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Ah yes historical events, the famously reliable predictor of future events until they aren’t.

Perhaps you haven't heard. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Please Explain how a last minute insider info bet helps the public in any way or fashion aside from fleecing fools of their money?

Nobody is forcing anybody to place the bets, but if you see credible money flows into eg. Middle East cease fire bets, you can decide to fill up your tank today, or not. We can’t think for you here, if you don’t see anything useful in the price then it’s time to educate yourself until you do. You should consider these bets more trustworthy than any news you read in mainstream media. There might even be a way to fund journalism here, though ethics are quite muddy indeed.

And what makes you believe that those (basically) peanuts that get bet are the real indicators?

The insiders might as well run a backroom prediction market and just manipulate the public market.

And even with bigger sums: you never know if it isn't just a variant of the shell game. There are no real signals.


It's a fallacy to think all insiders are big players. Small fish want a piece, too, and are not constrained in the same ways the big ones are.

How does making a wager cause insider info to be public? All it means is an anonymous account placed money on the outcome, how does it make public anything that an insider knows? It doesn’t.

It incentives them to keep the info secret in order to profit or a wager on a related outcome. The insider info remains secret, all people know is some bloke stood up a new account and placed a big bet.

And for these short timespan bets, it seems utterly useless. If the wagers were only allowed on things two weeks out, and not allow bets on short term events then maybe it could show more info.


The price movement is the indicator that there is insider information.

Of course there are lots of problems with this theory - in large markets a single trader has to make large bets to move the market, and with the current leadership the price moves large amounts unpredictably as well based on the latest statements.

But the mechanism itself makes sense.

It's unclear if that's a good thing. Of course some people know secret information before hand. Is disclosing that always good?


Another problem is, people may actually want to bet on random outcomes, because of money laundering or simply because this is how gambling essentially works. That huge account could be an insider or a billionaire with a few hundreds k to burn. Or maybe they want to orient people’s opinions towards a certain outcome.

Claiming that price movement in a prediction market reveals some amount of truth implicitly assumes that:

- people bet on something they believe to be true, and not to sway other people’s opinions or simply to burn money,

- people bet on something they believe to be true because they have specific private information (e.g. I bet on the Red Sox not because I think they’re good but because I know things other don’t about their opponents, their physical conditions and so on).

- their belief is actually correct (eg if I’m in the CIA and I know that the Soviets are about to launch a nuclear missile I can bet on it… but I don’t know that an officer down the line will refuse to do that).

Even if this was true, there is an issue of timing and consequences. Example: imagine it’s 2011 and some CIA or DoD officer makes huge, sudden bets on the fact that Bin Laden will be caught. Some AQ people get wind of this and move Bin Laden somewhere else. Congrats, your price movement signaled non public information to the market!

Another issue is that these bets tend to rely on public sources, news reports and so on. A journalist in Israel was threatened to change his news reports so that certain people didn’t have to lose on a prediction market. This could become more and more common, and with the advent of AI generated pictures who are you going to believe? Are you losing money because you bet on the wrong outcome or simply because someone with enough resources ensured that your outcome was never going to be reported?


> Congrats, your price movement signaled non public information to the market!

so from bin laden's perspective, this would've been a good outcome isnt it?

Can't say what a good outcome is without saying who.

What if enemies of the USA had corrupt generals who also make bets on anti-US actions to profit personally, and inadvertently reveal information to the CIA/NSA, who then prevent such anti-US actions? Would that not have been a good outcome as well?

Information is information - and one cannot say if it's good or not. However, i am a believer that more information generally do good than bad - assuming the consumer of said information is smart.

> Are you losing money because you bet on the wrong outcome ...

It doesnt matter, because you chose to bet. You do not need to bet in order to make use of the information being revealed by those who are betting.


>so from bin laden's perspective, this would've been a good outcome isnt it?

Of course

> Information is information - and one cannot say if it's good or not. However, i am a believer that more information generally do good than bad - assuming the consumer of said information is smart

Smart doesn’t always equal good. The consumer can be smart and use the information to benefit themselves (and possibly harming others), but this doesn’t necessarily justify releasing information. In fact, even Snowden, who famously released a lot of information, didn’t release everything. He applied his judgment and avoided publishing some stuff. Was his judgment correct? I don’t know. The question is - at some point, is information release always neutral?

