[pu_pe]

There is no substitute for effort and domain expertise, that's my point. Polymarket would like you to believe that their odds represent some sort of collective knowledge, but they don't, it's not like the world's top experts in epidemiology are trading on this issue. Worse, as I explained someone might be trying to manipulate the odds to their benefit, which for the particular case you cited would be quite cheap to do.

[cthor]

These are sensible criticisms and things one should be mindful of when using prediction markets as a signal (I would also add an awareness of how discount rates affect the reliability of markets that trade at low probabilities), but none of them justify the original statement being contended with, which was: "They offer zero positive utility to the world."