Ishan

Pessimism and optimism share a trait: both are self-fulfilling. Your intention influences the outcome. Call it karma or, simply, effort. I would rather inhabit a future that has the possibility of being great.

Only optimists can create a great future. Only optimists can imagine it. Only optimists will put in the effort to make it. If you want to... See more

As researchers in political science and as economists, we see three enticing advantages of forecasts from prediction markets, compared with poll-based forecasts of election outcomes: 1) Markets have full coverage of outcomes. They covered all primaries and caucuses in 2016, when polls covered about 50 percent of possible contests. Similarly, for... See more

But more recently, prediction markets have developed an odd sort of problem. There seems to be a feedback mechanism now whereby the betting-market odds reify themselves. . . .

Traders are treating market odds as correct probabilities and not updating enough based on outside information. Belief in the correctness of prediction markets causes them

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n the days leading up to the US election, pollsters had the race deadlocked. The vote was essentially a coin flip.

But over on the betting platform Polymarket, the odds were much more solidly in former President Donald Trump’s favor. On Monday, Trump led Vice President Kamala Harris 58% to 42% — a lead that, by Wednesday morning, proved to be a... See more

Iconic successes seemed outright strange at first: Amazon (wait days to receive a product you’ve never seen), eBay (buy beanie babies from someone thousands of miles away), Google (trust an algorithm to answer your questions), LinkedIn (publicly post your resume), Facebook (share personal updates with people you haven’t seen in years), Airbnb (stay... See more