prior probability

Inspired by the work of polymath Robin Hanson (check out Hanson’s blog here), I first posed this question in August of 2021 (see here). Since then, I published “The Leibniz Conspiracy“, which surveys a wide variety of “conspiracy theory theories” and proposes a specialized betting market for conspiracy theories. In addition, many mass-market and scholarly books devoted to conspiracy theories and conspiracy thinking more generally–including Republic of Lies (2019), Conspiracy Theories: A Primer (2020), the Routledge Handbook of Conspiracy Theories (2020), and Stuff They Don’t Want You to Know (2022), just to name a few–have been published in recent years (see below for more titles), but none of these works proposes an effective or foolproof way of distinguishing real conspiracies (like the Wuhan lab-leak cover-up) with fake ones (like most 2020 election fraud claims). That is why I will be presenting a new and improved version of my conspiracy theory betting market proposal at the 13th annual Constitutional Law Colloquium at Loyola Law School in Chicago next Saturday (5 November). I will say more about my modified proposal in the days ahead; for now, it suffices to say that I will expand my betting market to include “fake news” as well as popular conspiracy theories.

Beware of Venmo too, which is owned by PayPal; hat tip: the Amazing Tyler Cowen (see here).

That is the title of this haunting exposé (subtitled “Lynch Law in All Its Phases“) written by Ida B. Wells (pictured below), who was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize “for her outstanding and courageous reporting on the horrific and vicious violence against [people of color] during the era of lynching.” This landmark work, which is also available here (via Project Gutenberg), was first published in New York City on this day (26 October) in 1892. According to this report (University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law), nearly 3,500 Blacks (and 1,300 whites) were lynched in the United States from 1882 to 1968. One of the last reported lynchings in the U.S. took place in Mobile, Alabama on 21 March 1981.

On this day (25 October) in 1971, the General Assembly of the United Nations approved Resolution 2758, which recognized the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as “the only legitimate representative of China to the United Nations.” Alas, Communist China continues to be ruled by murderous dictators and should thus be expelled from the U.N., along with Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Russia. At the very least, Taiwan should be allowed to rejoin the U.N. table without further delay. Change my mind! (I say “rejoin” because the Republic of China or ROC, which relocated to Taiwan in 1949, had represented China at the United Nations since 1945, the year the U.N. was founded. Taiwan, however, continues to be excluded from the U.N. table to this day. For additional information about the legal and political status of Taiwan, see here.)

I dedicate this beautiful song to my wife Sydjia!

Check out this new paper by Saul Smilansky, who turns the tables on Pascal’s Wager (see also here and image below). In brief, Professor Smilansky’s argument is that God will be more upset at people who accept the wager (i.e. belief in God) but still commit moral transgressions than at atheists who reject the wager but live good moral lives. Although I am not buying Smilansky’s argument (since we are all sinners), it is worth reading and thinking about. Hat tip: Brian Leiter.

That is the title of this 2001 paper by mathematician W. D. Kaigh, who revisits the “Arizona Pick 3 incident” in which a flawed random digit generator severely compromised the Arizona Lottery Pick 3 in the summer of 1998. (I discovered Kaigh’s intriguing paper when I was reading Stephen Stigler’s new book “Casanova’s Lottery.”) On a related note, check out this excellent essay by Kathryn Schulz, who surveys the history, politics, and economics of State lotteries. Schulz’s work was published in the latest issue of The New Yorker.

Chess prodigy Hans Niemann (pictured below, right) has just sued grandmaster Magnus Carlsen in Missouri for defamation. Here is a copy of the 44-page complaint, and here is the first paragraph: “Niemann is a 19-year-old, self-taught chess prodigy. He brings this action to recover from the devastating damages that [Magnus Carlsen and others] have inflicted upon his reputation, career, and life by egregiously defaming him and unlawfully colluding to blacklist him from the profession to which he has dedicated his life.” Crazy, right? (Hat tip: Eugene Volokh.)

My take: Truth is a complete defense to a claim of defamation, so we might find out once and for all whether Niemann was cheating when he defeated Magnus in chess earlier this year.