According to David Becker (from the website Jazz in America), the first recording by an all-black band occurred in 1921 when Edward “Kid” Ory and his Sunshine Orchestra recorded the songs “Creole Trombone” and “Society Blues.” Kid Ory had a prolific musical career, but he is often overshadowed by other famous jazz musicians of color, such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, so we are giving Kid Ory his props here. Above is another of our favorite Kid Ory’s compositions. Enjoy!
Why don’t law professors try using “mini-prediction markets” to forecast the outcome of Supreme Court cases or the outcome of bills pending before Congress? That is, why don’t law professors let their students, colleagues, and friends bet on the future outcome of cases and legislation? This tantalizing possibility is one of the future goals of this website (*), and Microsoft, Google, and a few other companies have already experimented with internal prediction markets, but to our knowledge, this idea has not really been tried in academia. Why not? (Here are some possible answers.)
(*) We need some help, though.
Because regulators — the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in particular, which has the legal authority to regulate commodity markets — have declared prediction markets to be “contrary to the public interest”. But if the “public interest” is the open-textured standard that applies to prediction markets like Intrade (which the CFTC effectively shut down in late 2012), then shouldn’t the courts also apply the same standard to the operations of the CFTC itself? That is, why don’t Intrade’s lawyers sue the CFTC (perhaps under a “regulatory taking” theory) and request an injunction or cease-and-desist order preventing the CFTC from acting against the public interest? My larger point is this: shouldn’t the government be required to play by the same rules as the firms they are regulating?
Or so says Alex Tabarrok, an economics professor at George Mason University and one of our intellectual role models. (We are revisiting Alex’s previous post on bets and beliefs, given that earlier this week we offered to bet on the outcome of the upcoming Hobby Lobby case–see our blog post immediately below for details. You can also read more of Alex’s thoughts on the relation between bets and beliefs here.)
In summary, here is the core of Alex’s argument (note that when Alex wrote these words he was defending Nate Silver’s willingness to bet on the outcome of the 2012 election) —
A properly structured bet is the most credible guarantor of rigorous disinterest. In order to prove his point, Silver is not required to take the Obama side of the bet! At the odds implied by his model (currently between 3 and 4 to 1) Silver should be willing to take either side of a modest bet. Indeed, we could hold a coin toss, heads Silver takes the Obama side, tails he takes Romney.
In fact, the NYTimes should require that Silver, and other pundits, bet their beliefs. Furthermore, to remove any possibility of manipulation, the NYTimes should escrow a portion of Silver’s salary in a blind trust bet. In other words, the NYTimes should bet a portion of Silver’s salary, at the odds implied by Silver’s model, randomly choosing which side of the bet to take, only revealing to Silver the bet and its outcome after the election is over. A blind trust bet creates incentives for Silver to be disinterested in the outcome but very interested in the accuracy of the forecast.
Overall, I am for betting because I am against bullshit. Bullshit is polluting our discourse and drowning the facts. A bet costs the bullshitter more than the non-bullshitter so the willingness to bet signals honest belief. A bet is a tax on bullshit; and it is a just tax, tribute paid by the bullshitters to those with genuine knowledge.
(As an aside, please note that Nate Silver, another of our intellectual heroes and author of The Signal and the Noise, used to write for the New York Times. He has since left The Times and is now working with ESPN.)
Furthermore, notice that Alex’s argument has direct application to legal discourse and legal commentary generally as well. Shouldn’t law professors and even legal commentators on TV be required to bet their beliefs? What do you think? Would law professors and other public intellectuals be more reasonable and intellectually honest if they had to bet on their beliefs?
Yesterday, Professor Scott Gaylord and I discussed the religious rights of closely-held corporations under the religion clauses of the First Amendment, one of the main legal issues in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., an important constitutional case which will be argued before the United States Supreme Court next month (25 March, to be more precise). In summary, some family-owned businesses, such as Hobby Lobby, are objecting to the so-called “HHS mandate” under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Note: “HHS” refers to the Department of Health and Human Services, a federal agency which requires all private firms with more than 50 employees to provide health plans that cover all FDA-approved contraception and sterilization procedures.
After Professor Gaylord carefully and patiently explained why the HHS mandate violates the constitutional rights of these private companies (you can read his full argument, all 70 pages of it, here), I began my talk by offering the following simple wager–I offered to bet $100 (at even odds) that the government will win the Hobby Lobby case, and I also offered to bet (at 10 to 1 odds) that the Supreme Court’s decision in favor of the government would be a unanimous decision.
