Every human being, including me, inclines to self-serving bias. But I was genuinely taken aback by Raphael Franck’s attempt to resolve our French terrorism bet in his own favor. Why?
1. Franck counts the 150 fatalities on Germanwings Flight 9525 as terrorism, even though virtually no one else does. When I challenged this determination, his response was: “The crash of the German flight was cheered upon by radical Islamists. So I guess they viewed it as a success for their cause.” But radical Islamists presumably cheer every tragic event in the West, so why not count death itself as “terrorism”?
2. Franck counts virtually all people killed by French police as “rioters.” Wikipedia lists 50 people killed by French police from 2008-2012. Franck counts 49 of these as killings of rioters. His rationale:
For simplicity I used the lacunary data on people who were killed by the police (it is only this year that the France started tracking the number of individuals killed by the police – otherwise the job is done by leftist activitists). Usually these people are not killed at random by the French police, they are killed in small-scale riots that occur in the suburbs of the major French towns.
I agree that French police kill few people “at random.” But that hardly makes them presumptive rioters. Perhaps they’re just common criminals resisting arrest, like in virtually every other country? This is especially absurd because standard accounts mention no fatalities for any of the major French riots in 2008-2018.
3. Franck and I bet on “the total number of deaths in France from riots and terrorism.” But Franck gives himself a further buffer by claiming that he could legitimately count deaths in former French colonies!
For the record, to win this bet, I did not even have to include in the final count the French soldiers who were killed by jihadists in the former French colonies in sub-Saharan Africa (which are only former colonies by name, given that the French army still seeks to control those areas to protect French financial and industrial interests). But I could. And then I would also count the jihadists that they killed.
Gee, why not count everyone killed in the former French colony of Syria, too?
4. Franck refuses arbitration:
I do not see much point in asking for a neutral arbitrer. At the end of the day, the neutral arbitrer will have to decide whether terrorism motivated by radical Islam has become a common occurrence in France. For some reason, I have yet to meet someone who is neutral when it comes to the relationship between radical Islam and terrorism.
Actually, a neutral arbiter would only have to determine who won according to the literal terms of the bet, using standard English. Most people can do this despite their political views. The real story, I have to think, is that Franck doubts that any credible arbiter on Earth would take his side.
5. I can sympathize with someone who thinks that mainstream media is irredeemably biased against the truth. But I can’t sympathize with someone who makes a bet without mentioning that they will reject evidence that virtually everyone else would consider decisive.
Some of my friends have suggested that I count this bet as “contested” rather than a clear win. If I thought there was a reasonable doubt here, I would comply. But frankly, Franck’s efforts to salvage his side of this bet are absurd. And that’s a word I don’t use lightly.
READER COMMENTS
J Mann
May 31 2018 at 10:24am
I’d call it contested, with Caplan as the more likely than not winner. It was a badly defined bet.
The terms of the bet are:
Franck gets to 511 deaths by counting (a) the intentional but not cause-based crashing of the Germanwings flight (149 deaths) as “terrorism” and (b) by counting almost all of the killings by French police (49) as “from riots.”
1. There’s an argument that Germanwings fits the legal definition of terrorism even if it doesn’t fit the common definition. Franck’s apparent private definition doesn’t fit either the legal definition or the common one exactly, but I think you could make a case that at least cases in the overlap between the legal definition and the definition Franck had in mind when he made the bet should count.
2. I’m inclined to agree that at least 12 of the 49 police shootings are very probably not from riots, which means Franck isn’t above 500.
3. However, Franck believes that there are unreported deaths from terror or riots. Nothing in the bet terms exclude this, and I don’t know how to reliably judge it. It makes it much more inconvenient to judge the bet, but so what?
Ultimately, the problem is that the bet was written poorly. For that, I put most of the blame on Bryan, who is a (a) native English speaker and (b) experienced at betting.
