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Betting on the Pope was the original prediction market
- DonHopkins 2y agoFather Guido Sarducci: "Find the Popes in the Pizza" contest: https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/3mdp5n/find_the_pope_in_the_pizza_classic_snl_skit_don/ https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/3mdp5n/find_the_pope... Spoiler warning: This contest only involves finding pictures of the Pope. No Popes were harmed by the actual or transubstantial production of Poperoni meat. Deep Dish Question: Would putting pineapples on pizza whose crust is made of sacramental bread be considered host desecration?
- perihelions 2y agoYou say there's no pizza transubstantiation, but I see cheeses all over
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- mightyham 2y agoEveryone has their own tastes, but I personally don't understand the appeal of SNL. Even skits that are so called "classics" don't strike me as all that funny. Maybe it's a generational thing.
- DonHopkins 2y agoThank you for announcing you lack of understanding. I will update my priors. I was hoping somebody wouldn't find it funny, because that makes it even funnier to me!
- hitekker 2y agoNo need to get defensive. GP just doesn't share your humor.
- IvyMike 2y agoThis guy is in contention for pope, and he's definitely got an edge in this contest. https://collegeofcardinalsreport.com/cardinals/pierbattista-pizzaballa/ https://collegeofcardinalsreport.com/cardinals/pierbattista-...
- DonHopkins 2y agoAt least he doesn't zing rats and cover for pedophile priests. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/10/pope-paedophile-priests-cover-up https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/10/pope-paedophil...
- samdung 2y agoUnrelated. Just finished watching the series 'The Young Pope'. What a visual spectacle it was.
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- curl-up 2y agoStrongly recommend The Great Beauty from the same director (Paolo Sorrentino), IMO his greatest work by far.
- Joker_vD 2y ago[flagged]
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- bloomingkales 2y agoWent through a series of all the popes once, and man was there some bad ones: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Stephen_VI https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Stephen_VI ”Stephen is chiefly remembered in connection with his conduct towards the remains of Pope Formosus. The rotting corpse of Formosus was exhumed and put on trial, before an unwilling synod of the Roman clergy, in the so-called Cadaver Synod in January 897. Pressure from the Spoleto contingent and Stephen's fury with Formosus probably precipitated this extraordinary event.[4] With the corpse propped up on a throne, a deacon was appointed to answer for the deceased pontiff. During the trial, Formosus's corpse was condemned for performing the functions of a bishop when he had been deposed and for accepting the papacy while he was the bishop of Porto, among other revived charges that had been levelled against him in the strife during the pontificate of John VIII. The corpse was found guilty, stripped of its sacred vestments, deprived of three fingers of its right hand (the blessing fingers), clad in the garb of a layman, and quickly buried; it was then re-exhumed and thrown in the Tiber. All ordinations performed by Formosus were annulled.” The Papacy is lit. Edit: "... the scandal ended in Stephen's imprisonment and his death by strangulation that summer." The Papacy is fucking lit.
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- wil421 2y agoSounds like a great Jeopardy topic. “I’ll take Bad Popes for 1000 Trebek.” Is there a bad Pope list?
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- bloomingkales 2y agoYou can start here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saeculum_obscurum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saeculum_obscurum The era is seen as one of the lowest points of the history of the papal office.
- Luc 2y ago
- mephos 2y agoGreat article. A couple weeks ago, on a flight, I watched the movie Conclave (2024) which is about the process of selecting the Pope, in a modern context. I thought it was surprisingly good, but felt like a warning call for the next papal conclave as it illustrated how the power some of these individuals face can corrupt. Fascinating to think how this process would have played out in 16th Century Italy.
- bloomingkales 2y agoYou should check out the voting process for electing the Doge of Venice: https://www.theballotboy.com/electing-the-doge https://www.theballotboy.com/electing-the-doge
- mr_00ff00 2y agoThis is a crazy process. Although I feel like I am a bit confused. When they say “reduced by lot” then mean by a lottery? By that same original boy or something else? They also talked about needing approval from electors, I assume that was from the previous small pool. Can’t exactly determine who they mean.
- bloomingkales 2y agoBest not to overthink think. It’s the best random number generator they thought they had. Even ours suck. They just wanted a member of the Aristocrat to be in charge is the point. An inauguration validated with whatever appears like merit (but the whole thing is rigged since only one type can ever win - the aristocrat (the entire pool is aristocrats)). Self selected group :) Have fun with Doge.
- Exoristos 2y agoIt was gratuitously complex the better to hide sleight-of-hand by the powers of the day.
- vessenes 2y agoThere’s some fairly deep statistical analysis out there on the Doge voting. To my memory it was only subverted once, leading to some changes. The analysis I remember concludes they have like one more round than needed to meet goals of the voting in terms of fairness, representation and difficulty of capture. Anyway, it’s a very interesting bit of voting history that lasted a long time.
- jsemrau 2y agoYes, but market making was difficult.
