By Nigel

Over the past three weeks Hubdub users have created some very funny and inventive questions. For example, ‘Will Dick Cheney bag another attorney this year when hunting at Armstrong Ranch?‘

However, what has provoked real discussion is the morality of questions like ‘How many American soldiers will be killed in Iraq in February 2008?‘ or ‘Will Britney Spears be alive on December 31 2008?‘

On the question of the morality of questions I’ve struggled to come up with what is the right answer. Fundamentally it feels wrong to profit (even virtually) from someone else’s tragedy. However, it would be strange for us to self-censor ourselves from making predictions about something professional journalists are already discussing and making predictions on.

One of the things that influenced me when we were developing the site was a comment made by the UK Secretary of Defence, Dr John Reid, when we were sending troops into Afghanistan. He said that ‘hopefully the troops would return without firing a shot’. Additionally, at the time it seemed there lacked any real national debate on why we were committing more troops to Afghanistan and what their objective was. The British Army is now fighting one of its most intense operations since Korea resulting in 82 British fatalties in the last 2 years.

Elsewhere prediction markets have shown the ability to be one of the best means of aggregating information and forecasting future events (and particularly better than politicians with a vested interest). I believe if we have a sufficient user base then we could not only have an accurate forecast of the outcome of these decisions but could also act as a forum for public debate on whether the decision was worth the cost. So while questions like this feel distasteful I think they could potentially have real social value.

However, those are my own thoughts. I’d really like to know where you thought was the line on this.

Popularity: 8% [?]