Pentagon Prepares a Futures Market on Terror Attacks:

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Traders bullish on a biological attack on Israel or bearish on the chances of a North Korean missile strike would have the opportunity to bet on the likelihood of such events on a new Internet site established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The Pentagon called its latest idea a new way of predicting events and part of its search for the "broadest possible set of new ways to prevent terrorist attacks." Two Democratic senators who reported the plan called it morally repugnant and grotesque. [...] One of the two senators, Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota, said the idea seemed so preposterous that he had trouble persuading people it was not a hoax. "Can you imagine," Mr. Dorgan asked, "if another country set up a betting parlor so that people could go in — and is sponsored by the government itself — people could go in and bet on the assassination of an American political figure?" [...] According to descriptions given to Congress, available at the Web site and provided by the two senators, traders who register would deposit money into an account similar to a stock account and win or lose money based on predicting events. "For instance," Mr. Wyden said, "you may think early on that Prime Minister X is going to be assassinated. So you buy the futures contracts for 5 cents each. As more people begin to think the person's going to be assassinated, the cost of the contract could go up, to 50 cents. "The payoff if he's assassinated is $1 per future. So if it comes to pass, and those who bought at 5 cents make 95 cents. Those who bought at 50 cents make 50 cents."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/29/p...;partner=GOOGLE

Just to prove this is legitimate, the website is located at:

www.policyanalysismarket.org

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words escape me... disgusting

LOL, DARPA strikes again. At least they stopped pretending to be the illuminati - I think.

Haha what a waste of money. In theory I suppose it could be a fairly accurate predictor of the liklihood of an event occurring, people are putting their money where their mouth is, however, it's ludicrous to assume that this free market of futures will remain a truly, independant free market. Like the full article stated, if the Pentagon uses this predictor as a means to affect the outcome of predicted events than that right there will corrupt the liklihood of an outcome and thus less people will hedge their bets on that scenario occurring. Secondly, wagers on an outcome such as a political leader being assassinating will influence people to have some role in encouraging such an outcome through probable illegal means. How the hell are they going to prevent "insider trading" on something like this??? WTF this isn't scary it's stupid.

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http://www.reuters.com/financeNewsA...storyID=3179795

Well don't worry kiddies, our tax paying dollars will be wasted on something else probably a little less retarded

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"My understanding is it's going to be terminated," Wolfowitz told members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He added that while the Defense Department was supposed to be imaginative, "it sounds like maybe they got too imaginative" with the online futures market plan.

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Somwhere in a dark room is a sadistic investor saying, "Harrrr! Foiled again!!!".

What a terrible idea gone awry. Then again, we always had an over/under on the liklihood of a college roomate dying, so in a sense I have participated in a futures market on death....

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Originally posted by Vesa This idea sums up everything that I find dubious about the Neocon Administration. This is why I opposed the Iraq War. They are academic geeks, who suggest even the wildest methods to change the world towards an American Hegemony. If their methods had no effect on the particular strategical situation, they might work, and even be brilliant. Unfortunately, such methods have nasty side effects i.e. they piss off foreign countries. Thus, the method itself makes sure that it can't reliably describe the situation it's supposed to describe.

Well ... this is the brainchild of DARPA not the administration.

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Yeah that was one big brain fart if I ever saw one

Isn't our good old friend John Poindexter head of DARPA these days?

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quote:

Originally posted by Dj_Irish Isn't our good old friend John Poindexter head of DARPA these days?

Not any more. He just resigned:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,93446,00.html

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Speaking of resignations, wasn't Ari Fleischer suppose to resign? Did he yet?

Yeah he's done

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Originally posted by davedresden oh my fucking god i die, dave

Here's a little bit more info about the cancelled program:

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Pentagon Buys Into Tragedy The Pentagon at least deserves credit for thinking inventively in coming up with a new way to spot terrorists before they strike. monitortalk Its Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was due to launch a project Friday that would have tried to forecast major political events in the world by tapping inside knowledge within the business community through a government-run speculative financial market. Here's how it would have worked (before an uproar in Congress forced the Defense Department to kill it): Up to 10,000 investors would have been invited to buy contracts that would have paid out money based on the outcome of a range of speculative political events. This "policy analysis market," as DARPA called it, was based on the theory that someone somewhere in business may know something about a political development that US spies and diplomats might be missing. DARPA was right in its theory, but it failed to forecast the moral problem in having public servants encourage capitalists to profit by investing in forecasts of tragedies befalling Americans - with the hypothetical tragedies selected by government. Private markets can do that, and do so already by tracking political events to decide where to place investments. But government shouldn't be in that business. Much of that information already is available, often for sale. DARPA's plan revealed that the government's intelligence agencies need more resources to match the secretive tactics of terrorists. Now that Congress has made its point, it can calmly ask what more it can do to help.

It is rather interesting ...

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