This is a weird market to hold up as a triumph. Yes it eventually galvanized, but significant information came to light to update the market weeks earlier, and yet every time someone predicted yes, money mysteriously flooded in to hold the chances at exactly 50% until it was a foregone conclusion. (In fact, due to volatility, there were moments you could pick days before the invasion where the market was only 36%.) The consistent refusal of the market to update in light of new information was so mysterious, people even speculated it was the work of Russian manipulation. "Look at how great this market worked" is a very weird takeaway from this particular example. I would love to hear more analysis from manifold as to why this market was so slow to respond to outside information, and if it does anything to monitor for coordinated manipulation.
EDIT: I want to clarify, I don't have a strong assumption this market was "manipulated," there were many popular experts out there also predicting "no" until the last moment. Maybe the simpler answer is just a lot of people legitimately botched this one and I'm confused as to why.
Thanks for your comment - I, too, would love to hear more analysis! Not just about Manifold, but about the results of different prediction markets and forecasting services in general. Scott Alexander covered some of this 10 days ago https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/mantic-monday-ukraine-cube-manifold , but the market he pulled up was Manifold's market for "Invasion by Feb" not "Invasion by Dec", which tracked fairly closely to the rest.
This is a weird market to hold up as a triumph. Yes it eventually galvanized, but significant information came to light to update the market weeks earlier, and yet every time someone predicted yes, money mysteriously flooded in to hold the chances at exactly 50% until it was a foregone conclusion. (In fact, due to volatility, there were moments you could pick days before the invasion where the market was only 36%.) The consistent refusal of the market to update in light of new information was so mysterious, people even speculated it was the work of Russian manipulation. "Look at how great this market worked" is a very weird takeaway from this particular example. I would love to hear more analysis from manifold as to why this market was so slow to respond to outside information, and if it does anything to monitor for coordinated manipulation.
EDIT: I want to clarify, I don't have a strong assumption this market was "manipulated," there were many popular experts out there also predicting "no" until the last moment. Maybe the simpler answer is just a lot of people legitimately botched this one and I'm confused as to why.
Thanks for your comment - I, too, would love to hear more analysis! Not just about Manifold, but about the results of different prediction markets and forecasting services in general. Scott Alexander covered some of this 10 days ago https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/mantic-monday-ukraine-cube-manifold , but the market he pulled up was Manifold's market for "Invasion by Feb" not "Invasion by Dec", which tracked fairly closely to the rest.
Inspired by your comment, I'm posting a $50 bounty for a writeup which tackles this question: https://manifold.markets/Austin/50-bounty-for-best-analysis-of-ukra
agreed u_u