An argument not mentioned here and which I didn’t appreciate until I actually took part in these markets myself, is that you need a supply of stupid/uninformed people to take the other side of the informed people’s bets.(In economic terms, no-trade theorems apply.) That suggests to me that the dream of perfect information revelation isn’t going to come true. Instead, the liquid markets will be those with a large supply of marks, who bet for identity reasons or who are simply ignorant and naive. (Currently polymarket gives a 16% ish probability that Trump will lose office this year. Sounds like wishful thinking to me?)
Polymarket "odds" I think are just the price of the contract * 100 right?
That's not actually the predicted odds by the market because every single bet is also a bet on interest rates.
A contract that literally 100% always would resolve to "true" in 1 year would have a non-zero price for the "false" side because selling that option (and thus taking the "false" side means you get ~$97 today and then pay $100 in a year.
Polymarket's 4% chance of jesus returning by 2026 actually represents a market consensus of basically a 0% chance.
For trump losing office there might be some bets predicated on his losing office being correlated to a higher interest rate outcome, too.
If the odds are set correctly, you should have the same EV on either side of a bet.
That's why it's hard to beat Vegas at sports betting--they set the correct odds way too often.
When regular folks make up their own odds, they're not very good at it, but in theory the market just buys up any +EV position, even if it's a longshot.
I agree with you overall but I'm not sure the Trump bet is the best example.
He certainly isn't going to be thrown out of office (unfortunately) but those 16% of bettors also win if he dies this year, and he's 80, fat, still gobbling burgers and shows signs of someone that has had at least one stroke so far.
On the other hand he has access to the best medical care, but even still a 16% chance he drops dead before the end of the year isn't that outrageous.
So for example "shows signs of someone that has had at least one stroke so far" sounds like the kind of "information" that has not yet made it into a mainstream news outlet, probably for good reason. And indeed when I searched, I found it on The Daily Beast, whose reliability I doubt.
But maybe I'm wrong. If so, you could always take the opposite side of the bet. For sure, the correct probability is not zero!
Checks annuity tables for an 80 year old making it to 81...you giving 1:6 odds? Sure I will take that bet because the actual odds are only a small fraction. If I spread out the risk on multiple positions, I can make a very good return taking those types of bets.
People that place bets on the political outcomes on PolyMarket are from one of three groups: 1) Insiders who think they have an edge (but probably don't), 2) fools that believe what their media of choice tells them and 3) People who make money on the first 2 groups.
We both know that that the Trump market and people who believe everything they see on MSNBC (or whatever it is called now) have a big overlap. Its basically a way to print money because there are always people who are out of touch enough to believe their side is right 100% of the time and a <insert color here> wave is coming in the next election. Is this taking advantage of them? Maybe, but they are a walking negative externality in every other way in life so why not. Consider it a tax on political extremism and partisanship which I think it a good thing. Prove me wrong...
You put your own case powerfully, but you don’t seem to have reacted to Derek Thompson‘s case, except to say that you’re not bothered about gambling addiction. (And why not? If people predictably do things that are bad for themselves, that damages the efficiency case for free markets and everything.)
I did read his article, and there are the geopolitical events and the sporting events he talks about.
I don't really understand why sports leagues require faith in their institution. Is the economy overleveraged on collateral debt swaps on league merchandise sells? Is our economy built on preteens in Nebraska believing their only way out of there is a worthwhile pursuit?
I'm not sure why I am supposed to care about the sanctity of that market, what are the consequences of it feeling rigged? and the FBI was on those insider trades instantly, so the sports side seems tightly regulated already whether I understand why a segment of that market needs certain assurances.
And the non-sporting trades I recognize the danger of, the liquidity in the market altering the outcome as someone in control of the outcome does something selfish. I say do what we can to avoid the death markets and the nuclear ones, but distributed bounties otherwise are very transparent and efficient wealth distribution mechanisms that fulfill other goals of compensating labor more correctly.
Surely a big point of sport is to get young people to do healthy, character-building team activities. That requires sporting heroes they can look up to, rather than cheats who will throw a game for money.
Representation is a powerful driver for a large swath of humans, there are many others who get inspired for other reasons, or inspired by fictional characters
I’m fine with those other traits being expressed more frequently
Here's mine. It's not big or important (at all!) but I think it is a perfectly valid app that might be useful to some people. It's entirely vibe-coded including code, art and sounds. Only the idea was mine.
This is horrible. Children of that age should not be glued to a computer screen. If handing your kids over to the care of a bot is your idea of parenthood, I'm sure glad I'm not your kid.