> Are you losing money because you bet on the wrong outcome ... It doesnt matter, because you chose to bet. You do not need to bet in order to make use of the information being revealed by those who are betting.

What I’m saying is, if I bet on event X and X happens, I would expect to be paid. Instead I may not get paid simply because someone else who bet against X has the power to suppress any proof of X happening (via threats, money,…). This doesn’t happen with regular sport bets because sport events inherently have a lot of witnesses (physically present at the place where things are happening), there are referees, the teams themselves advertise the results, there is a professional league keeping scores and so on. If you bet on someone getting killed abroad by some military abroad, or military skirmish happening in a remote place, or other plausible but hard to verify event, faking something with AI or a friendly reporter is easier. And because people use cryptocurrencies in this platform, how can you prove active manipulation vs bona fide in some video some reporter published? “Hey, I just saw this video, who knew it was wrong?”.

The argument that you can lose money simply because it’s a bet, even when you should have won, is not convincing. Ok, I can lose but if I win shouldn’t I get the money?


“indicator that there is insider information.”

But that’s not the claim people bandy about on the gambling markets.

They claim it incentives sharing of info, but what you’re saying is it’s only sharing meta info. That the info remains secret and the wagers reveal that it’s possible insider info exists - not what the info is.

Honestly, this has all the same smell as NFT justifications. I’d be suprised if the main touts of prediction markets weren’t previously touting NFTs and “smart” contracts. Actually, it even seems like the markets are inspired by those.


Wrong. While I agree about younger people’s impression and experience with apps and the internet, that is not what companies are responding to - in fact it’s backward.

Companies have for ages pushed apps due to more control and data. That’s why younger folk grew up with apps.

The push to apps was absolutely not due to companies responding to consumer sentiment. Yes now it has been ingrained so now there are expectations, but those are due to companies pushing people to apps for years and years


Apps generally have a lot more access to the user info than Web sites. I remember getting into an argument, here (one-sided, I didn't argue then, and I won't now), about how a Web site is just as intrusive and privacy-endangering as an app (I think they wrote PWAs, and didn't want to cede the point to native apps). I feel they were wrong. Apps can get more information than web sites; even with sandboxing.

In my experience, apps can figure out a lot more about the user, than a Web site.

I just reported a game to Apple, that, after the app has been resident for 24 hours, pops up an unescapable modal to sign into their Web site. I am sure the 24-hour delay, is so they don't get caught by the App Store folks. I suspect that what happens, during this "daily checkin," is that the app sends a bunch of encrypted data that it got from your device, to the servers in China.

Basically, they can learn more about you from the app, than from the Web site.

I generally avoid apps, where the Web site will do. I won't install banking apps, at all.


I suspect that what happens, during this "daily checkin," is that the app sends a bunch of encrypted data that it got from your device, to the servers in China.

What information do you think they got from your device other than what you gave them permission to have? If you actually have any info on how apps can break Apple's sandbox to leak your personal info, you should share it.


Yeah, it's OK. I said that I wouldn't argue, and I'm sticking to that.

Have a great day!


Just thought I'd help you understand how this works so you don't spread misinformation, but you too!

This remark is overly condescending.

Maybe you should first make sure you fully understand it yourself.

No one here is saying this is China fault, they’re saying the current situation is on par for how the USA, China and Russia treat the world.

In this thread the only reason people have brought up Chinese issues are because the strong defensiveness of others like China is some saint. They’re not.

Also I think two more examples were missed, how Ukraine wouldn’t have been invaded without china’s tolerance of their ally doing it, and Hong Kong repression. Also how Iran and Ukraine make it much more likely they finally go for Taiwan like they’ve been posturing to do.

To deny China isn’t like Russia and the US in this regards is like thinking Trump was going to be the peace president as he claimed


Are you claiming Harris or Biden would have bombed Iran like this? That does not sound credible, but if the other party wouldn’t have attached Iran then this is not business as usual, it’s the GOP as usual.


Maybe not exactly but Dems have started many wars, often to look tough due to the perception of them being weaker.


Biden and Harris didn't have any problems shipping tons of bombs to Israel, aimed at being exploded on dense civilian zones so I don't think that there is are dramatic differences between the two parties.


