@(RyanBeck) > The assessments also confirm that there was an assassination attempt on Putin's life in March, the officials say. > The high-ranking officials, who represent three separate intelligence agencies, are concerned that Putin is increasingly paranoid about his hold on power, a status that makes for a rocky and unpredictable course in Ukraine. But it is one, they say, that also makes the prospects of nuclear war less likely. > "Putin's grip is strong but no longer absolute," says one of the senior intelligence officers with direct access to th...

@(randallburns) I can only speak for PredictIt because I am a user there and I am not personally familiar with Betfair. Secondly, my background is in finance so that may color my thinking. However, I think the main reason is that PredictIt is structurally unable to have accurate pricing of tail risk because of transaction costs. Predict it takes 10% of profits and charges a 5% withdrawal fee. That means if you bet on 100 shares on something that is a "sure thing" and is priced at 90 cents, you pay $90 and win $10. After PredictIt's cut you take home $9...

@(Big-eyed) It's a concept present in financial derivatives: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/theta.asp "The term theta refers to the rate of decline in the value of an option due to the passage of time. It can also be referred to as the time decay of an option. This means an option loses value as time moves closer to its maturity, as long as everything is held constant. Theta is generally expressed as a negative number and can be thought of as the amount by which an option's value declines every day. " Here it could be interpreted as "all else eq...

@Jgalt I think that's a fair judgement.

When submitted my forecast i was thinking of current members and hadn't really considered the election.

Looks like this can be resolved: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/dec…

@evanbd I think this would be a great idea.

U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions Bounced Back Sharply in 2021

Emissions rose 6 percent last year after a record 10 percent decline in 2020, fueled by a rise in coal power and truck traffic as the U.S. economy rebounded from the pandemic.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/10/climate/em…

@EvanHarper

I suppose in retrospect a better formulation of the question would have been the complement to "will the rating fall into a junk bond rating" and be "will Twitter retain an investment grade credit rating?" . In that case one could have set the criteria as will twitter retain BBB- equivalent or greater credit ratings from at least two agencies.

It appears some 70 episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience are being quietly removed from the platform.

Joe Rogan Apologizes for ‘Shameful’ Past Use of Racial Slur https://nyti.ms/35HbpQM

His apology came as listeners said that as many as 70 episodes of “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast had been quietly taken off Spotify; the company has yet to comment on the reported removals.

— edited by AnotherWorld

@gomaill2

The good news is that there is an Obergefell question: https://www.metaculus.com/questions/10686/obe…

@nhuvelle

I'm curious what you think of the rise to $20k and subsequent crash was about. Was the rise premature, was the crash baseless? How do you interpret that event?

— edited by dkleeman92

@(nhuvelle) I see. What are the sources of demand for Bitcoin in your mind? How do we know that demand is at least staying the same? There's the direct transaction-use demand and speculative demand. Is there another category? What do you imagine the share split between these are for the overall demand? Do these sorts of hype cycles increase transaction demand in addition to speculative demand? I struggle to imagine how the transaction demand could increase by a meaningful multiple given the transaction volume constraints that are somewhat inherent in t...

@EvanHarper I do see that bump around 20%. Maybe they're on Metaculus :)

@randomuser2323

I didn't even know that. Thanks for pointing that out.

How does this question count an elected official who was not yet sworn in?

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/29/luke…

@nhuvelle

Actually, I have one more question. What would it take for your forecast to dip below 50%? What set of facts would we hypothetically have to observe for you to feel like this won't most likely happen by 2025?

Seems like the data has been revised here

Based on the Future Perfect article, should Jared Kushner be included in the definition of Trump's immediate family? I took the definition from a previous Metaculus question to try to be consistent/clear but I think Jared appears to be part of the intent here. > No one in Trump’s immediate family will be indicted (65 percent) > Let me be very clear: I am not saying that Jared Kushner and Donald, Melania, Donald Jr., Ivanka, Eric, and the oft-forgot Tiffany Trump are innocent of any and all crimes. I’ve read a little bit on those folks and they seem ...

@nhuvelle

You're fluidly transitioning between your personal assessment of value and the one based on a going market rate. These are distinct. If we want to use beliefs about the future, as in this question, then yeah as a proper bayesian there is clearly a non-zero probability of those currencies being valuable either as collector's items or in some contrived scenario or another.

If current market value is king, then this whole question is silly because the value of BTC is what it is and the market price should be a martingale.

@nhuvelle

Obviously I agree with your conclusion about EMH or I wouldn't be forecasting on this question. I was just trying to show that you should chill out on using current lack of transactions as proof of a concrete zero value.

An important skill for accurate forecasting is the ability to seriously consider ideas with which you don't agree or currently think to be unlikely.