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Only one of those questions (earth warming rate) is clearly defined and scientifically addressable, as all the others have fairly subjective definitions (what is poverty? what is crime? how do we measure inflation objectively? etc.)

Even with warming, a 'fact' would be a data point at a particular time and location, assuming your sensor was correctly calibrated. You have to look at millions of data points across the entire globe for decades to get a sense of the current warming rate (which could be negative, flat, or positive). You have to do complicated statistics on all those data points to get a warming rate, and you'll have error bars on that, and the end result is not a 'fact' so much as a bounded estimate (+0.1 C / decade +/- 10% is plausible for the average surface temperature change averaged over the entire planet).

We can't even say with real certainty that 2100 will be warmer than today, as a supervolcano, asteroid impact, or global nuclear war could reverse the trend.



I think prediction markets (polymarket et al) get this right. Every question as vague as "is the earth warming" has resolution details which define some way to resolve the question such that all parties (even those with economic interest to disagree) have trouble disputing the outcome.

For a question like the earth warming, it would usually be something like "according to ___.org website on Y date", which in that case the final prediction becomes: will the average temperature in the period from 2016-2026 be greater than Y on ___.org, which is a bit different than the original but easier to arbitrate.




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