Synthesis Studios

We have a fascination in open markets here at Synthesis — whether it be NewsFutures or O’Reilly’s Buzz Game — the idea of mining the information of lots of people, and acting on it, is core to what we think about here. But, that’s all just a long introduction to a good overview article on Marketplace last night:

A futures market for terrorism is a great idea.
…
Traders, those who buy and sell the contracts, bring all their disparate information on the political situation in Saudi Arabia into this central marketplace. Their bets on the probability of this one terrorist action would be reflected in the price of the contract.

This price then acts as a signal for those in government about where intelligence efforts might be fruitfully directed.
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This entry was posted on Saturday, August 12th, 2006 at 2:05 pm and is filed under Synthesis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.