Mitt Romney's $10,000 bet

Speaking of Romney, this Romney story from the Post (the homeless shelter one) struck me as an unusually pure example of a rationalist world-view in action.

If he had offered say a $20 bet no one would have batted an eye. The issue was purely the size of the offer since it reminded a lot of viewers at how high Romney's income is compared to theirs. People care to a large extent about identifying with politicians.Since the vast majority of the population doesn't care about prediction markets and hasn't even heard of them, they don't care about that issue. (For what it is worth, when I first heard about this I had to think a minute about why it might be considered a gaffe.)

Political coverage is a lot like a reality tv show. You put people on camera for hours each day, make up storylines, and then pick little snippets of footage to parade before the world as striking evidence that the person's character fits the storyline.

Yes, a clown-suit appearance or a similar non-monetary but embarrassing bet would have been a much better move. He must have lousy handlers.

The moment I saw this, I thought of LW. The comment didn't bother me at all. He came across to me as "No, I'm serious here. This is something I will stand by, and be willing to take a hit if I'm wrong."

If Romney had made a bet that was large to him, that would have been even better. He'd be showing he really meant it. A $10k bet that sounded off-hand was the worst possible.

Can you imagine Angela Merkel or Margaret Thatcher or even Sarah Palin doing that? Offering to bet a lot of money on the issue in the middle of a debate is hyper-masculine, aggressive, and low class. It is not all that different from asking the guy if he wants to step outside.

Prediction markets where the other side of the bet is a faceless horde are completely different. There is no humiliation inflicted.

You all are overanalyzing it, the issue is simple. Romney's own church position on gambling is clear:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is opposed to gambling, including lotteries sponsored by governments. Church leaders have encouraged Church members to join with others in opposing the legalization and government sponsorship of any form of gambling. Gambling is motivated by a desire to get something for nothing. This desire is spiritually destructive. It leads participants away from the Savior's teachings of love and service and toward the selfishness of the adversary. It undermines the virtues of work and thrift and the desire to give honest effort in all we do.

As if Jewish or Muslim candidate invited his opponent to a pork dinner :P

Why is your name Miley Cyrus?

James D. Miller once offered to bet Ray Kurzweil:

Rather then just looking at existing markets, however, believers in the possibility of a mid-century Singularity should design Singularity prediction markets. I attempted to do this myself, on a very small scale, when I proposed a bet to Kurzweil. Under the bet I would give him a very small amount of money today and in return at some future agreed-upon date he would give me a 10-meter-diameter solid diamond sphere. The idea behind my bet was that if the Singularity were near, nanotechnology would make it very easy to make large diamonds in the relatively near future. Kurzweil, alas, turned me down. He emailed me making the very reasonable argument that "Everything I write about could come true and for physical reasons that are not currently understood a ten-meter-round diamond might be hard to fabricate." But still, since the mere approach to the Singularity would cause massive price changes, it should be possible to design future markets that provide good estimates of the likelihood of a Singularity occurring.

More here: Singularity Prediction Markets

One error Romney made is that a wager on his part would have been politically more palatable than a bet. The subject matter in question is Romney's own words; he is presumably quite aware of what he said. Therefore, he's proposing what appears to be a sucker bet, which would create a $10K debt for Perry, which seems unfair. Also, gambling is offensive to some voters; Perry's refusal to go there scored points for him at Romney's expense.

Even a wager (where payment would occur only if Perry could prove his case) would carry the risk of Romney being perceived as something of a crackpot, or someone who reneges on a wager, if Perry could make a convincing case.

Sure, "as a believer in prediction markets" you want one thing, "as a supporter of various policies" I wish Romney had talked about those, "as a fan of absurd sci fi noire" I wish Romney had smoke coming out of his ears lighting his hair on fire and then did not noitce and continued to talk like a programmed robot.

I would imagine that the strongest analysis of stuff said in that debate would come from signalling theory. What are these guys trying to signal, what might they be signalling unintentionally? As a guy who looks at signaling AND as a fan of the absurd, I like the rich mormon robot trotting out bets of $10,000 the way the rest of us might bet a 6-pack of beer.