The dramatic difference is that Biden had Congressional approval to ship weapons to Israel and Ukraine.


Trump doesn't need congressional approval to launch operations shorter than 60 days, per the War Powers act, a law introduced by Democrats, by the way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution


This isn't a simple operation, killing a foreign head of state is about as clear of a declaration of war as you can imagine. The law was introduced to put a check on the president's use of military force, it didn't give the president the power to declare war on another country.


from 2024:

"Harris to Jewish voters: ‘All options on the table’ to stop Iran from going nuclear In pre-election High Holidays call, US vice president says diplomatic solution still preferable to keep Islamic Republic from the bomb, charges Trump won’t stand by Israel"

https://www.timesofisrael.com/harris-to-jewish-voters-all-op...


>“Think about it. If someone actually bombed or invaded the continental US you'd have woke libs cheering for Donald Trump”

I think this is a scenario Steven miller fantasizes about while playing with action figures but that’s the closest it gets to being real.

Sure derogatory terms for liberals, as you term the left, would support the armed forces if China invaded hawaii but expecting them to also support Trump is fantasy. Like supporting America and supporting Donald Trump are entirely different matters and usually divergent.


Hey you seem puzzled by the Republic vs democracy concepts so I’ll throw you a bone. Here’s a clear explainer that will solve your confusion: https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/democracy-and-republ...

If you don’t have time to read it, the short answer is the USA is both a republic and democracy!


Merriam Webster settled it!


Well than it’s good that none of this is literally forbidden despite the dramatics.

Then author just wanted to be over dramatic about how it’s not cost competitive to build in the Bay Area vs places like Reno where the land is cheaper and labor is less. Their scape goat or whipping boy is regulations but that’s highly myopic at best.


Really? Since it’s lacking any comparison to other states and because many of these complaints single out metropolitan areas comparison to nationwide census of metro areas, what actual conclusions are you drawing that are valid?

Context matters a lot. We haven’t built a lot of mercury based hat felting shops lately in California. What conclusion do you draw from that?


I assume you're being a little obtuse. The comparison to wherever manufacturers phones and EVs is implicit. They are manufactured somewhere with looser environmental regulation than California, where they are purchased en masse. You can draw your own conclusions from that.


I saw complaints that amounted to “it’s more expensive to build out large industrial facilities in bay area than in Reno”

okay what’s different in Reno hmmm I could be like the website and try to imply it’s only environmental regulations… or I could acknowledge that land price and availability is drastically different and also labor costs…. But then that wouldn’t help my contrived argument that it’s all the pesky regulations.

Again, without apples to apples comparisons to other areas, wha are you actually able to conclude from the website other than stoking confirmation bias?


It's providing a single geographic data point to you, for free. You're welcome to do your own research if you want a complete picture.


I like that your vague response to the question is either “this provides no value without context” or “the value it provides without context is a secret that only I know” but phrased in a silly way


Fair point. My actual conclusion: California has made it structurally impossible to manufacture things it consumes, and has exported the environmental burden to places with fewer protections.


You have a good point. California is an area that makes some things but not all things. From this data we can conclude that California is an area on earth where there are people.

This places California somewhere between the north pole (produces no things) and replicators from Star Trek (produces all of the things) in terms of productivity. This is useful information because it makes the reader feel li


Nice, you’ve just described how confirmation bias works.

Out of context, incomplete single data points that feels like one’s already held view is how confirmation bias works.


All data points can be called confirmation bias if you frame them that way. The question is whether the data is accurate, not whether it's complete.

The site isn't claiming regulations are the only factor, just that they're sufficient to make things impossible regardless of other factors.


“The question is whether the data is accurate, not whether it is complete”

Oh so Lies of omission don’t exist? Deception researchers will be very keen to hear how that works.

So if someone Mormon bubbles a photo of you that also has a kid in it, you’re fine being arrested for indecency and registering as a sex offender? After all, that’s just omitting a few pixels, not a lie or deception in your book.


Agree to disagree, I guess. Not everything interesting has to be comprehensive.

I think I'm done with this conversation now you're comparing a website about manufacturing to child porn. That's in bad taste.


Bad taste started with you calling me obtuse


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