The exact point of the app is to be as un-sticky as possible. I deliberately used calm colours, slow transitions, and a simple gameplay routine with a limited shelflife, after seeing how other apps for kids were designed like fruit machines.
If you simply think that children should never be exposed to screens, then I can sympathise with that point of view, but I think it's better to introduce them in a thoughtful and limited way.
Your last sentence is unnecessarily overblown and inflammatory, and adds nothing useful to the discussion.
What is there to learn? If anything developers are still the one's training and enhancing the models by giving them more feedback cycles and what works and what doesn't.
> Laws are not a buffet. You choose to do business in a market, you've opted to be regulated in that market.
I mean I find this quite plausible, but you should tell the guys in the thread above, who are all posting "ha, the UK thinks it can tell a non-UK website what to do, how absurd!" and metaphorically pouring their tea out in Boston Harbour.
I think there's a difference between a website that citizens from country a can access but who are not necessarily the group the website is created for, for free, and a paid saas that I sell to citizens of country a.
Maybe there's a moral difference (I doubt it personally), but there's clearly not a legal difference.
They're both examples of Country A putting a law on the books that constrains sites in Country B. "Don't sell", "don't serve", "don't stand on one leg while fulfilling orders", they're all the same class of overreach.
It is if you just check the sources, heres the json:
```
[
{
"name": "Nematode",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 5e19,
"category": "Roundworm (Invertebrate)",
"fact": "There are roughly 57 billion nematodes for every human on Earth. They inhabit every known ecosystem, from ocean trenches to polar ice, and outnumber every other multicellular animal combined."
},
{
"name": "Soil Mite",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 1e18,
"category": "Arachnid (Invertebrate)",
"fact": "A single teaspoon of forest soil can contain hundreds of mites. They are the unsung engineers of our planet, recycling dead matter and forming the base of countless food webs."
},
{
"name": "Marine Copepod",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 1e18,
"category": "Crustacean (Invertebrate)",
"fact": "Copepods form the largest animal biomass on Earth. Their daily vertical migrations — traveling hundreds of meters to feed at night — are considered the largest migration on the planet."
},
{
"name": "Springtail",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 7e17,
"category": "Hexapod (Invertebrate)",
"fact": "Springtails can launch themselves 100× their own body length using a forked tail-spring. Despite being soil-dwellers, they are found on every continent, including Antarctica."
},
{
"name": "Beetle",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 1e19,
"category": "Insect (Invertebrate)",
"fact": "About 25% of all known animal species are beetles. When asked what he could infer about the Creator's mind, biologist J.B.S. Haldane replied: 'an inordinate fondness for beetles.'"
},
{
"name": "Ant",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 2e16,
"category": "Insect (Invertebrate)",
"fact": "If you weighed all the ants on Earth, they would rival the total weight of all humans. They farm, wage war, keep slaves, and build air-conditioned megacities underground."
},
{
"name": "Termite",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 1e15,
"category": "Insect (Invertebrate)",
"fact": "Termite mounds can last centuries and regulate their internal temperature within 1°C — a feat no human building has replicated without technology."
},
{
"name": "Krill",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 5e14,
"category": "Crustacean (Invertebrate)",
"fact": "Antarctic krill hold together the entire Southern Ocean food web. A single school can weigh over 2 million tonnes — visible from space as a reddish bloom on the ocean surface."
},
{
"name": "Mosquito",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 1e14,
"category": "Insect (Invertebrate)",
"fact": "Mosquitoes are the deadliest animals to humans in history. Only female mosquitoes bite — they need blood protein to develop their eggs. Males eat only nectar."
},
{
"name": "Aphid",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 1e14,
"category": "Insect (Invertebrate)",
"fact": "Aphids can reproduce asexually, giving live birth to daughters already pregnant with grandchildren — a phenomenon called telescoping generations."
},
{
"name": "Fruit Fly",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 1e13,
"category": "Insect (Invertebrate)",
"fact": "Fruit flies share about 75% of the genes that cause human diseases. More Nobel Prizes have been won using fruit flies as a research model than any other organism."
},
{
"name": "Honeybee",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 2e12,
"category": "Insect (Invertebrate)",
"fact": "A single honeybee will produce only 1/12 teaspoon of honey in its entire lifetime. Colonies make collective decisions by voting with waggle dances."
},
{
"name": "Anchovy",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 6e11,
"category": "Fish (Vertebrate)",
"fact": "The Peruvian anchovy fishery is historically the largest single-species fishery on Earth. Schools can be so dense they show up on radar as false landmasses."
