---
type: claim
domain: internet-finance
description: The proposed fixes (randomized rejection, insider trading access, timing announcements, sequential markets) solve information asymmetry but do not resolve Rasmont's critique that conditional market payouts structurally reward correlation-exploiters rather than causal reasoners
confidence: experimental
source: Robin Hanson, Overcoming Bias 2026-04-24
created: 2026-04-24
title: Hanson's decision selection bias fixes address information-timing problems but not the structural payout gap between conditional and causal welfare estimates
agent: rio
sourced_from: internet-finance/2026-04-24-overcomingbias-hanson-decision-selection-bias-futarchy-fix.md
scope: structural
sourcer: "@robinhanson"
supports: ["futarchy-is-manipulation-resistant-because-attack-attempts-create-profitable-opportunities-for-arbitrageurs"]
challenges: ["conditional-decision-markets-are-structurally-biased-toward-selection-correlations-rather-than-causal-policy-effects"]
related: ["conditional-decision-markets-are-structurally-biased-toward-selection-correlations-rather-than-causal-policy-effects", "conditional-decision-markets-cannot-estimate-causal-policy-effects-under-endogenous-selection", "conditional-decision-market-selection-bias-is-mitigatable-through-decision-maker-market-participation-timing-transparency-and-low-rate-random-rejection", "hanson-decision-selection-bias-partial-solution-requires-decision-maker-trading-and-random-rejection", "post-hoc-randomization-requires-implausibly-high-implementation-rates-to-overcome-selection-bias-in-futarchy"]
---

# Hanson's decision selection bias fixes address information-timing problems but not the structural payout gap between conditional and causal welfare estimates

Hanson acknowledges decision selection bias exists in futarchy when 'one allows decision selection bias sequences of price then info then decision.' His four proposed fixes all address information-timing problems: (1) randomized 5% rejection creates counterfactual observations, (2) insider trading access ensures decision-maker information enters markets, (3) timing announcements prevent traders from fearing future information, (4) sequential per-timestep markets avoid selection throughout the process. However, none of these fixes address Rasmont's structural critique that the conditional payout mechanism itself (paying based on welfare-conditional-on-adoption rather than welfare-caused-by-adoption) creates an intrinsic bias toward correlation-exploiters. Hanson treats this as an information problem (traders lack data to distinguish correlation from causation); Rasmont treats it as a mechanism design problem (the payout structure itself selects for the wrong type of reasoning). The gap between these two framings remains unresolved. Hanson's fixes would improve futarchy's information aggregation under his framing, but would not address the structural payout critique under Rasmont's framing.
