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Deadweight Loss as a Service

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Re: Deadweight Loss as a Service

#4
post #2

I know this is satire, but this is effectively how lobbying in America is really done.

I didn’t even catch it was satire. I was like “that sounds like a funny bedroom project rather than an 8million funding startup.

I don’t know if that makes me gullible or the world I live in crazy.

Re: Deadweight Loss as a Service

#5
I believe you may have something with Anti-dollar. Joking aside, there’s almost always a company on the other side of the coin. Boycotting or otherwise public outcry’s and cancel culture would look a whole lot different if it were a value-based voting platform where competing interests vie for the value. Add reporting for government agencies on what’s “hot” and it sends a clear picture on what the national sentiment is.

Re: Deadweight Loss as a Service

#6
Despite being satire, I think that could work in the US. It plays off the my team / their team dynamic and sends some fraction of the donated money onwards. Very like an inefficiently run fundraising organisation. There's an outside chance of the setup making a loss for the organisers but only if a pair is very unevenly matched (and that's fixable by letting the 'onmimatch' run down to 0%). I'm not even sure it qualifies as fraudulent.

Re: Deadweight Loss as a Service

#7
Reminds me of antistocks [1]:

"We sell antistocks.”

“Antistocks? Is that like . . . shorting a stock?”

“Shorting is barbaric. Think how nice and simple going long is. And then with shorting you have to borrow from some specific person for some specific amount of time, and deal with margin calls and short squeezes and all that garbage. We asked ourselves - how can we make shorting as simple as going long? Antistocks are the answer. A Tesla antistock is a certificate which obligates you to pay us the value of a Tesla stock dividend each year.”

“Why would anyone ever buy that?”

“They don’t! We pay them X dollars to take it! Then when Tesla goes down, they pay someone else less than X dollars to take it from them, and keep the profit.”

“What if they don’t pay the reverse dividend?”

“I mean, that’s the counterparty risk you take with everything, isn’t it? Home loans, car loans, credit default swaps. If it helps, we’re limiting the product to accredited investors, so they can’t, like, pay a homeless guy $1 to take it off their hands.”

“And you think people will prefer this to just shorting Tesla the normal way?”

“It’s not just about shorting Tesla. This is the beginning of a whole new antifinance revolution. Lots of people want to invest in SpaceX, but they can’t, because Elon Musk selfishly refuses to go public. No one else can get around that. But we can! We print a million shares of synthetic SpaceX stock and a million shares of antistock, each antistock share requires you to pay one one-millionth of SpaceX’s yearly profits to the holder of one stock share. Or, you know how millions of ordinary people can’t afford homeownership anymore because Blackrock keeps buying up all the homes as investment properties? We just print a million synthetic houses and a million antihouses, where the antihouse owners have to pay the average rent in a certain area to the synthetic house owners each month. Blackrock gets to invest in real estate without having to worry about all those boring contingent things like mold or termites, and we can leave the real physical houses for ordinary families.”

“Sorry, but this sounds like a terrible idea.”

“I’m glad you think so! Would you like to be a seed anti-investor in our startup? If you’re right, then our antistock prices will never be this high again!”

[1]: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/even-more-bay-area-house-pa...

Re: Deadweight Loss as a Service

#8

I believe you may have something with Anti-dollar. Joking aside, there’s almost always a company on the other side of the coin. Boycotting or otherwise public outcry’s and cancel culture would look a whole lot different if it were a value-based voting platform where competing interests vie for the value. Add reporting for government agencies on what’s “hot” and it sends a clear picture on what the national sentiment…

I know this is a joke, too, but I worry that you aren't seeing the joke if you think there is something here. This is a setup to take in dollars from everyone and arbitrage the sentiment difference across the userbase, effectively meaning they don't have to pay anything and just take the dollars home. That's the joke. And anyone who actually would put in dollars are who the joke would be being played upon were it real.

Re: Deadweight Loss as a Service

#9

I believe you may have something with Anti-dollar. Joking aside, there’s almost always a company on the other side of the coin. Boycotting or otherwise public outcry’s and cancel culture would look a whole lot different if it were a value-based voting platform where competing interests vie for the value. Add reporting for government agencies on what’s “hot” and it sends a clear picture on what the national sentiment…

I know this is a joke, too, but I worry that you aren't seeing the joke if you think there is something here. This is a setup to take in dollars from everyone and arbitrage the sentiment difference across the userbase, effectively meaning they don't have to pay anything and just take the dollars home. That's the joke. And anyone who actually would put in dollars are who the joke would be being played upon were it rea…

Yeah but imagine if there was something like this for real, only the dollars weren't greedily kept, but spent in some way that people on both sides support. Like, maybe pro-choice and anti-abortion supporters would both support the excess money going to support new mothers or adoption programs.

Re: Deadweight Loss as a Service

#10

I believe you may have something with Anti-dollar. Joking aside, there’s almost always a company on the other side of the coin. Boycotting or otherwise public outcry’s and cancel culture would look a whole lot different if it were a value-based voting platform where competing interests vie for the value. Add reporting for government agencies on what’s “hot” and it sends a clear picture on what the national sentiment…

I know this is a joke, too, but I worry that you aren't seeing the joke if you think there is something here. This is a setup to take in dollars from everyone and arbitrage the sentiment difference across the userbase, effectively meaning they don't have to pay anything and just take the dollars home. That's the joke. And anyone who actually would put in dollars are who the joke would be being played upon were it rea…

I know but I was referring to just the concept of dollar vs anti-dollar. Not the payout or anything but just the idea that companies get X dollars where X is the sum of users who voted for them. Let the people decide.

The reality is humans will find a way to make this corrupt.

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