Basically just +1 on what Michael said. How are you using markets on nuclear war in your decision making? Very concretely, can you name a decision you made differently due to these markets?
Yes, I used them to set a threshold for evacuation protocols at Lighthaven, together with decisions on emergency supplies, how many bugout bags to have, etc.
(I had also built a small website called “hasRussiaLaunchedNukesYet.com″ which would send everyone who signed up a text message if the probability of a nuke being launched was above 90% according to the markets, which would then be a natural time to get out and escape)
Cynically speaking, even if you do not see the value in this information per se, you should appreciate that people who care about these things can now look at one specific URL, say “okay”, and not waste much more time trying to do their own research.
There is a fairly well known discussion point in quant trading circles that says you should always bet against the end of the world. If the logic is not immediately obvious to you, it goes something like this: if the world doesn’t end, I make money, and if the world does end, it won’t matter that I lost money.
I don’t know what the conditional probability of the world being “destroyed” is (defined here loosely as lots more nuclear weapons detonate, massive environmental damage, all world governments collapse, money is worthless) if one major city is destroyed by a nuclear weapon, but I would think its at least 25%.
All this to say, if you are making any decisions based on the implied odds of that market, its probably rational to consider them as higher, since we are really looking at the odds of [nuclear weapon goes off AND the world doesn’t end].
Basically just +1 on what Michael said. How are you using markets on nuclear war in your decision making? Very concretely, can you name a decision you made differently due to these markets?
Yes, I used them to set a threshold for evacuation protocols at Lighthaven, together with decisions on emergency supplies, how many bugout bags to have, etc.
(I had also built a small website called “hasRussiaLaunchedNukesYet.com″ which would send everyone who signed up a text message if the probability of a nuke being launched was above 90% according to the markets, which would then be a natural time to get out and escape)
FWIW, this does not change my mind on my OP, though this is interesting.
Cynically speaking, even if you do not see the value in this information per se, you should appreciate that people who care about these things can now look at one specific URL, say “okay”, and not waste much more time trying to do their own research.
There is a fairly well known discussion point in quant trading circles that says you should always bet against the end of the world. If the logic is not immediately obvious to you, it goes something like this: if the world doesn’t end, I make money, and if the world does end, it won’t matter that I lost money.
I don’t know what the conditional probability of the world being “destroyed” is (defined here loosely as lots more nuclear weapons detonate, massive environmental damage, all world governments collapse, money is worthless) if one major city is destroyed by a nuclear weapon, but I would think its at least 25%.
All this to say, if you are making any decisions based on the implied odds of that market, its probably rational to consider them as higher, since we are really looking at the odds of [nuclear weapon goes off AND the world doesn’t end].