It seems like the big problem here is that outcomes in different causal categories might differ in momentum’s impact.
Like, a solar event is pretty separate from human factors, while a revolution is entirely human. I’d put an election somewhere in between — it’s based on human factors, but also much better quantified than a revolution.
Absolutely - I’d speculate that something like a solar eclipse is MORE susceptible to momentum because there’s less to go on, but it’d probably be worth doing this again while filtering for e.g. natural events, etc to see how it holds
If Polymarket keeps growing in importance, and if your three basic theories are true, will we see politicians start spending campaign money to drive the outcomes on Polymarket? Is that even legal? Spending large amount of money might be very good for news making and push quite a bit of momentum trading
This actually happened! In 2012 someone put $4M on Mitt Romney in Intrade (the main prediction market back then). This one bet was 2/3 of all money put on him in the final two weeks of the campaign; there was speculation that it was an attempt to boost campaign morale, donations, and turnout.
Which it sort of did! I remember news stories about his increasing odds as "there's something happening the polls aren't seeing," which DID sort of change the narrative from "Obama is going to win."
It seems like the big problem here is that outcomes in different causal categories might differ in momentum’s impact.
Like, a solar event is pretty separate from human factors, while a revolution is entirely human. I’d put an election somewhere in between — it’s based on human factors, but also much better quantified than a revolution.
Absolutely - I’d speculate that something like a solar eclipse is MORE susceptible to momentum because there’s less to go on, but it’d probably be worth doing this again while filtering for e.g. natural events, etc to see how it holds
Indeed, the line is pretty amorphous, but a spectrum of causality with an imperfect correlation to momentum absolutely does exist.
And those sorts of correlations CAN be modeled!
If Polymarket keeps growing in importance, and if your three basic theories are true, will we see politicians start spending campaign money to drive the outcomes on Polymarket? Is that even legal? Spending large amount of money might be very good for news making and push quite a bit of momentum trading
This actually happened! In 2012 someone put $4M on Mitt Romney in Intrade (the main prediction market back then). This one bet was 2/3 of all money put on him in the final two weeks of the campaign; there was speculation that it was an attempt to boost campaign morale, donations, and turnout.
Which it sort of did! I remember news stories about his increasing odds as "there's something happening the polls aren't seeing," which DID sort of change the narrative from "Obama is going to win."
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2013/09/one-trader-bet-millions-romney-win/310726/