"You know how it's usually quite difficult to guess what stock markets would do, because if you knew what they would do on any routine basis, you could make a trillion dollars?  But lots of people would like to have a trillion dollars, so almost-everywhere the stock market already reflects all knowledge contained in people who would like to make money?  We did that for all the important questions that could be settled at any point in the future, using markets that pay out to whoever was right.  So Civilization knows everything about the probabilities over any important question that can be definitely settled later, that any member of Civilization knows now.  A lot of important issues are subjective or complicated, of course, and in that case Civilization only knows what preselected judge panels or random survey respondents will say in a few years."

"You know how it's usually quite difficult to guess what stock markets would do, because if you knew what they would do on any routine basis, you could make a trillion dollars?  But lots of people would like to have a trillion dollars, so almost-everywhere the stock market already reflects all knowledge contained in people who would like to make money?  We did that for all the important questions that could be settled at any point in the future, using markets that pay out to whoever was right.  So Civilization knows everything about the probabilities over any important question that can be definitely settled later, that any member of Civilization knows now.  A lot of important issues are subjective, of course, and in that case Civilization only knows what preselected judge panels or random survey respondents will say in a few years."