JL
May 31 2018 at 10:51am
Yes, the bet not specifying that only ‘officially confirmed’ (via news / statistics) deaths count is a bit of a deal breaker; I think you can reasonably argue that things like suicide due to depression after a riot has destroyed someone’s livelihood should count for the bet.
Hazel Meade
May 31 2018 at 10:55am
I can see how one could plausibly claim that the Germanwing’s crash was “terrorism”, if you allow terrorism to be something practiced by an individual. Though by this standard the parkland and santa fe shooters (and every other school shooter) were terrorists too. I also don’t see how it counts as Islamic terrorism as there is no reason to believe the pilot was a Muslim or that he had any links to terrorist organizations.
I’m guessing the “riots and terrorism” were meant to refer mainly to Islamist attacks. So at best it’s a stretch to count the Germanwings crash, and isn’t quite in the spirit of the bet.
Lawrence
May 31 2018 at 11:12am
I’m a lawyer who works in-house at a large corporation, but nevertheless have to deal with ‘do we really need a formal contract for this, I have this email from the guy saying what he’ll do?’ from time to time. This is an excellent example of why, yes we do need to write a proper contract.
Denver
May 31 2018 at 11:49am
If it we’re just one sketchy assumption, then I think Bryan ought to call it contested. But two sketchy assumptions to barely make it over the 500 mark? I think Bryan’s right to call it a win.
Richard
May 31 2018 at 12:03pm
I don’t see how the Germanwings crash can reasonably be construed as “terrorism.” Here’s the primary dictionary definition: “the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.”
We have no evidence that the suicidal pilot crashed into the mountain to intimidate or coerce, for political purposes or any other purpose. In other words, we have no evidence he had any purpose beyond simply killing himself and others. That some Muslims cheered is irrelevant; the definition refers to the intent of the perpetrator, and, in any event, even if Muslims cheered, what does that have to do with intimidation or coercion? Did the cheering Muslims think the crash would “intimidate or coerce” the West? How? The notion is absurd.
People look at the word “terrorism,” see the root word “terror,” and conclude that the word means “any killing that is really scary.” But that’s simply not what the word means, and under that definition it is hopelessly vague. It is not reasonable to assign a non-standard and hopelessly vague definition to a term in a contract when the standard definition is not vague.
Vivian Darkbloom
May 31 2018 at 12:14pm
I agree with those who have stated that the bet was poorly worded. And, although as an arbitrator, I would rule for Caplan on technical grounds, I think he got pretty lucky. Lucky that those 368 injured in the Bataclan attack didn’t die of their injuries and lucky that the 464 injured in the Nice vehicle ramming didn’t die. Those were unambiguously terrorist attacks. Terrorists didn’t come short of the 500 for lack of trying. As I see it, the bet was fundamentally about the seriousness of the terrorism threat in France and there’s no question Franck was on the right side of how this ugly trend would unfold. Those injured (unlucky to be injured and lucky to survive) and those otherwise affected by these events would likely have sympathy for Franck’s position.
More fundamentally, for all the touting here of the benefits of “betting” and the crowing over one’s “victory”, the downsides of the practice are also apparent. First, betting on how many deaths there would be from terrorism and riots is unseemly to me, even if it’s only for 50 bucks. It puts one party in the position perhaps of hoping there will be more deaths. There is historical precedent in contract law for contracts to be void *ab initio* on the grounds the subject matter of the contract is a violation of public policy. A vitatical insurance policy is one example. I would not be surprised if in some jurisdictions the bet would not even be enforceable for that reason. Even if the bet would be enforceable today, that’s not a great argument one should engage in it.
Finally, these bets ultimately discourage objective and civil discussion, as evidenced here where the argument isn’t any longer about policy, but about who “won”. I also found it bad form to post the “results” and crow about winning evidently without having first even communicating with the other bettor.
Alan Goldhammer
May 31 2018 at 12:14pm
This is now the third post on this bet. At what point does this discussion become tiresome? Answer, after the first post.
