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally posted by Marilyn Manson
If Henry strikes you down, then you will not become more powerful than we could possibly imagine. You will be destroyed, and so will the rebel alliance.

Use the forks luke.

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally posted by Marilyn Manson
People are starting to talk about economics now, and then Nod will come in and want to discuss Ayn Rand, and then Dante will come in, and we'll be discussing dialectical materialism and John Locke for the rest of our lives, and **** anyone who has an actual interest in 'proper' political reality, those people can just go home, whilst the intellectual life of GD is empoverished beyond repair, whilst Nod gets fat on cocoa beans, and rides the Thatcherite express to sloth and Gemorah, whilst von Hayek toots his toot. Well, I won't stand for it. I'm going to write to Henry Kissinger, and then he can come here and piss all over your principles and your philosophy, and attack Benin single-handedly. And he will win. What'll you do then, eh? How will you apply the works of Hegel and Spinoza to that then, you wild fools?!?

The moral is that in the end, Henry Kissinger and I win. And there is not a damn thing you can do about it.

The more I think about it, the more sense it makes to include this as a clause in the forum rules.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally posted by acropolis
Actually, the official US definition of terrorism specifically states that terrorists are sub-national, so by definition (of the US) any action by the Columbian government (or by the US) cannot be terroristic.

Most of the terror problem in Colombia comes from the paramilitaries, not the military per se. Anyone with an ounce of knowledge of the region know they are almost one and the same, but that's beside the point. They are still a non-governmental force committing atrocities by deliberately targeting civilians. And their atrocities are way off the chart compared to say Basque, Irish or even Palestenian "terrorists".

Originally posted by Marilyn Manson
People are starting to talk about economics now, and then Nod will come in and want to discuss Ayn Rand, and then Dante will come in, and we'll be discussing dialectical materialism and John Locke for the rest of our lives,

Hi.

It's a mistake to see Henry Kissinger as some kind of machiavellian genius, since in his most of his writings he displays only a dim awareness of what's going on, let alone some grand strategy behind it all. But that's another issue.

My problem is not with practical politics, but with asuming the actors involved automatically have some great insight into politics generally. Similarly, I would listen to say, Vermillion on foriegn policy in WW2 more than I would listen to say some random veteran of WW2.

As well as this, the actual specific individuals who make up George Bush's cabinet is of no real interest to me. Sure, if someone amazingly different was appointed I might notice. But otherwise, why should it matter? If Rumsfeld stepped down tommorow (or better, was shot through the lungs) do we really believe that peace and justice would descend through the land?

[cnaw]

Originally posted by acropolis
It's kind of a moot point now.

But I can't wait to find out what Poindexter comes up with next.

this might help: http://www.majcher.com/nytview.html

[Zar]

Originally posted by BarbieKen
Listen up kid. These guys are far more educated than you will ever be.

these guys?

educated in what terms/manner/subject etc..?

and how can you be so sure? hmm hmm??

Zar

[Cmdr_Cyrax]

If I were Al queda I'd tip off an attack on some distant US state and then on the forecast date blow the ****ery out of somewhere else

Diversion is such a simple tactic...

[acropolis]

Originally posted by cnaw
this might help: http://www.majcher.com/nytview.html

ooh i forgot about that.

but it seems easier just to reg once on nyt because a) it's free and b) the cookies don't seem to expire.

but good point, i'll remember to cut and paste nyt's from now on.

Originally posted by Cmdr_Cyrax
If I were Al queda I'd tip off an attack on some distant US state and then on the forecast date blow the ****ery out of somewhere else

Diversion is such a simple tactic...

but then you'd lose all your money.

noting that every chain of command leads up to Bush, I really don't see the need for diversion.

[cnaw]

I can truly see an HSX style site set up by a private (or open ;-) ) individual to do the same thing now that PAM is dead. Think of it as an advanced dead pool.

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally posted by Dante Hicks
Hi.

It's a mistake to see Henry Kissinger as some kind of machiavellian genius, since in his most of his writings he displays only a dim awareness of what's going on, let alone some grand strategy behind it all. But that's another issue.

My problem is not with practical politics, but with asuming the actors involved automatically have some great insight into politics generally. Similarly, I would listen to say, Vermillion on foriegn policy in WW2 more than I would listen to say some random veteran of WW2.

As well as this, the actual specific individuals who make up George Bush's cabinet is of no real interest to me. Sure, if someone amazingly different was appointed I might notice. But otherwise, why should it matter? If Rumsfeld stepped down tommorow (or better, was shot through the lungs) do we really believe that peace and justice would descend through the land?

It wasn't really meant to be taken this seriously, heh. Sorry if I have inconvieninced you in any way. Please remain seated.

Tbh, I accept your point about individual actors not being important tin the oveall scheme to a point. You're obviously going to believe, in a typical Marxist way that the system is fundamentally imperialist/fascist/capitalist, and iredemeably so, so anyone who participates is not going to wish to effect any reform of said system, etc. Nod also has, and I'm not sure why, since he should be generally receptive to the present climate than even me, theoretically, a belief that the system is also similarly iredemable, or at least not worth his participation and comment on, for whatever reason.

However, I'm am not of such black and white world view, and sometime it gets irritating when there are few people in a similar position.

Oh, and Henry Kissinger is not a genuins, but he is certainly Machiavellian.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally posted by Marilyn Manson
Oh, and Henry Kissinger is not a genuins, but he is certainly Machiavellian.

Henry Kissinger, I'm missing ya, you're the doctor of my dreams?

[Lord Talon]

/conspiracy theory on

in reading through the replies, I did not notice anyone discussing another possibilty of the system - that it was being set up as a cover story and the real purpose was to track people who might be involved in terrorism as they tried to take monetary advantage of the system. since there would need to be some sort of trackable information in order to make a payout on the system, it is certainly plausible that this info would have been funneled to the appropriate agency to investigate


/conspiracy theory off