It's that time of year again when people make resolutions for the upcoming year. Prediction markets are an interesting approach for this too. At least for resolutions you make publicly. Here is my resolution for this newsletter: 52 issues in 2024.
This year, one such market on Manifold was particularly exciting: Will @firstuserhere walk 100,000 steps in a day? Anyone who wears one of these fitness watches knows that 10,000 steps a day is often the standard target. You can't simply 10x it like that. It requires training and preparation.
What certainly made the market so popular was the lively discussion. There were lots of tips in the comments. Many cheered him on (even if they were betting against him).
Also, there was new data on this market every day. This helps the community to make forecasts. In addition, frequent maintenance made the market more popular and therefore more accurate.
The campaign has inspired several other users and some want to follow suit this year. How many?
This is not this user's only market for 2023:
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Will he lose 9 kg? Maybe.
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Will he be one of the top 5 market performers? Probably not.
Further markets for next year and beyond have been created.
There is already the 2024 follow-up market to the "Read 50 books" market. This is much more optimistic, as he start in earnest right away, not in June. However, there is also an interesting difference: @firstuserhere is no longer betting himself.
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Betting on yourself creates an additional incentive. Not only would you reach your goal, but you would also win mana.
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A bet against yourself would be a hedge. If you don't achieve your actual goal, you still win mana.
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However, if you bet, you are no longer quite so impartial when the market has to be decided. Not betting makes these decisions easier if they are close.
I don't have a clear recommendation here. A compromise would be to bet only initially, i.e. within the first few minutes, and then no more. For example, you could set the market from the "default setting of 50%" to your own assessment.
In the same way, you could set a few large limit orders to increase the liquidity of the market. For example "1000Mana Yes at 30%" to set a lower limit. To make it obvious to traders, this should be explicitly mentioned in a comment.
Finally, a general tip for good resolutions: Resolve to do or start something. Don't resolve not to do something or to stop doing something.
The Financial Times wrote up how their readers fared against superforecasters in 2023. Spoiler: the readers lost. The summary of Good Judgement:
Key to the Superforecasters’ success, as the article notes, is their methodology. They focus on gathering comprehensive information, minimizing biases, and reducing the influence of irrelevant factors that only create noise.
Saul Munn collected links on Impact Markets, something like the charity variant of prediction markets.
Scott Alexander (Astral Codex Ten ACX blog) held a yearly prediction contest for years. For 2024, Metaculus will host it again. Get your predictions in before mid-January!
See you next year, my celebrating readers! Happy New Year! 😊