Mike Sandifer
May 31 2018 at 12:30pm
Bryan’s 100% correct. He won this bet.
OA
May 31 2018 at 12:35pm
Vivian Darkbloom –
“As I see it, the bet was fundamentally about the seriousness of the terrorism threat in France and there’s no question Franck was on the right side of how this ugly trend would unfold.”
This is incorrect. As Bryan stated earlier, the point of the bet was to highlight how people are irrationally pessimistic about headline events. Franck must have estimated much more than 500 deaths for him to agree to 500 as a bound. Being off by a factor of 2 is large, especially in this context.
“…(Caplan) got pretty lucky”
By the same token, one could say Franck was lucky – had the perpetrator of the truck attack had a change of heart, flat tire, etc, there would be less deaths.
Vivian Darkbloom
May 31 2018 at 12:55pm
“This is incorrect. As Bryan stated earlier…”
Indeed, predicting 500 deaths was “irrational”, but if one had predicted 231 deaths and 1000 injuries that would clearly have been rational(ly optimistic)! That distinction sounds pretty silly to me and, again, the trend was clearly up in a very bad way (see the Wikipedia site referred to by Caplan). That is *not* incorrect.
I actually don’t agree with you on the distribution of “luck”; however, even if we stipulate that the distribution of “luck” was equal, what would that tell you about the skill of either party, the seemliness of the bet, or the benefits of the practice?
Philo
May 31 2018 at 1:29pm
@ Vivian Darkbloom:
“There is historical precedent in contract law for contracts to be void *ab initio* on the grounds the subject matter of the contract is a violation of public policy. . . . I would not be surprised if in some jurisdictions the bet would not even be enforceable for that reason.” What jurisdictions? I would be surprised if you could find any plausible examples (at least in the developed world).
And is the bet “unseemly” because, “It puts one party in the position perhaps of hoping there will be more deaths”? (“Perhaps”?) That would make Franck’s side of the bet unseemly, not Caplan’s. But it strikes me as strange to object to any bet that something bad will happen, and even if one bets that something good will happen the person taking the other side of the bet will be doing something “unseemly.” To escape your censure people would have to limit their bets to neutral outcomes.
Vivian Darkbloom
May 31 2018 at 1:49pm
Philo,
For example:
https://www.dfs.ny.gov/insurance/ogco2003/rg030601.htm
(“New York has a strong public policy against speculation on the death of individuals.”)
“That would make Franck’s side of the bet unseemly, but not Caplan’s”.
Not as I see it. Franck can’t take the “bet” unless he has a counterparty.
As I see it, there are no “winners” here.
John Smith
May 31 2018 at 2:27pm
Raphael Franck should be severely penalized for the tone and specific wording of his claims alone. He stated extreme confidence, despite them being highly questionable at the very least.
Such unwarranted confidence demonstrates his lack of good faith and conduct. Although this has no bearing on the factual outcome of the bet, it goes to show character. I think Bryan is entirely justified to call him out so sharply.
John Smith
May 31 2018 at 2:27pm
Raphael Franck should be severely penalized for the tone and specific wording of his claims alone. He stated extreme confidence, despite them being highly questionable at the very least.
Such unwarranted confidence demonstrates his lack of good faith and conduct. Although this has no bearing on the factual outcome of the bet, it goes to show character. I think Bryan is entirely justified to call him out so sharply.
Bill Friedman
May 31 2018 at 3:29pm
I’d call the answer ‘unknown’, or possibly ‘unknowable’. ‘Are there at least 500 deaths due to terrorism’ is impossible to determine unless you have a clear definition of ‘deaths due to terrorism,’ and you don’t. Franck can plausibly claim that the official statistics are bad, but he doesn’t have any better statistics himself.
I think you really have to say “question unclear, please try again” instead of “Bryan wins.”
