I don’t know mate. Seems like the last bastions of Western Civilization are porn, gambling and conspiracy theories. None of this sounds particularly effortful.
A large swath of American society today sees a movie like Scarface as an inspirational biopic, not a modern Shakespearean tragedy.
Lots of especially younger people see unbridled ambition and rule-breaking as a virtue. Everything is about making money and if you're not the one getting it, or worse, you're the person being victimized, you're dumb and weak.
I dont know if I would blame young people as much. Those are values of the generation before them. Literally represented by over 40 years old like Vance, Musk and well, the whole conservative establishement.
Young people are more open in expressing it (like with Tate), but underlying ideas are not new.
Being enterprising has always been a virtue in the US, but historically, there have been limits to how far you would go to make a buck, and people that pushed past those limits would be scorned by the majority. So at the very least, people tried to pretend that they were honest and did "good business" even when they were shysters.
I'd argue it's different today. Social media in particular has convinced a whole generation of people that if you don't have a garage full of supercars by the age of 23, you're a loser, and that there's almost no activity too shameful to engage in publicly in pursuit of wealth.
Well "Consumer Reports" already has its niche in product comparisons. As the name implies consumers are supposed to get the most out of their ratings.
How about "Producer Reports" where companies are evaluated on whether they actually produce anything of value first and foremost as a benchmark.
Completely separate from the financial data which is already well-covered elsewhere. Investors are already supposed to get the most out of the money angle.
But for any one product most people are neither consumers of the product nor investors in the company.
These are the vast majority who would benefit from better information on whether a company is worth having around, for everyone in general who is not an avid consumer nor investor.
That would probably be more helpful for "innocent bystanders" who want to better avoid being assimilated by forces they have no interest in but could end up quite costly anyway.
There is no easy way, as a society, to "label" certain wealth as obtained with illicit or unethical activities.
It would be... interesting? (and dangerous?) to be able to meet someone at a party, and have a notification such as "this dude earned a billion dollar by scamming people".
"At one point, the processor rejected as fraudulent more than 80% of the deposits it was handling, a rate that far exceeded industry standards of roughly 1%. Polymarket employees quickly raised their concerns with Chief Executive Shayne Coplan, according to people familiar with the events.
The compliance team, those people recalled, was floored by Coplan’s response: Just keep growing and pay a fine if regulators ever find out."
At what point are you a casino and at what point are you just a utility for money laundering, insider betting, scams & fraud?
the onchain version of polymarket seems better in this regard, but they should really address the UMA oracle gang and have some kind of appointment process for separate oracle systems
so both polymarket onchain and polymarket us have major issues, but separate issues
I do wonder why, like clockwork, there’s an article against prediction markets. I do wonder if the problem with them is that it creates an incentive to share the truth, or for very smart people to predict it, and for others to use the predictions as a valuable reference point. It would be interesting to track what is shared and how often to see if there are some patterns
> I do wonder if the problem with them is that it creates an incentive to share the truth, or for very smart people to predict it....
You missed the obvious one: it creates a path for people with insider knowledge to monetize it at the expense of employers, institutions, etc.
The guy using his access to classified information to make a few hundred thousand bucks in a day is not interested in "sharing the truth" for the benefit of society.
When I saw Ratsphere types pushing these kinds of markets years ago getting insider information was the primary selling point.
It’s not inherently stupid - I’d much rather that some lowly analyst sell out an impending stock hit for a few grand than well-positioned insiders soak the market for 10,000x that. There’s obvious moral hazards, though.
Right, and I'd also like to preempt any apologetics trying to cloak it as socially-beneficial "information discovery."
Many of these betting/insider-trading scenarios are structured so that the information only becomes revealed at the same moment it becomes worthless. (In some cases, that's just a return to its default state.) Like the value of knowing the winning numbers from an expired lotto draw.
Polymarket has fraudsters operating on it?! Good heavens, this is entirely unexpected!!
A bit lazy take, don't you think?
I don’t know mate. Seems like the last bastions of Western Civilization are porn, gambling and conspiracy theories. None of this sounds particularly effortful.
Yeah, our world is collapsing, but could we at least make good jokes about it?
The fraudster betting website has fraudsters. What a surprise
I wish we, as a society, would label companies which cause more harm than good as such.
A large swath of American society today sees a movie like Scarface as an inspirational biopic, not a modern Shakespearean tragedy.
