[flagged]
Did you actually mean libertine or libertarian? I'm extremely confused.
Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story
811–820 of 1001 posts
Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story
#812Earlier quoted context omitted.
Delphi markets feature prominently in Shockwave Rider by John Brunner. It's an important book, and Brunner is amazing if you've never read him before. He's actually one of my metrics for judging used book stores. Sci-fi has Brunner, politics has Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, nonfiction has someone's old annotated copy of G.E.B.
Look everyone, this person believes talking Tortoises are real! In all seriousness, I love G.E.B. how do you use it to judge a given used book store?
In my experience book stores either have multiple copies or zero copies.
Robertson Davies is another bellwether author I should mention.
Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story
#813Earlier quoted context omitted.
People have been threatened with murder (and I wouldn't be surprised if some people have actually been murdered) over shorting stocks. Yet no one is talking about "stock market apologists". I don't think Polymarket is actually introducing any novel risks or failure modes here. Functionally shorting a stock is not much different than a Polymarket prediction. People trading on oil futures may not be explicitly betting…
> Functionally shorting a stock is not much different than a Polymarket prediction. But can you short a stock if you are a director at that company? The problem people have with betting markets isn’t that you can bet on an event. It’s that the event’s outcome might be shaped by the same people (or friends of the people) who actually shape the event. This is why there are so many articles speculating who bets on Trump…
In many companies this is not allowed.
Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story
#814Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story
#815I don’t understand how this isn’t an immediate open and shut case for the police, assuming certain facts are verified independently. At the point that you’re making death threats to strangers you should be removed from civil society.
US cops don't care about solving crimes or making people safe, they only care about making a profit. And harassing random motorists on the side of the road is way easier and safer profits than trying to deal with real crime involving people with money that can afford their own lawyers to fight back.
US cops? It's Israel.
Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story
#816Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Are you gonna tell me residents in Tel Aviv will be able to hedge their chances of surviving tomorrow? Yes, of course! If you had some advance warning your home town was likely to be struck with missiles soon, are you seriously saying you can't think of a single thing you could do to prepare? I would, at a minimum, make sure I was stocked up on first aid supplies, water, and food that I could eat without needing po…
And don't you see the other part of the medal? That there are economical incentives to make it happen just to make money? Such events have little-to-no "wisdom of the crowds" those events decided by a handful of people. And their consequences catastrophic. What if there was a derivative for whether you will be hit by a car tomorrow? What would you say if there was a contract on whether your county will burst in flame…
Ballistic missiles are pretty expensive. You'd have to bid a lot of money for it to be worthwhile to shoot them at a country just to make money on Polymarket.
If there was a prediction market for whether I'll be hit by a car tomorrow, and it was lucrative enough that it would actually be worth anyone's time to deliberately hit me with a car, I'd stay home and bid on "no". Pretty sure I'd make more than enough to cover the cost of ordering pizza.
There are already perverse incentives to commit arson, like insurance. And it's entirely possible that prediction markets can make insurance even more cost-effective.
Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story
#817Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story
#818It seems like the easy solution is for polymarket to just unwind the transaction and give everyone their money back, no harm no foul.
That would mean the people who did the death threats get their money back.
Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story
#819[flagged]
Inventing Assassination Markets in 2026, not bad.
Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story
#820At some point betting markets are going to become a form of market where people are effectively posting bounties. You bet 1,000,000 for someone to murder a public official then someone gets in on the action and hires a hitman to do the job.