Philo
May 31 2018 at 3:52pm
@ Vivian Darkbloom:
New York irrelevant: Caplan wasn’t betting on the death of an individual.
Bob Murphy
May 31 2018 at 4:07pm
Bryan (if you’re reading these comments),
FYI the link you gave in your original post, when you said no serious person thinks the plane crash was terrorism, showed 3 of the first 4 hits said it WAS terrorism. Two of them were op-ed type pieces where the person was arguing “If this had been a Muslim it would be,” but the first hit was a serious piece.
To be sure, I *agree* with you on the judgment, but you should stop saying everybody agrees with you. Your own link showed that’s not true.
Vivian Darkbloom
May 31 2018 at 4:17pm
@Philo (because I’m sure you are reading these comments— you are surely less important than Bryan and Bob!)
I doubt the public policy as stated in the NY statute would be different based on the fact that one is betting on the life of an individual or multiple individuals. You asked me for an example and I gave you one—within 10 minutes!
Finally, I suspect you and I have different notions of what constitutes the “developed world”.
andy
May 31 2018 at 5:35pm
@Vivian Darkbloom
“I doubt the public policy as stated in the NY statute would be different based on the fact that one is betting on the life of an individual or multiple individuals”
The bet is not on the life of multiple individuals. So in 10 minutes you gave an irrelevant example.
Vivian Darkbloom
May 31 2018 at 6:14pm
Andy,
That’s useful information. I think the public policy of NY is to prohibit killing any person. So, I guess as far as public policy is concerned it should be different if I kill two? « Public policy » refers to general principles.
Mark Bahner
May 31 2018 at 6:57pm
It’s a matter of honor. Bryan considers himself an honorable man. (Don’t we all, except perhaps Rhett Butler?) So it’s important to him to explain why he thinks he’s won, rather than lost, the bet.
P.S. It also seems clear to me that he won the bet. However, I agree with Vivian Darkbloom that if many of the injuries in the Bataclan attack and/or the Nice truck ramming had been fatalities, Bryan would have lost.
Alex
May 31 2018 at 7:52pm
“I do not see much point in asking for a neutral arbitrer. At the end of the day, the neutral arbitrer will have to decide whether terrorism motivated by radical Islam has become a common occurrence in France. For some reason, I have yet to meet someone who is neutral when it comes to the relationship between radical Islam and terrorism.”
If Franck really believed this why would he have made the bet on the first place? Why would anyone bet over something that cannot be objectively determined?
I think that you won.
Patrick
May 31 2018 at 8:15pm
Caplan should not count the bet — the contract/counterparty blew up and no money was received or paid.
If we concretize our thinking by bets, then we want the accounting to reflect what is, and not what should be.
Gustav H.
May 31 2018 at 9:16pm
That hundreds of additional people were injured is irrelevant to the bet. In *general* terrorist attacks injure far many more than they kill, as their crude method of attack doesn’t allow for very high efficiency – for reference over twice as many people (over 6,000) were injured as were killed (~3,000) during the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. To claim that Caplan was “lucky” that the majority of the casualties of the attacks were not deaths is just silly. Over a large enough set of events this “luck” is just an inherent feature of the limited effectiveness of terror attacks. You could also argue that the terrorists were “lucky” to have killed as many people as they did (considering many attacks are foiled or unsuccessful).
Besides, if Franck had felt that incorporating injuries into the calculation was necessary to prove his point, he would have included it in the bet – clearly he didn’t and thought the sheer number of deaths would have sufficed (or did he think those deaths wouldn’t come with several more injuries?). He made a claim as to the precise extent to which terrorist attacks are a threat and was proven wrong.
Further, if he was making some sort of claim to an increasing “trend” in terrorism, it’s difficult to see how an apolitical act of mass murder by a diagnosed psychotic crashing a plane should be made to count under that*. And it certainly doesn’t excuse him trying to weasel in deaths from police as part of riots despite a decade’s worth of large scale riots producing no killings by police.
