CONSORTIUM FOLLOWS PENTAGON LEAD WITH NEW TERROR MARKET

international | miscellaneous | press release

Friday August 08, 2003 17:13

by AAM

Inspired by the futures market in terror and war
that the Pentagon released
earlier this week (and then immediately yanked;
see
http://news.google.com/news?q=%22Policy+Analysis+Market%22),
a consortium
of computer scientists, political scientists and
others announced today an
online futures market in White House behavior.

Contact: mailto:[email protected]
"The Pentagon felt that a market in terrorism
futures could predict
terrorism," said AAM spokesman Tad Hirsch, a
researcher at MIT's Media Lab.
"If the market is indeed such a powerful tool,
then it should be directed
at the most urgent question facing the world:
what will the White House do
next? And the second most urgent: what is it
doing right now?"

The site, http://www.AmericanActionMarket.org,
will offer various
categories of "futures" that users can bet on and
trade. Some of these have
easily verifiable outcomes:

* Who will be the next foreign leader to move
from the CIA payroll to
the White House "most wanted" list?

* What will be the next major White House lie to
break, and how will
the White House attempt to control it? Will the
attempt be
successful?

* Which corporation will be next to see its close
relationship to the
White House erupt in scandal?

(See
http://www.AmericanActionMarket.org/concept.htm
for more examples.)

In addition, AAM will also allow users to place
and trade longer-term
wagers on current or past scenarios that are in
the short term unverifiable
because of White House secrecy, and which will
only be proved or disproved
via impeachment hearings, journalistic
sleuth-work, etc. For example:

* Was Rumsfeld the first to suggest using the
attacks as pretext to
overthrow Saddam Hussein, as reported in the
press, or did the idea
first come from others?

* Was the invasion of Afghanistan planned from
the start as a
stepping-stone to an attack on Iraq?

* Was the President fully conscious of the lies
in his pre-war
speeches, or were the decisions to lie taken by
others? By whom?

* How important a long-term factor in the 2003
Iraq was Iraq's
expulsion of U.S. and British oil companies
from Iraq between
1972 and 1975?

(See
http://www.AmericanActionMarket.org/concept.htm
for more examples and
sources.)

As evidence is accumulated to prove or disprove a
particular future, its
market value will change; this change may serve
analysts as an indicator of
a scenario's likelihood, even if a final
resolution of the bet is never
achieved.

Just as a gambler buys chips at a casino, users
of the AAM system will use
a secure webpage to buy "Smart Dollars," which
they will then use for
trading. Users will be able to "cash out" at any
time by trading in their
"Smart Dollars" for real ones, with 10% going to
charity.

Hirsch acknowledges that the value of markets as
predictors is not certain,
but he insists it's worth trying. "If there's
even a small chance this will
help predict what the White House will do, it's
well worth the effort,
given the stakes."

AmericanActionMarket.org will be fully functional
and ready for bets on
October 1, the day the Pentagon's now-defunct
futures market was scheduled
to open.