[downer70]

Or maybe human behavior and personality consistently resists the enforcment of technical rules, and watches for, and then willfully denies attempts to restrain behavior it (subsets of the collective population) instinctively desires to engage in.

Maybe some of us know that we're being watched, and simply defy any stupid egghead's function curves, for the sheer amusement of seeing disappointed faces.

Maybe there are sadistic people roaming free, and they feed on the souls of the damned.

How would that fit in with modern quantitative economics?

[drdeca]

Well, that would depend on the size of that population, would it not?

A single middle-class person working to make as contrary to prediction market choices as possible would, I think, have a not significant influence

Even if they optimized for the size of the influence as well as the strangeness.

I don't expect the total population of people doing that to have a significant impact on the market.

There isn't much reason to do it, and it probably costs money over time, leading the people who do that to have less money over time,and so for their doing that to have less and less of an impact over time.

[downer70]

Not all people carry the same degree of influence over a market.

Not all people act according to or within the rules of a market.

Not all human behavior can be scoped to a form of market activity.

What would the bald destruction of a market, or set of markets, represent to the context of such narrow minded economics?

[eru]

If some quants can predict these alleged flights of fancy, they'll trade against them and make some good money.

[downer70]

Acting, or according to your context merely "betting" against an adversary is fine, but this assumes the capacity to act against an adversary, and that the actions taken will be big enough to have an effect.

You can't realistically take actions against a belligerent force that has an overwhelming capacity to watch your every action and imprison or execute you. You can't take actions against forces that exist outside a legal framework and the juridictions you are subject to.

Placing bets is not taking direct action. It means sitting on the sidelines, and hoping that legal mechanisms take their natural course in a civilized society.