Suffice it to say I think this bet was ill-defined but the way in which Franck tried to expand the death count is a tad absurd (his justifications certainly were)
* Would American school shootings also count as acts of terrorism, under this definition?
ColoComment
May 31 2018 at 10:00pm
Yes, the bet was poorly written. Who drafted it, you Bryan? Or the other guy? If you go to arbitration, that could be important. Read on…
And saying, “Actually, a neutral arbiter would only have to determine who won according to the literal terms of the bet, using standard English,” begs the question because as we see in these and the comments to prior posts, the meaning of the “literal terms…using standard English” may be hotly debated by non-interested persons.
You should just accept that it was poorly drafted, and because of the ambiguities, neither party has a claim to have “won” the bet.
And if you persist in your claim that an arbiter would find in your favor, you might reconsider: IANAL, but if I recall correctly the rules for construing contracts (and this is a contract) then any ambiguities in a contract are typically construed against the drafter.
I’d appreciate it if any lawyer would correct any errors in my comment.
Chris H
Jun 1 2018 at 12:03am
May I remind all those saying things like “the bet was poorly formulated” or “called this contested” of clause two of the bettor’s oath.
Notice how no one is saying “actually Franck’s numbers are the clearest interpretation”. It’s all “Caplan is obviously right” or “well it’s poorly worded and contested.” Especially with the obviously self-serving attempt to imply generosity by ignoring the meaning of the phrase “in France.” If there was a rash of terrorist actions in French Polynesia, we’d be talking potential confusion (for which I’d say a broad interpretation of France is fair), not if we’re talking Mali. That’s a pretty clear sign this is not a symmetric disagreement. Forcing legalistic contracts because a person is pettily disputing a defeat that costs them so little (I highly doubt either professor would seriously miss $50, and the loss on the bet doesn’t even force a change in overall beliefs or ideology Franck could just talk about tail risks), is imposing extra and unnecessary costs on society.
Norms of good faith improve trust and make all of our lives easier. Therefore those who flagrantly defy those norms by twisting words to absurd definitions and use data that makes little sense on what pretty much amounts to a convenient hunch should be shamed. No offense to lawyers out there, but I think most people would prefer a world where individuals who clearly act in bad faith are shamed rather than hiring one of your profession for every minor agreement (clearly on more serious agreements or in large bureaucracies there’s no getting around it).
Weir
Jun 1 2018 at 2:02am
French police couldn’t stop the massacre at the Bataclan. But let’s suppose they’ve succeeded in preventing a second massacre at some other concert. That’s 130 people who weren’t killed by terrorists on an entirely other night, maybe even at a concert that isn’t on anyone’s calendar yet. It could be a couple years into the future. The kind of counterfactual to wrestle with is a massacre that doesn’t take place in late 2020 because of a guy who gets arrested in early 2018.
If the point is to prevent more Bataclans from happening, then the French police can’t take a lot of comfort from the fact that there was only the one Bataclan massacre. The comfort level of the French police is beside the point. And luck isn’t everything. They have to get up every morning and go to work, and try to convince themselves that there’s a point in showing up and doing the job.
The French police could take the attitude that terrorists don’t kill enough people to count as anything very significant. If the French police saw it as their job to persuade the readers of economics blogs of the advantages of a libertarian immigration policy, then the French police would be very different outfit. They’d be a bit like the French police in a Luis Bunuel film called The Phantom of Liberty. They’d be a bit like the economics department of George Mason University. They wouldn’t be the French police anymore. But they are the French police, so it’s in the job description to prevent terrorism, whether terrorism matters or not.
They’re going to act like terrorism is something to get worked up about even if terrorism is nothing to get worked up about. And they might even argue that they’ve succeeded in preventing terrorists from achieving a higher number of deaths. They might argue that there’s a logical error in pointing to the successes of the French police as an argument for replacing the existing French police with the economics department of George Mason University. The French police have different priorities, and that’s important when the record of the French police is at issue.
