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Comment by mudita | Hacker News Reader

Scott Aaronson comments on his blog "Given this news, I’ll up my personal probability of P=NP from 3% to 5%." (https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=10239#comment-2042428)

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I’m not as smart as Scott but for me it’s more like 10% -> 20%. Do we have a prediction market for this?

Predictions markets are terrible mechanisms for this, because they require imposing an arbitrary time limit at which point the prediction will pay out. IOW, even if you religiously believed P=NP, but you think it would take at least two years to prove it, you would vote against the prediction if the deadline were one year.

Why must prediction markets have a predefined end date?

Without it, capital would be trapped indefinitely.

This is not necessarily true, you could have contracts rather than money down

Sure, but in most (all?) financial settings, this would still count as exposure.

It doesn’t matter if I bet $N on something using cash or margin, my exposure is still $N.

Since you can’t have unlimited exposure, this would still lock up capital, until the bet can be resolved.

Well, so? Then the prediction market would also price expected resolution time.

How would it work otherwise...?

Anybody can exit their contract by selling their contract to an interested party

It seems highly irrational to bet that your evaluation is more likely than Aaronson's.

Not under the circumstances IMO

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