I’ve read every thing you’ve posted in this thread, and I’ve not seen an argument for why framing a conversation about a serious topic in terms of a contest trivializes that topic. I’ve seen you assert it several times, but I don’t see anything approach an argument.
Well, maybe this:
But that’s just another assertion that it’s trivializing. The elaboration that your objection to framing the discussion as a contest has something to do with “winners and losers” is more confusing than illuminating, because the very important thing under discussion is an election, which is explicitly a contest with winners and losers. Can you clarify how a life-or-death contest, with winners and losers, is somehow trivialized by framing the discussion as a contest with winners and losers? That’s the part of your argument that’s crucially missing.
As far as your analogies: I would have many problems with people holding betting pools about my life in the manner you suggested. Principal among them would be invasion of my privacy. They would be taking details that should, to them, be unimportant, and making a big deal out of them. Which is, fundamentally, the opposite of trivializing something.
This is the problem with all the analogies you posted in this thread. They’re all objectionable on multiple axis, and none of those objections are, “This trivializes the issue.” The problem with betting on the abused child is that you know there’s an abused child next door, and you’re not helping. The problem with betting on whether your neighbor gets raped is the implied judgement of her lifestyle, and that her sex life isn’t any of your business in the first place. You chose a bunch of examples that are obviously inappropriate for numerous reasons, and when nobody defended them, you decided that validated your one specific complaint.
I’d make an even stronger case: that good-faith public wagering on matters of import is a social good.
As Economist Tyler Cowen argues: “A bet is a tax on bullshit; and it is a just tax, tribute paid by the bullshitters to those with genuine knowledge.”
We are awash in bullshit takes on politics, and at least part of it is that there’s no expectation that we will retroactively judge political predictions on objective measures. But we should! We should laud (and monetarily reward) those who are able to make correct predictions about political outcomes, because correct predictions about political outcomes are useful information.
We should try to predict political outcomes accurately exactly because they are life or death for some people. Betting on things produces useful information about likely results in advance of those results, and knowing that likelihood is useful for people who stand to suffer the most if things don’t go their way.
Are women who are or might become pregnant better or worse off if they have access to a betting market that shows them the likelihood that their state (or country) might illegalize their access to abortion in the near future? Are trans people better or worse off if they have access to a betting market that shows that they might soon have access to more or less civil rights in the future? I would argue that they are better off. They might have more time to make plans to move, for one.
Now: this board’s management has decided that actually betting on things is not consistent with good debate. My understanding is that they think that poorer posters or those who are morally opposed to betting will get pushed around or devalued because they aren’t able or willing to “put their money where their mouth is”. But I think they’re wrong about that. People should make concrete predictions and we should keep a record of when they were right.
ok im sitting at my local pub and they have the tv on and the "coming up at 11 news blip is " local woman stabs husband " and I or someone else says "5 to 1 says the defense is he either cheated or hit her "
No one bets anything it doesn’t change anything but maybe causes a discussion …
I don’t think that in most circumstances betting is a useful tool to combat bullshit. I’ve had little luck even getting bullshitters to make concrete predictions here, which would be a prerequisite for betting.
And just as often it works the other way around: the bullshitter, when called on it, will try to reinterpret the conversion to a narrow, concrete prediction which is either irrelevant or a small subset of what was actually being debated. With the implication that if the other person won’t bet on that incorrect yet concrete prediction, that they don’t have confidence in their entire argument.
In addition there is the trust factor: that they might simply not pay due to the anonymity of the board.
There would be a very small number of circumstances in which a bet would indeed be fruitful at verifying someone’s confidence: when they are simultaneously a trusted name on the board yet proactively come out with an outrageous yet concrete prediction. So you know that they would pay and that they aren’t going to try to reframe the argument to give themselves an advantage.
Prior to the rule that you couldn’t bet, there were plenty of posters who made personal bets and paid them off, and probably some who made them and didn’t pay, and plenty who didn’t. It seemed to work fine to me, although it could be that the middle category was enough of a hassle that they didn’t want to deal with it.
I don’t think the problem of a bullshitter weaseling out of bets is that bad a problem. Someone who refuses to make an actual concrete prediction with a probability attached can be pretty easily be dismissed as a bullshitter. Someone who refuses to pay will pretty quickly find themselves ignored. And these are generally small enough stakes that it’s more about the pride and the scorekeeping than the money.