},
{
"name": "House Mouse",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 1e11,
"category": "Mammal (Vertebrate)",
"fact": "House mice arrived on every inhabited continent by hitching rides on human ships. They can fit through a hole the size of a pencil eraser, and have been to space more than most humans."
},
{
"name": "Common Starling",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 5e10,
"category": "Bird (Vertebrate)",
"fact": "Starling murmurations — flocks of millions moving in perfect fluid synchrony — have no leader. Each bird follows just seven nearest neighbors, producing one of nature's most breathtaking emergent phenomena."
},
{
"name": "Chicken",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 3.3e10,
"category": "Bird (Vertebrate)",
"fact": "There are more chickens on Earth than any other bird species — outnumbering humans 4 to 1. The bones of farmed chickens may become the defining fossil marker of the Anthropocene."
},
{
"name": "Brown Rat",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 7e9,
"category": "Mammal (Vertebrate)",
"fact": "Rats laugh when tickled — emitting ultrasonic chirps inaudible to humans. They also demonstrate empathy, freeing trapped companions even when they gain no personal benefit."
},
{
"name": "Human",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 8.1e9,
"category": "Mammal (Vertebrate)",
"fact": "Humans are the only animal known to cook food, write poetry, and wonder about their own existence. We are also the only species to have driven thousands of others to extinction."
},
{
"name": "Sheep",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 1.2e9,
"category": "Mammal (Vertebrate)",
"fact": "Sheep can recognize up to 50 individual sheep faces — and remember them for years. They even show signs of depression when separated from their flock companions."
},
{
"name": "Dog",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 9e8,
"category": "Mammal (Vertebrate)",
"fact": "Dogs are the oldest domesticated animal, with a relationship to humans stretching back 15,000+ years. They are the only non-primate known to understand pointing as a communicative gesture."
},
{
"name": "Domestic Cat",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 6e8,
"category": "Mammal (Vertebrate)",
"fact": "Cats are considered a major driver of bird and small mammal extinction worldwide. A domestic cat's hunting instinct cannot be turned off by a full belly — they hunt regardless of hunger."
},
{
"name": "Cattle",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 1e9,
"category": "Mammal (Vertebrate)",
"fact": "Cattle account for roughly 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. They can form close friendships, and their heart rate measurably decreases when a companion is nearby."
},
{
"name": "Pig",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 7e8,
"category": "Mammal (Vertebrate)",
"fact": "Pigs are among the most cognitively complex animals: they can play video games, recognize their reflection, and outperform dogs and chimpanzees in certain learning tasks."
},
{
"name": "Rabbit",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 1e9,
"category": "Mammal (Vertebrate)",
"fact": "Rabbits cannot vomit. They re-ingest their own soft droppings directly from the anus — a process called cecotrophy — to extract nutrients on a second pass through the gut."
},
{
"name": "Common Pigeon",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 4e8,
"category": "Bird (Vertebrate)",
"fact": "Pigeons can recognize themselves in mirrors, identify individual human faces from photographs, and have served as decorated war heroes in both World Wars."
},
{
"name": "African Elephant",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 4e5,
"category": "Mammal (Vertebrate)",
"fact": "Elephants hold funerals, mourn their dead, and return to bones of family members years later. They communicate via infrasound rumbles that travel through the ground, felt through their feet."
},
{
"name": "Snow Leopard",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 4000,
"category": "Mammal (Vertebrate)",
"fact": "Snow leopards cannot roar — their unique larynx only allows a haunting purr-like chuff. They are so elusive in the Himalayas that locals call them 'ghosts of the mountains.'"
},
{
"name": "Blue Whale",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 1e4,
"category": "Mammal (Vertebrate)",
"fact": "The blue whale's heart is the size of a small car, and its heartbeat can be heard from two miles away. Its call at 188 decibels is the loudest sound made by any animal."
},
{
"name": "Giant Panda",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 1800,
"category": "Mammal (Vertebrate)",
"fact": "Giant pandas have a false thumb — an enlarged wrist bone that helps grip bamboo. They eat up to 38 kg of bamboo a day because their carnivore gut digests only 17% of it."
},
{
"name": "Amur Leopard",
"emoji": "",
"pop": 100,
"category": "Mammal (Vertebrate)",
"fact": "The Amur leopard is possibly the rarest wild cat on Earth. Fewer than 100 remain in the Russian Far East, yet they can run 37 mph and leap over 19 feet horizontally."
}
]
```
reply