Lots of especially younger people see unbridled ambition and rule-breaking as a virtue. Everything is about making money and if you're not the one getting it, or worse, you're the person being victimized, you're dumb and weak.
I dont know if I would blame young people as much. Those are values of the generation before them. Literally represented by over 40 years old like Vance, Musk and well, the whole conservative establishement.
Young people are more open in expressing it (like with Tate), but underlying ideas are not new.
isn't that what society rewards though? everyone is supposed to be an entrepreneur and have a side hustle
Being enterprising has always been a virtue in the US, but historically, there have been limits to how far you would go to make a buck, and people that pushed past those limits would be scorned by the majority. So at the very least, people tried to pretend that they were honest and did "good business" even when they were shysters.
I'd argue it's different today. Social media in particular has convinced a whole generation of people that if you don't have a garage full of supercars by the age of 23, you're a loser, and that there's almost no activity too shameful to engage in publicly in pursuit of wealth.
‘It’s different today.’ Buddy, the Me Decade was 50 years ago.
That's exactly the problem. Any ideal/virtue can be violated as long as they are getting that bag.
Well "Consumer Reports" already has its niche in product comparisons. As the name implies consumers are supposed to get the most out of their ratings.
How about "Producer Reports" where companies are evaluated on whether they actually produce anything of value first and foremost as a benchmark.
Completely separate from the financial data which is already well-covered elsewhere. Investors are already supposed to get the most out of the money angle.
But for any one product most people are neither consumers of the product nor investors in the company.
These are the vast majority who would benefit from better information on whether a company is worth having around, for everyone in general who is not an avid consumer nor investor.
That would probably be more helpful for "innocent bystanders" who want to better avoid being assimilated by forces they have no interest in but could end up quite costly anyway.
There is no easy way, as a society, to "label" certain wealth as obtained with illicit or unethical activities.
It would be... interesting? (and dangerous?) to be able to meet someone at a party, and have a notification such as "this dude earned a billion dollar by scamming people".
https://www.wsj.com/business/polymarkets-fraud-regulators-co...
Thanks. These paragraphs are pretty damning:
"At one point, the processor rejected as fraudulent more than 80% of the deposits it was handling, a rate that far exceeded industry standards of roughly 1%. Polymarket employees quickly raised their concerns with Chief Executive Shayne Coplan, according to people familiar with the events.
The compliance team, those people recalled, was floored by Coplan’s response: Just keep growing and pay a fine if regulators ever find out."
At what point are you a casino and at what point are you just a utility for money laundering, insider betting, scams & fraud?
would certainly be interesting to know if he does risk assessment under the table.
Gain wealth, forgetting all but self
the onchain version of polymarket seems better in this regard, but they should really address the UMA oracle gang and have some kind of appointment process for separate oracle systems
so both polymarket onchain and polymarket us have major issues, but separate issues
I do wonder why, like clockwork, there’s an article against prediction markets. I do wonder if the problem with them is that it creates an incentive to share the truth, or for very smart people to predict it, and for others to use the predictions as a valuable reference point. It would be interesting to track what is shared and how often to see if there are some patterns
It’s a good thing writing about money laundering and gambling addiction, no? Smart people are only smart until they aren’t.
> I do wonder if the problem with them is that it creates an incentive to share the truth, or for very smart people to predict it....
You missed the obvious one: it creates a path for people with insider knowledge to monetize it at the expense of employers, institutions, etc.
The guy using his access to classified information to make a few hundred thousand bucks in a day is not interested in "sharing the truth" for the benefit of society.
When I saw Ratsphere types pushing these kinds of markets years ago getting insider information was the primary selling point.
It’s not inherently stupid - I’d much rather that some lowly analyst sell out an impending stock hit for a few grand than well-positioned insiders soak the market for 10,000x that. There’s obvious moral hazards, though.
> monetize it at the expense of
Right, and I'd also like to preempt any apologetics trying to cloak it as socially-beneficial "information discovery."
Many of these betting/insider-trading scenarios are structured so that the information only becomes revealed at the same moment it becomes worthless. (In some cases, that's just a return to its default state.) Like the value of knowing the winning numbers from an expired lotto draw.
They dont share the truth. People betting there are not "smart" they are gamblers and suckers. And theit guesses are not a valuable prediction points.
Keep drinking that sweet sweet polymarket kool aid