I have been doing political betting for a few months and informally compared my success with strategies 1 and 2.
Ex. Predicting the Iranian election
I write down the 10 most important iranian political actors (Khameini, Mojtaza, Raisi, a few opposition leaders, the IRGC commanders). I find a public statement about their prefered outcome, and I estimate their power and salience. So Khameini would be preference = leans Raisi, power = 100, salience = 40. Rouhani would be preference = strong Hemmeti, power = 30, salience = 100. Then I find the weighted average position. It’s a bit more complicated because I have to linearize preferences, but yeah.
The two strat is to predict repeated past events. The opposition has one the last three contested elections in surprise victories, so predict the same outcome.
I have found 2 is actually pretty bad. Guess I’m an expert tho.
The opposition has one the last three contested elections in surprise victories, so predict the same outcome.
That seems like a pretty bad 2-strat. Something that has happened three times is not a “stable high-level feature of the world”. (Especially if the preceding time it didn’t happen, which I infer since you didn’t say “the last four contested elections”.)
If that’s the best 2-strat available, I think I would have ex ante said that you should go with a 1-strat.
I have been doing political betting for a few months and informally compared my success with strategies 1 and 2.
Ex. Predicting the Iranian election
I write down the 10 most important iranian political actors (Khameini, Mojtaza, Raisi, a few opposition leaders, the IRGC commanders). I find a public statement about their prefered outcome, and I estimate their power and salience. So Khameini would be preference = leans Raisi, power = 100, salience = 40. Rouhani would be preference = strong Hemmeti, power = 30, salience = 100. Then I find the weighted average position. It’s a bit more complicated because I have to linearize preferences, but yeah.
The two strat is to predict repeated past events. The opposition has one the last three contested elections in surprise victories, so predict the same outcome.
I have found 2 is actually pretty bad. Guess I’m an expert tho.
That seems like a pretty bad 2-strat. Something that has happened three times is not a “stable high-level feature of the world”. (Especially if the preceding time it didn’t happen, which I infer since you didn’t say “the last four contested elections”.)
If that’s the best 2-strat available, I think I would have ex ante said that you should go with a 1-strat.
Haha agreed.