The main factors were Nate Silver's record of good calibration, and (alleged) "smart money" successful bettors (including local Zvi) being onto it. I'm still uncertain why the market could be so inefficient in this case, so I'm not betting a lot of money, but it's possible that institutional factors prevent large amounts of smart capital coming in - perhaps directly betting on the election is still too weird for a large investment firm.
In general I'm more inclined the trust the market value than any particular prognosticator. Why shouldn't I be?
edit: The arguments here have convinced me to bet some money on Biden (on Betfair), but today the odds are still moving against him (down to just under 60% on electionbettingodds.com). This does leave me rather confused - surely the "dumb money" can't outweigh the "smart money" so heavily? Especially not on Betfair which doesn't have PredictIt's limitations.
Thanks. I was recently worrying a bit about this specific issue, and this is reassuring.
(Even if cloud brightening is the ultimate solution to warming, we still need to address ocean acidification and carbon sequestration, and I'm not aware of any ideal solution to those problems yet, but two weeks ago I wasn't aware of cloud brightening, so for all I know the problem isn't a lack of investment, might just be a lack of policy discussion.)
There is also http://projectvesta.org which claims that it is possible to remove CO2 from the ocean and atmosphere via olivine weathering reasonably cheaply.
The winningest rationalist I know of is Dominic Cummings, who was the lead strategist behind the Brexit pro-leave movement. While the majority of LWers may not agree with his goals, he did seem to be effective, and he frequently makes references to rationalist concepts (including IIRC some references to the work of Eliezer Yudkowsky) on his blog: https://dominiccummings.com/
NZ is such a cliche for nuclear escape by now that I wonder if it might be targeted in a full-on nuclear war just to get the escaping rich westerners.
> I've never heard of anyone doing this directly. Has anyone else?
There' s a Brazilian job website that requires users to pay, though I think it's on a subscription basis.
I should note, for my readers in less sensitive and explicit cultures: I think that the fact that Harley was able to surface and articulate these beliefs is a good thing, on balance.
Really? These anecdotes sound really awful and exhausting to me. They're going out of their way to start status-threatening conflicts over minor inconveniences.
edit: Reading further it seems OP essentially agrees that this behaviour is unhealthy.
is about to present its results from two trials.
Might have been better to wait for the result?
There's a lot of partisan sneering against Trump supporters on that Twitter account which IMO calls his objectivity on the odds issue into question.