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War prediction markets are a national-security threat

theatlantic.com

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Re: War prediction markets are a national-security threat

#111

Post by whycome »

abustamam wrote: post #78

For whatever it's worth, Kalshi refused to pay out on the bet because Khomenei died, and they refuse to allow people to profit off of death so they returned everyone's bets. https://xcancel.com/mansourtarek_/status/2029996077554815268 While I think this policy removes one avenue of incentivizing death of real people (many bets involving real people can probably be resolved by some sort of assassination attempt), I ho…

I always thought that "Gray's Sports Almanac" in Back to the Future 2 would quickly become useless as all sorts of factors after large public bets would cause events to change and sports scores just wouldn't line up anymore.

Re: War prediction markets are a national-security threat

#113

Post by mattmaroon »

Can’t read much beyond the beginning, so forgive me if it mentions this and I missed it, but I have no inside information and was looking into placing the exact same bet. I was a little too slow to do it unfortunately for me.

I always thought we were going to strike. We very publicly moved a lot of military assets into the region. Trump had issued a red line about Iran killing protesters, and then they killed protesters, and we all remember how he and everyone else harped on Obama for not following up on his own red line in Syria when they used chemical weapons on their own people.

And most importantly, a few days before it happened, he said he wasn’t happy with the progress of talks. That was when I started figuring out how to get money into polymarket.

All of this was the exact same as the buildup to Venezuela. The only thing shocking is how low the odds were on the market.

While I agree with the thesis, they chose the weakest possible example.

Re: War prediction markets are a national-security threat

#114

Post by thinking_cactus »

Footnote7341 wrote: post #5

Isnt this silly when you can calculate the chance of war in Iran by oil futures instead. Prediction markets are just explicit markers of information that is already being traded on in 100 different ways.

I agree in some ways.

Like, I think in a way it's just not viable to patch every little loophole a corrupt or morally bankrupt administration could exploit and all damage it could cause, and probably not without making the administration itself useless. It's a still a good idea to patch as much as feasible, in part to if slightly discourage the worse from seeking power in the first place. But in a way, it's garbage in, garbage out. Laws will never be able to magically turn corrupt and misguided decisions into ever good ones. The robust solution is promoting wisdom, ethics, civility and education, so people make good democratic choices for themselves and others.

Re: War prediction markets are a national-security threat

#116

Post by [deleted] »

pstuart wrote: post #74
mullingitover wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s bad enough the politicians lied when they campaigned on no more wars in the Middle East, they don’t need to insult our intelligence with these moronic cover stories. If they didn’t want Israel dragging the US into wars they could’ve just placed a call to Iran to warn them.

We live in a post truth age, unfortunately. Many citizens are happy to only hew to the truth that they want, versus the "real" truth. (note the quotes -- truth is tricky). There's a bitter irony in this issue -- toppling the regime in Iran would be a wonderful thing, but doing so via bombs is not the way. We have Afghanistan and Iraq as very dear lessons in how not to do it.

[deleted]

Re: War prediction markets are a national-security threat

#117

Post by beyondCritics »

beyondCritics wrote: post #72

Statistical clueless amateurs found something they did not like, but of course were unable to convert their suspicions into something sound. They do not even think about it. Nevertheless a big sensation was anounced. I am tired of this.

In order to demonstrate something exceptional, you have to establish a baseline. This baseline is called the "null hypothesis" in classical testing.

Re: War prediction markets are a national-security threat

#119

Post by Paracompact »

abustamam wrote: post #78

For whatever it's worth, Kalshi refused to pay out on the bet because Khomenei died, and they refuse to allow people to profit off of death so they returned everyone's bets. https://xcancel.com/mansourtarek_/status/2029996077554815268 While I think this policy removes one avenue of incentivizing death of real people (many bets involving real people can probably be resolved by some sort of assassination attempt), I ho…

I'm unfamiliar with Kalshi's ethics. Would they have paid out if only non-famous human beings died in the ousting?

Re: War prediction markets are a national-security threat

#120

Post by gos9 »

amelius wrote: post #9
Footnote7341 wrote: post #5

Isnt this silly when you can calculate the chance of war in Iran by oil futures instead. Prediction markets are just explicit markers of information that is already being traded on in 100 different ways.

Yeah we should ban derivatives too.

Who’s “we”?

You or I certainly don’t have a say in this

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