What would the metrics look like if the French police had been less bothered by terrorism? Suppose that in 2008 the French police had made the forecast that terrorists wouldn’t kill more than a couple hundred people by the middle of 2018, and therefore it would be a waste of police time to put so much emphasis on preventing terrorism. Wouldn’t that alter the outcome of the forecast? And if so, what is the connection between bet and policy? The outcome of the bet depends on the French police remaining the French police, and the French police do care about whether a given massacre is or isn’t prevented. That’s the job.
Will
Jun 1 2018 at 5:32am
Every definition of terrorism in plain English, official language, or political science explicitly relates the word to political objectives. This is not being pedantic, this is what the word means. Otherwise, every single serial killer or murderer can be defined as a terrorist and the word loses its unique meaning.
The German Wings case obviously fails to meet this criteria.
Also, attributing all police killings to terrorism and riots? Surely some can be attributed to this, but ALL of them. That is obviously generous to the point of being obviously disingenuous.
Some quick googling immediately shows numerous cases where people were killed by the police for reasons unrelated to rioting or terrorism. One would only have to find 12 of such cases to definitively show that the number is under 500.
https://www.ouest-france.fr/ile-de-france/paris-75000/paris-un-homme-tue-par-la-police-apres-avoir-menace-sa-compagne-avec-une-arme-5617706
http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2017/08/24/01016-20170824ARTFIG00092-enquete-ouverte-apres-un-mort-lors-d-une-interpellation-dans-le-loiret.php
https://www.bfmtv.com/police-justice/chinois-tue-par-la-police-pekin-demande-a-paris-de-proteger-ses-ressortissants-1130878.html
Andrew Hofer
Jun 1 2018 at 8:30am
Franck is backing out by taking a very generous interpretation of the language. He is a weasel. It is appropriate to say Caplan won because a) he did by the most reasonable measures of the wager and b) it is pro-social to punish (socially) those who don’t keep their word if a solid reading of the facts justifies it.
Mentioning the former French colonies is weak, but I’ll give Franck half a point for making me laugh out loud.
Franck could pay the bet and make his quibbles, but backing out with utterly lame excuses is reprehensible, IMO. Shame on him.
Maximum Liberty
Jun 1 2018 at 9:18am
In contract law, there is a theory that addresses the core problem (at least in US common law jurisdictions). The idea applies when both parties to a contract believe that they have had a meeting of the minds, but they retrospectively discover that they did not because both of them made a mistake about what the other meant. The classic example is a case where a buyer and seller of goods agreed that the goods would be shipped on the Peerless — but there were two ships of that name and the buyer and seller meant different ships. The court found that no contract was formed.
Here, the parties to the bet did not understand that they had very different ideas of how to count deaths by riot and terrorism. So I would say that no bet was formed — neither side won.
NL7
Jun 1 2018 at 11:48am
Everybody saying the bet was unclear is partly correct, but also misses the fact that all of Bryan’s bets are stripped down and vague. They leave most terms of the bet undefined or explained only implicitly by reference (outside the language of the bet itself) to Bryan’s general betting practices. They are supposed to impromptu rather than rigidly formal.
Though in cases where the bet is on statistics, it would be an easy-ish fix in the future to just name a statistical agency that reports the numbers at issue. If the agency changes its statistical model, each party can declare whether this changes the bet and then propose alternative authorities. Or maybe multiple agencies, like a government agency, a news agency, and a political agency. If 2 of 3 agree on the bet threshold, then that bettor wins the bet.
Trying to just claim without evidence that nearly all police homicides are riot-related is bad faith. It’s reasonable to mark this one as a Caplan win, unless Franck has something more substantial to say on his own behalf. His unwillingness to go to any sort of informal arbitration is telling. Trying to claim Africa is France is beyond bad faith, that’s just insulting.
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Jun 4 2018 at 4:08pm
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