I mean she has a birth certificate and enough legal evidence to get a federal judge to block deportation, while the main evidence against her case is twitter statements from an administration whose main PR strategy seems to be lie and deny until the news cycle moves on.

So it's not, "is she a citizen?" It's, "will you believe it?" How are we supposed to predict that? What's to stop you from lying?

@ChurlishGambit Knowingly misresolving the market would give me worse information, though indeed it would be difficult for you to check whether in my heart of hearts I think it's obvious. My current view is she's probably a citizen but with the information I have not enough to resolve yes on the spot.

The question is deliberately about whether I personally think it's obvious (a higher standard than whether I think it's true); I acknowledge this makes the market harder to trade on and less useful for whether you should think it's obvious - it's very possible I could weigh the available evidence wrongly at the time of resolution.

@Tetraspace But how does this market give you any information at all? How does other people guessing if you'll believe something, tell you anything?

@ChurlishGambit It tells me whether they think information will come out (e.g. Morales publishing her birth certificate and a birth certificate expert saying "yea, that's legit") that I will find to be obvious proof

@Tetraspace But we don't know anything about what you consider obvious. This would be like making a market about whether you'll love a certain sandwich—how could we predict that? And what would be useful about those guesses?

@ChurlishGambit I've also made sandwich preference markets tbh. They're very illiquid but for example someone who has ate the sandwich in question would have information I don't, and they could bet based on whether it tastes to them like other things I've said I liked. Advertisers try to do this! With zero information you still have a bit of a prior, I'm more likely to enjoy a cheese sandwich than a poop sandwich.

As for what I'd find obvious - this also adds a ton of uncertainty, as is the nature of prediction markets, and so in the end the market has a probability and not a certainty. One example I've given is if the US government drops their case. Another thing that I might find makes it obvious is if an independent expert that seems trustworthy checks her claims in a way that isn't coming from her legal team; something I would more confidently expect to find obvious is if an independent expert who I personally trust (like Kelsey Piper) evaluates it. But there are likely other ways for it to resolve YES.

The use is whether people think any evidence like this will emerge; if the market strongly expects it to, then I can avoid having to wait for the evidence and start acting on it now.

At the end of the day, though, if you don't know my tastes in evidence and can't guess them well then it's just that you have less information about the overall question than the market and so don't have any trades on it you want to make. I would be happy about seeing a more objective question if you want to make one!

@Tetraspace What was the purpose of making the sandwich market? Did you end up avoiding the sandwich because of it? Would you avoid a sandwich on the basis of guesses from strangers?

If not...then what purpose does the market serve? If you eat the sandwich anyway, the predictions aren't useful.