Someone at the Pentagon read Shockwave Rider over the weekend

[Tim May]

On Tuesday, July 29, 2003, at 04:20  PM, John Young wrote:

> Tim May wrote:
>
>> Yes, a bunch of "ideas futures" markets have existed for nearly a
>> decade. An acquaintance of mine, Robin Hanson, was actively promoting
>> such things in the late 80s and may have been involved in some of the
>> Extropians-type markets which arose a few years later (I recollect
>> several efforts with varying degrees of success).
>
> Yes, Robin Hanson worked on DARPA's PAM program. Here's
> his e-mail about it in May 2003:
>

Too bad, as he should have seen the shitstorm which would materialize 
as soon as this actually reached the public radar screen. Now that's 
gone public and been deep-sixed less than 24 hours later, it will 
likely be the end of this particular thing.

An official, above-board version is likely to be ipso facto illegal for 
the same reason office baseball pools are illegal: illegal gambling. If 
the Pentagon can run a betting pool for its employees on when some 
event will happen, office workers can bet on the outcome of the World 
Series, and anyone can bet on the numbers revealed by the Mob.


--Tim May