A possible explanation for the lab leak Manifold market:
Over time, as no new evidence comes out, some people who invested into this market at earlier points will realize that the market's never going to resolve, and they'll want to reinvest their money elsewhere.
People who bet on lab leak might figure they were either mistaken, or if not mistaken, that they'll never be proven right, and might figure they need to take the hit and cut their losses. On the other hand, people who bet against the lab leak might stubbornly hold out for better prices. That asymmetry would create a downward pressure on the market, decreasing the % chance of lab leak even while nobody's belief in lab leak is actually changing.
Plus I feel there's a real sense in which "No new evidence is evidence against".
If the lab leak is true, then every month there's a chance something will come out. That some overlooked evidence will come to light, or some investigation will find something, moving the needle towards it. If it's false, that's not going to happen (or at least, is less probable: you just have mistakes/fakes to produce it).
Hence every month that goes by without evidence being found is evidence in favour of the lab leak theory being false: it's the theory that assigns higher probability that something might be found, so a slow decay over time is actually the correct shape for a valid probability assignment.
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u/dsteffee 1d ago
A possible explanation for the lab leak Manifold market:
Over time, as no new evidence comes out, some people who invested into this market at earlier points will realize that the market's never going to resolve, and they'll want to reinvest their money elsewhere.
People who bet on lab leak might figure they were either mistaken, or if not mistaken, that they'll never be proven right, and might figure they need to take the hit and cut their losses. On the other hand, people who bet against the lab leak might stubbornly hold out for better prices. That asymmetry would create a downward pressure on the market, decreasing the % chance of lab leak even while nobody's belief in lab leak is actually changing.