That said: a “competition” in which no explicit bets are made but where better predictors get to count it as a win in internet points or clout also serves many of the same goals, just less accurately.
Plenty of newsletter writers I read regularly make concrete predictions with probabilities attached, then go back later and evaluate their record. They of course have some incentives to fudge in their favor, but they also have incentives to be honest because they’re doing it in the open and they stake the value of their future predictions on their record.
Also, in the context of “who will control the Senate”, which was the thread used in this example: there’s not a lot of weasel room. Either someone will win an election or they won’t. It’s not that hard to count to 50, so we can all verify who was right and who wasn’t. There are many other topics like this where it is not difficult to distinguish bullshit from actual predictions, nor to verify which predictions came true. The value of betting outside those topics is more limited. But that’s ok. It’s still quite useful.
Whatever is to happen has already happened, so it’s not analogous to the examples I’ve given.
It’s more akin to an offhand remark. If the guy actually set up an organized competition with defined winners and losers, then I would think much less of him.
Yeah, pretty much everything I’ve said has been a lot more specific than that. Just my OP by itself refutes this remark.
But it’s not a game. It is often spoken of in terms of a game, but it is not actually a game. The significant distinction is that an actual game or sport implies no serious consequence to those who aren’t direct participants.
And an election might have winners and losers, literally. However, the trivialization comes in when you define winners and losers of a game or sport that is appended to the election.
Those are problems, but they are beside the problem of your creating a sport based on it. Even if you did intervene (to the extent that you could), it would still reflect badly on you if you also made a sport out of predicting the outcome. The problem with that is clearly distinct from the problems you identified.
Everyone who is eligible to vote in an election is a direct participant. There aren’t a lot of people affected by a vote who aren’t direct participants. I suppose there are people ineligible to vote who might be affected, but that’s going to be a relatively small minority. Children, non-citizen residents, possibly felons.
But let me ask, then. Is the election of the mayor of LA a game to people who don’t live in the area? The outcome of that election has no serious consequence to them. Would you take offense at them treating it as a game?
Why not? If it gets people to analyze and talk about complex situations because they want their analysis of what’s going to happen to be perceived as correct or superior what’s the harm? You got to lighten up a bit.
The population of the United States is about 330 million. The number of eligible voters is about 150 million. So, the “relatively small minority” is more than half the population.
The population of total people potentially affected seriously by the outcome of a U.S. election is … pretty much everybody.
That’s the number of people who actually voted in the 2020 national elections. 154.6 million to be exact. About 74% of the US population is of voting age (18+). People who are eligible to vote but don’t are making the choice not to.
I think you should reflect on why you are literally the only person that is bothered by all of this.
You have no basis to conclude this. Even in this thread, there are posts that at least partially see my point of view. And even had they not done so, it would be silly of me or anyone else to conclude that literally no one else as matter of empirical certainty are not bothered. The participants in this thread are self-selected after all.
If no one cares at all about the point I’m making, no one would have replied here. And the posts that are showing some degree of anger or vitriol … well, let me say it makes me think I might have touched a nerve. My own comments in this thread have been relatively mild. By themselves they wouldn’t justify angry reactions.
But I am allowed to comment on it. And give my opinion. You didn’t have to participate in this thread. So it was your choice to enter and your choice whether to leave.
Well, primarily I just wanted to have a conversation about the topic.
I actually do want to understand why. But when you give me your reason why, I’m not going to just write it down and forget about it. I’m going to weigh it and I’m going to tell you my thoughts about the reason you gave. That’s how a conversation works.
We have lots of conversations about societal behavior here, including general societal behavior, specifically behavior on these boards. Some of those conversations result in conversations about norms. Sometimes those conversations result in policies. A thought occurred to me about behavior and norms and I wanted to start a conversation about it.
The same empathy I have toward the people who do vote. My point is that they are all collectively responsible for the outcome of the election. About 3/4 of the people affected by the election bear responsibility for it.
Your argument in a literal sense boils down to, “Won’t somebody think of the children?!” They are the people impacted by elections who have no say in them. Because your logic, as previously stated, is this:
People are treating the election as a sport by betting on it.
A sport is a contest where the only people impacted by the outcome are the ones participating in it.
What makes this objectionable is that there are people impacted by the outcome of an election who are not participating in it.
And of course, those people are children.
Maybe this is my gallows humor rearing its head now.
