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Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

timesofisrael.com

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Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#921

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't know what your point is. The best I can come up with is: "The whole point of sports (in my opinion) is X good thing therefore betting on sports is more acceptable" Making bets on good things doesn't make the betting better. Just because Polymarket would allow you to bet money that the infant homicide rate goes down next year, doesn't mean it's a good thing to allow betting on.

His point is pretty simple. Sports don't inherently involve life or death, the whole point is that it's a competition that "respects each other's humanity", eg not a competition to the death. The same can't be said for war (bombings), which Polymarket allows betting on. Seems like a fundamental difference to me.

> Seems like a fundamental difference to me.

one is more culturally taboo than the other, but they are fundamentally the same activity

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#922
post #867
post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been suggested that QI’s approach is insufficiently critical of Russia. https://quincyinst.org/2022/07/12/quincy-institutes-position...

Followed by the sentence "A cursory search of our writings and our website shows this to be false." Would you honestly genuinely describe this as "a thoroughly pro-Russian think tank"? Dishonesty

It is clear that the opinion it's pro-Russian is widespread enough they need to make advance disclaimers. You wanted "a single example backing up the claim", you got one - from the horse's mouth.

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#923
post #908

As someone generally against gambling, I think there's a fair point to be made that Polymarket and similar sites are not fundamentally different from e.g. sports betting. The issue of bribing/threatening a sports player to throw a game has existed for over a century. It's not a new problem. The only thing special about Polymarket is the expansion of surface area. My preferred solution would be to just ban it all, or…

Ban it on which grounds? I have never in my life placed a sport bet, nor a polymarket bet. It strikes me as one of the dumbest things to do with your money and time. But a lot of people seem to genuinely enjoy it. Gambling is part of human heritage. Regulate? Sure! Ban? I don't understand why

I generally share the same perspective but the article provides a good rationale for doing otherwise.

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#924
I am not surprised that this happened. This is the logical conclusion of betting. Like in Muay Thai competitions, some efficient attacks are underutilized because they give the performer fewer points, which can be bad for the people betting on them. And their funding comes from the betting, so they change the sport to match what the gamblers want.

You can't introduce gambling into a system without changing other parts of the system.

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#925
post #828

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone on HN suggested that prediction markets would be interesting if only politicians were allowed to participate. For example, politician says that this bill will make the economy better (insert tangible metric here). Well Mr politician, put your money where your mouth is. If you indeed believe this is best for your constituents, bet on it, and if you're right, you'll reap the benefits of your legislation. If not…

I do find that to be a fun thought experiment, but HN doesn't seem to agree. How would you know it was caused by that bill? Maybe politicians should just be paid based on something we want to incentivize, like lower quartile wages.

I'm curious how you know HN doesn't seem to agree!

But I think your idea is probably a better idea than betting.

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#926
post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent job criticizing the content of my comment. I see you’ve decided to use the strategy of an ad hominem attack. This is a really great classic one! I applaud your efforts. Since it’s too hard to refute the substance of my comment you can just point out how I’m some crazy person. If you’re open to it I invite you to pick just one point I made and see if you can find some kind of logical flaw in my reasoning.

Can you name anything about this news story that couldn't have happened in a non-Israeli context? Or does the Israel angle just draw you in like a moth to a flame, until it's the only word in the whole article you can really read? And to GP's point: Can you point to one paragraph in your original post that does not cry out that you need to log off? I sure can't.

Imagine it’s the Vietnam war, and there’s an American reporter reporting on missiles/bombs hitting South Vietnam.

The Viet Cong disputes the reporting and furthermore publishes death threats against the American journalist.

Of course, this is a logical response from your enemy combatant, who isn’t going to be in the habit of agreeing with you. The American journalist should expect it.

Furthermore, American armed forces obviously shouldn’t be attacking North Vietnam in the first place. Anyone who is even halfway educated already knows that it’s an unjustified war. This proxy war is taking place among global superpowers and the primary victims are the local people.

I don’t know what’s so hard to understand about this: Israel/USA started the current war in Iran. This is established fact and I don’t even think the US government disputes it.

The only difference with today’s war is that Israel is within missile range of Iran, which is why I said if I was an Israeli citizen I’d be rip roaring mad at my government for being incompetent. Netanyahu isn’t seen as a bumbling fool like Trump but he actually is. Remember that before he was elected he was seen as an extreme candidate. He is escalating war in his region which directly threatens his own people, and it has been largely unnecessary with nothing to gain. I seem to recall the genocide in Gaza being a military campaign that his own generals advised against.

A journalist on the side of the aggressor is whining about getting death threats and reporting it to his local beat cops like it’s a lost puppy. Welcome to the war your country started. Wars tend to involve death threats.

I don’t know what you mean by “log off,” you mean bury my head in the sand and stop following current events? Or turn off my brain and accept the point of view coming from AIPAC, a lobbying organization that spends tens of millions of dollars supporting political candidates in my state.

These are major news stories that I would know about just by tuning in to any news network. I assure you I’m not chronically online. This is my only social media account. No Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok.

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#927

As someone generally against gambling, I think there's a fair point to be made that Polymarket and similar sites are not fundamentally different from e.g. sports betting. The issue of bribing/threatening a sports player to throw a game has existed for over a century. It's not a new problem. The only thing special about Polymarket is the expansion of surface area. My preferred solution would be to just ban it all, or…

The Good Work channel on YouTube did a really good video on this topic recently- https://youtu.be/mOptJl8Xkx0?si=4jyNnXweXp7V9VkM

In a nutshell, these platforms operate by classifying their bets as 'futures contracts' with 'meaningful real world economic consequences' rather than traditional gambling, allowing them to be regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) rather than stricter state gambling laws.

It's going to take strong push from lawmakers to close the loophole, and even stronger push from the platforms to stop anything meaningful being done.

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#928

As someone generally against gambling, I think there's a fair point to be made that Polymarket and similar sites are not fundamentally different from e.g. sports betting. The issue of bribing/threatening a sports player to throw a game has existed for over a century. It's not a new problem. The only thing special about Polymarket is the expansion of surface area. My preferred solution would be to just ban it all, or…

I think there is a fundamental difference between betting on a sports event and on a war.

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#929
post #908

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ban it on which grounds? I have never in my life placed a sport bet, nor a polymarket bet. It strikes me as one of the dumbest things to do with your money and time. But a lot of people seem to genuinely enjoy it. Gambling is part of human heritage. Regulate? Sure! Ban? I don't understand why

I generally share the same perspective but the article provides a good rationale for doing otherwise.

I do not think so. We can hold these people accountable otherwise, there are laws for that already.

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#930
post #908

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ban it on which grounds? I have never in my life placed a sport bet, nor a polymarket bet. It strikes me as one of the dumbest things to do with your money and time. But a lot of people seem to genuinely enjoy it. Gambling is part of human heritage. Regulate? Sure! Ban? I don't understand why

> Ban? I don't understand why Many things that people enjoy are banned because it causes harm to other individuals or to society as a whole. Not a difficult concept to understand.

That's why I was asking for a rationale. The devil is in the details. Otherwise motorcycling will be next, alcohol, excessive gaming, etc. etc.
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