From: Georgi Guninski <guninski@guninski.com>
   On Fri, Oct 23, 2015 at 08:08:33PM +0000, jim bell wrote:
   >> If we are looking for interesting subjects to discuss, why not
   Ethereum    [1]https://www.ethereum.org/  and Auger?
   [2]http://www.augur.net/
   >>           Jim Bell
   >> After months of development, we are proud to release our alpha
   version of Augur. This version showcases the basic features of our
   >>prediction
   >>market implementation. It's by no means feature complete and
   certainly prone to bugs.Tell us what you think and report any issues
   you have
   >>using the "Feedback" link in the app.
   >DISCLAIMER: I quickly browsed both and well might be wrong.
   >Here are some remarks about augur.
   >Basically I don't think the crowd can make good predictions because of
   >lack of skills and in addition sufficiently many "crowd actors" might
   >turn the dice the other way.
   Apparently they work on the principle that if decisions are made using
   a lot of input (many members of the public).   The PAM (Policy Analysis
   Market  [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policy_Analysis_Market  )
   proposal from 2003 was intended to work on the same principle.  (The
   media quickly labelled it, "terrorism futures".)
   Presumably if 'enough' of the crowd change the prediction, that will be
   for good reason if they have to burn 'reputation' too.
   >There is a local saying that "one woman in general can give birth to a
   >child in approximately 9 months" BUT "9 women can't give birth to a
   >child in approximately one month".
   If that was indeed what a crowdsourced prediction market was attempting
   to do, it would fail.  But that is not the case.
   Since augur mentions "market", likely the lovely NSA can put a lot of
   bots on it, possibly just burning inflated virtual money.
   I'm not sure I understand what may be your objection, but my
   understanding is that the Ethereum system is intended to be supported
   by means of some micropayment system, called 'ether'.  .  A DOS (denial
   of service) attack won't work if those attacking have to pay a small
   fee to communicate with the system.
   >I would recommend to them to try their skills on the lottery or on
   some
   >sport betting site ;)
   Presumably Augur will be doing that, too.  Naturally, I can think of
   better things for a prediction market to be doing!!!
                Jim Bell

References

   1. https://www.ethereum.org/ 
   2. http://www.augur.net/ 
   3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policy_Analysis_Market