This is an attempt to anchor predictions about the alleged military use of Al-Shifa Hospital to a reliable resolution source. This question is specifically about the claims made by US Intelligence that the hospital was used to "Exercise certain command and control activities" as reported in this AP article :
“The U.S. Intelligence Community is confident in its judgment on this topic and has independently corroborated information on HAMAS and PIJ’s use of the hospital complex for a variety of purposes related to its campaign against Israel,” the assessment states. It continues that it believes the groups “used the al-Shifa hospital complex and sites beneath it to house command infrastructure, exercise certain command and control activities, store some weapons, and hold at least a few hostages.”
Rootclaim is an organization known for doing probabilistic analysis of unclear events, including events related to war. They challenge anyone who disagrees with their claims to prove them wrong in a debate with neutral judges and win large sums of money.
Rootclaim was founded and funded by Saar Wilf who is basically synonymous with the project as I understand it, so I will also accept less formal analysis by Saar himself to resolve this market if he ever states his personal probability on this subject.
I will also count any new forms of analysis that Rootclaim might start to do besides their big formal analyses if they decide to branch out from that content, as long as they give a probability.
The question of whether and how Al-Shifa Hospital was used by Hamas seems like the kind of high-profile uncertainty they might decide to analyze. I don't think this is particularly likely as there are many such questions they could cover, but I think it's possible enough to be worth betting on. I also think that because Rootclaim is generally in the same cultural sphere as Manifold, someone might be able to ask them/him if only just for these markets.
The first three questions in this unlinked market asks how likely it is that Rootclaim/Saar give a probability on this issue, and the other questions are all conditional markets on this occurring.
If this analysis does not occur by 2027 or if we get a definitive statement from Rootclaim/Saar saying they won't take a stance on the issue, these conditional questions resolve N/A.
If Rootclaim/Saar does give a probability on whether the hospital was used to "Exercise certain command and control activities", these conditional markets resolve according to that probability.
As this is a complex and controversial topic, I am open to suggestions on how to improve these resolution criteria and may update the rules to better fit the spirit of the question as I see fit.
Related questions
@SaarWilf has joined Manifold 👀
Reminder that per the resolution rules I'll take his personal estimate for this market if he gives one. It doesn't have to be a whole rootclaim analysis if he wants to just say a number he personally believes to resolve this market.
@Joshua I lost all belief in them after I saw they claimed that Ola Kravchenko killed Tair Rada. There is not even a single shred of credible evidence implicating her. Basically nobody but a few crazy conspiracy theorists and Saar believes that. Plus that investigation doesn't even consider the fact that someone else, unknown, might have killed her. Actual judges have ruled and reruled on this case, and maintain that the most likely perpetrator is Roman Zadorov. He was released because the judges determined that there is a shadow of doubt about whether he did it, but that probably still leaves the judges at like 90% confidence.
@Shump I've never studied that case, interesting to hear another opinion on it.
At first glance, I think they're probably too high on "Usain Bolt never used drugs":
https://www.rootclaim.com/analysis/Did-Usain-Bolt-use-performance-enhancing-drugs
But I haven't thought too hard about it. My general assumption is that most top sprinters are doping (as are many top athletes in general). And his whole Jamaican team got caught. Maybe it's possible that Bolt is enough of a genetic freak that he doesn't need to, but I'm not sure I'd put that at 96%.
@nikki It's not avialable for that. I could see doing that if it was (and I had enough time and money).
Also for anyone who somehow doesn't know the original context: This market was created in an attempt to have some alternative to the current large market on the subject, which is unfortunately run by Richard Hanania. There is also a real-money market run by Polymarket... which unfortunately also resolves based on Richard Hanania.
Please help me find non-Richard-Hanania ways to judge this question.
This comment section is probably not the place to debate his judgement, but I should hope that even those who do trust him would agree that it would be better to have a judge that most people trust, instead of a judge that most people do not trust.
@Joshua My impression is that if Hanania were really so partisan, he would have resolved it as YES a while ago. Marcus Abramovich (who has more profit on Manifold than anyone else) was calling for a YES resolution, and Hanania saw it and said there is not enough evidence. Hanania hasn't even resolved it yet, even though the market is at 60-70%.
@nathanwei I definitely think having markets about the same complicated event that resolve based on different standards is a good thing. Sometimes it can be quite informative and help show how different sources are different. For example:
/EvanDaniel/how-many-people-died-in-the-alahli
/EvanDaniel/how-many-people-died-in-the-alahli-98d0ef8cbcf6
Note not just different resolutions but also different trading patterns.
@SemioticRivalry Why lol? The evidence there is pretty convincing.
@SemioticRivalry They do tend to be pretty certain of things when they decide to do an analysis.
Sending an optimistic ping to @PeterMillerc030 who challenged Rootclaim on Covid-19 origins and might be able to ask his opinion about this!
@PeterMillerc030 ...did he respond before you placed the bet?