Why am I so certain about the outcome of this case, so certain that I was willing to bet a small sum of my own money on its outcome?
Here’s why: The owners of the Hobby Lobby are objecting to the contraception coverage part of the HHS mandate on religious grounds. In brief, their argument is that the government is forcing them to finance immoral medical procedures that directly contradict their deeply held religious beliefs. (As an aside, they aren’t objecting to all form of contraception but only to such contraceptive products as Plan B (the morning-after pill) and Ella (the week-after pill) because these types of contraceptives don’t just prevent pregnancies; they abort actual embryos.)
The problem with this logic, however, is that some persons also object to such products like vaccines on religious grounds. Other religious persons object to blood transfusions. Yet others object to all forms of medical care. So, are those parts of the HHS mandate that cover vaccines, blood transfusions, and medical care generally (depending on the religious person doing the objecting) to be declared unconstitutional? That would be an absurd result. Hence my willingness to bet real money on the outcome of this case.
Alas, my bet had no takers.
All are invited to attend the Fourth Annual Professors Debate at the Dwayne O. Andreas School of Law in Orlando, Florida from 4:45 to 6 pm in Room ALC 203. Professor Scott Gaylord, Jennings Professor and Emerging Scholar at Elon University School of Law, and I will discuss the legal issues in Hobby Lobby v. Sebelius, an important constitutional law case which has been set for oral argument before the United States Supreme Court next month.
According to this report in the Sunday Times, it’s Highway 1 in Afghanistan. Here is an excerpt from the Times’ report:
After spending billions of dollars upgrading and repaving Highway 1, the [US-led] military coalition is now leaving its protection almost entirely to Afghan forces like the soldiers of the Afghan Army’s Sixth Battalion, Fourth Brigade, 203rd Corps. They patrol one of the world’s most dangerous roads like beat cops, responding to domestic disputes and traffic accidents, as well as hidden explosives and sniper fire. Their struggles, which are many, offer glimpses into the road war’s new contours.
Will the Afghan forces be able to protect this vital ring road from the Taliban? If you were an advisor to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, what policies would you recommend for protecting Highway 1 from sabotage and direct attacks (e.g. electric fences, 24-hour patrols, etc.)? If you were an advisor to the Taliban, what strategy would you propose for disrupting traffic on this road (IEDs, destruction of bridges, etc.)? Remember, the Highway 1 ring road is over 2000 kilometers long, and each side in this war has limited manpower and resources, so the real question we are asking is this–how much of your resources would you invest in protecting or attacking Highway 1?
Map courtesy of the examiner.com.
Facebook is introducing more choices for gender identification — 56 choices in all (is that too many choices … or too few?) — but after all is said and done, there is still only one level of “friend” …
Adam Clarke Estes has posted on Gizmodo this interactive map of Ganymede, one of Jupiter’s moons, which also happens to be the largest moon in our corner of the universe. Ganymede is an extra special Jovian satellite because it has an underground ocean and is one of our solar system’s few potentially habitable environments. In the words of Mr Clarke Estes:
The map is a little intimidating at first, but once you delve into it, you’ll realize that exploring the geography of Ganymede isn’t so different from exploring the geography of Earth. Different colors represent the different elements that make up the moon’s surface creating an almost marbled look as the minerals run together. Of course, Ganymede would need a little work before we can colonize it. But let’s just hope we never have to.
So instead of Mars, should NASA or SpaceX be planning a mission for the Moon of Ganymede instead?
Hopefully It’s Interesting.
In Conversation with Legal and Moral Philosophers
PhD, Jagiellonian University
Books, papers, and other jurisprudential things
Ramblings of a retiree in France
BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH
Natalia's space
hoping we know we're living the dream
Lover of math. Bad at drawing.
We hike, bike, and discover Central Florida and beyond
Making it big in business after age 40
Reasoning about reasoning, mathematically.
I don't mean to sound critical, but I am; so that's how it comes across
remember the good old days...
"Let me live, love and say it well in good sentences." - Sylvia Plath
a personal view of the theory of computation
Submitted For Your Perusal is a weblog wherein Matt Thomas shares and writes about things he thinks are interesting.
Logic at Columbia University
Just like the Thesis Whisperer - but with more money
the sky is no longer the limit
Technology, Culture, and Ethics
Just like the horse whisperer - but with more pages
Poetry, Other Words, and Cats
prior probability 