So, the Pentagon thinks outside the box for a change, and attempts to install a futures market to help with the prediction of terrorist activity. How do Democrats react:
Two Democratic senators slammed the move.
“The idea of a federal betting parlour on atrocities and terrorism is ridiculous and it’s grotesque,” said Senator Ron Wyden D-Ore.
Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan described the market as “unbelievably stupid”.
“Can you imagine if another country set up a betting parlour so that people could go in … and bet on the assassination of an American political figure or the overthrow of this institution or that institution?” he said.
The Dems got their way:
The Pentagon has abandoned plans to set up a ‘terror stock market’ in which investors could bag cash by successfully predicting terrorist attacks.
US defence chiefs had hoped the market would have been a valuable tool in second guessing when terror strikes would occur.
Instapundit has a whole host of links about the futures market- I am waiting for the left flank of the blogosphere to beat up on the Democrats for blocking this. Again, I will be waiting for a while.
*** Update ***
Yglesias is skeptical, but thinks the Pentagon deserves credit for thinking outside the box. They got beat up for it Matt, not praised- I await your condemnation of Dorgan and Wyden.
*** Update #2 ***
I am not defending this idea because I think it will be the end-all, be-all for fighting terrorism. I am not sure the damned thing will even work. What I am angry about is that no idea for fighting terrorism should be simply laughed away or dismissed for partisan political gain. That is what ires me- this might have had some utility, certainly would have been inexpensive- and it got nuked without even a chance.
Kevin Drum
Even if it works, this is a bad idea. As conservatives keep telling us, there are things that might work but that should be avoided anyway for moral reasons or because they send the wrong message. This is such a thing.
Somebody at DARPA should have had the brains to figure out that a government sponsored market that gives people an incentive to actively root for terrorist attacks would not be well accepted by the population at large.
Dean
John:
I’m waiting for any anti-terrorist move that doesn’t involve jettisoning Israel, “considering root causes,” or otherwise engaging in multilateralism that actually gets support from the left side of the blogosphere.
Tougher inspections at airports? Inconvenient and profiling.
Arming pilots? Hah!
Preemptive attacks? 16 words.
Kevin:
Well, short of asking folks out of the goodness of their hearts to report in tips and collating said information (oops, didn’t that come under TIPS and get canned?), how would YOU collect information from non-traditional sources, e.g., stock traders, businessmen, insurance companies, shipping firms, etc.?
Better yet, given the reach of modern corporations and even many non-corporations (e.g., NGOs like the Red Cross), how would you exploit the information that they inevitably collect or come in contact w/? How would you access that, and hopefully even have some priorities assigned to their credibility and importance?
Gary Farber
I’m sorry, John, but I already blogged on this, and predicted that it would (unjustifiably) go down, last night.
Therefore one can obviously conclude that “conservatives” are slow on the uptake and insufficient in their ability to defend thinking outside the box. Gosh, conservatives are “stupid.”
Or, you know, maybe not.
John Cole
I have long contended that Republicans and this administration spend too much time defending themselves to their critics. Ignore the Democrats, move forwrd with your ideas, and quit giving the Dems a sense of momentum.
I have seen no ideas from the Democrats- just ignore them and let them get more shrill and more hysterical.
Joshua Martin
When I first saw this story, I thought “it’s about time.” The Bush administration actually came up with a novel idea that allows difuse information that can’t possible be actively monitored and analyzed by the gov’t to be collected and distilled.
My next thought was that the idea was doomed, as Democrats couldn’t pass up the chance to attack Bush for allowing “gambling on terrorism.” And what do you know, I was right.
Personally, I don’t care that this idea would cause people to “actively root for terrorist attacks” because 1) there’s no evidence that people would doing just that, and 2) the (hypothetical) harm that such “rooting” might cause is (or would have been) entirely trumped by the possibility that the program would have predicted (or helped predict) a terrorist attack.
Moreover, the notion that the program wouldn’t be “well accepted by the population at large” matters naught. This isn’t the type of program whose existance should depend on whether or not Joe Public likes it. The efficacy of the program should have been the only consideration.
Is it too much to ask that the Demoractic Party judge these efforts fairly, rather than using them as a vehicle to bash GW?
Gary Farber
“Is it too much to ask that the Demoractic Party judge these efforts fairly, rather than using them as a vehicle to bash GW?”
It’s not too much to ask. It’s precisely as much to ask as it was and is to ask that actions of the Clinton Administration not be used as a vehicle to bash Democrats or Bill and Hillary Clinton.
If one wishes to decry partisanship — and there’s an awful lot of partisanship that deserves decrying — one can only fairly decry it in more than one direction.
Otherwise, you know, it isn’t partisanship that is being decried. Just “Those Bad Guys On The Other Side Who Are The Only Partisan Ones.”
DANEgerus
“Even if it works, this is a bad idea”… because people should die?
So the better way is for the blogosphere to speculate until we reach a consensus… or gaming theory, a decades old concept, could be applied to arrive at a prompt informed consensus…
But f— no… it might offend somebody… so let’s just wait until there are enough dead bodies to appease everybody’s sense of propriety.
Kevin Drum
Just out of curiosity, suppose this proposal went through and, say, a terrorist killed Dick Cheney. And then suppose a couple of days later there was a photo of some guy in the NY Times grinning because the government had just sent him a check for $10,000 because he had bet correctly on this probability.
Do you start to see the problem?
M. Scott Eiland
“Just out of curiosity, suppose this proposal went through and, say, a terrorist killed Dick Cheney. And then suppose a couple of days later there was a photo of some guy in the NY Times grinning because the government had just sent him a check for $10,000 because he had bet correctly on this probability.
Do you start to see the problem?”
Another problem that might occur is if a scenario that would obviously negatively (or positively, if a company has a countermeasure to the scenario) impact the fortunes of a particular company or industry becomes “hot” on the virtual market, it could have a substantial impact on the real stock markets–this might allow for indirect manipulation of the stock market. Not good.
John Cole
I do not think they were going to be paying out massive awards- and on balance, I like the idea.
Nathan Zachary
I’m no democrat, But I still think it’s a bad idea.
The very nature of man compels him to make a profit, so you would see bet hedging. Would it be so funny when people get killed over this?
Moe Lane
Shoot, John, what makes you think that this concept’s going away? Within the month somebody’ll be running something similar from his website that’ll do 60-65%* of the concept for essentially free… and there’ll be a steady stream of anonymous hits from plausibly-deniable locations.
All of this reminds me of that disinformation agency that was ‘set up’ a while back, only to be immediately ‘closed down’: That one too had a lot of hoopla – and the fact that the primary idea was to simply get the meme into the infosphere was neatly obscured there, too.
Moe
*These statistics brought to you by the WAG Group.