- nickelcitymario 2y agoWait, does this mean Polymarket is also an assassination market? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_market https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_market This may be an obvious thing that everyone else has caught onto, but... if I were to place a bet against someone dying this year (say it was someone powerful), wouldn't I essentially be offering a reward for someone to prove me wrong and make that death happen? And isn't that exactly what's happening when people are betting on a new pope in 2025? Doesn't that heavily incentivize some violent individual to take that bet and commit murder?
- barbazoo 2y agoMaybe similar to life insurance re suicide?
- nickelcitymario 2y agoWith life insurance, they investigate and won't pay out if they discover it was a suicide. Is there any similar mechanism with Polymarket for detecting, shall we say, unethical bets?
- wahern 2y agoIn the US life insurance is required to cover suicide, though an initial exclusion period of up to 2 years (depending on state) is permitted.
- nickelcitymario 2y agoWow, I had no idea. For all I know that's true in Canada too, I'm not an expert on Canadian insurance law, but I was under the impression that suicide was never covered anywhere. Thanks for correcting me!
- wahern 2y agoIt's not something insurers, healthcare professionals, or most anyone else is keen to advertise. It's even difficult to Google as most of the immediate results will be for mental health crisis resources. But AFAIU as suicide came to be understood as a consequence of mental illness, and given that the beneficiaries are no less innocent than if someone died by accident or cancer, courts began to favor and then insurance regulators began to mandate coverage.
- m3kw9 2y agoThe original insider info is here
- WhitneyLand 2y agoRelated, a great new video just dropped as an intro to prediction markets: https://youtu.be/ngX1nIvnMOM?si=QykC_5gSObT8o8e7 https://youtu.be/ngX1nIvnMOM?si=QykC_5gSObT8o8e7
- Starlord2048 2y ago500 years ago, betting on the Pope was punishable by excommunication. Today, crypto-powered prediction markets are placing odds on the next conclave. Have we come full circle, or has technology fundamentally changed the ethics of speculation? Should there be limits to what we can bet on, or is ”information price discovery“ an absolute good？ Are decentralized prediction markets a net positive for transparency, or are they just incentivizing bad behavior?
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- cxie 2y agoI've been thinking about prediction market designs that could preserve information discovery benefits while minimizing harm - maybe through delayed settlement periods, anti-manipulation mechanisms, or separating financial stakes from informational ones. As web3 and DeFi make these markets more accessible and resistant to regulation, should we be building more guardrails into the protocols themselves? Or is this an unsolvable tension in market design?
- erelong 2y agoDidn't read this article but one of them I think said the 1917 Code of Canon Law removed the excommunication for this kind of gambling. Gambling itself within reason I think was not condemned ("Gambling" in Catholic encyclopedia): https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06375b.htm https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06375b.htm
- pr337h4m 2y agoThe markets on Polymarket for Xi and Putin's successors are going to be 100x bigger in terms of both market size and as a topic of conversation.
- anonu 2y agoSimilar thread from a few days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43151152 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43151152
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- fsckboy 2y ago>Betting on the Pope was the original prediction market; 500 years before Polymarket, the Vatican fought to stop gambling on papal affairs. just to be clear, the article offers no evidence that there was not prior gambling art than the papal enclaves. cockfighting, bullfighting, gladiators, horseracing, was there no organized betting? in terms of prediction markets specifically, once there is organized betting, did it never extend to "current events"? just as a slightly topical aside, the market for "oil drilling" is mathematically equivalent to a (stock) options market. it doesn't take much for markets to uncover probability and statistics.
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- pimlottc 2y agoI feel like these sorts of turns-of-phrase, like "_blank_ was the original _blank_", are increasingly used like memes without any real thought of whether they are make sense or are correct. People are afraid to write without ornamentation, regardless of whether it adds anything meaningful. It's added to meet some sort of perceived standard of "good writing", in an effort to stand out from the crowd.
- ohgr 2y agoThere was sports betting going on far far before Jesus showed up. The Romans allowed it and the Holy Roman Empire and the catholics let it carry on. Also dice games were popular for private betting.
- erelong 2y ago> “New Pope in 2025?” Kind of a different topic but there's a growing number of people who identify as sedevacantist who don't believe Catholics have had a pope since 1958, since the papal claimants since then seen to contradict prior Catholic teachings For example Vatican 2 taught in Dignitatis humanae: > This Vatican synod declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom ... within due limits http://www.catholicapologetics.info/modernproblems/vatican2/Privatican.htm http://www.catholicapologetics.info/modernproblems/vatican2/... Obviously if I just said that I thought it was fine to steal from you unprovoked because my "religion" gives me the freedom to do so, this would come in conflict with the normal laws against stealing. Thus religious freedom has clear "limits"; Vatican 2 doesn't define where these "due" limits are and is ambiguous, opening the door to all kinds of confusion and contradiction. Past teaching was clearer that (note that the proposition stated is considered to be "condemned" or false): > Pope Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors, # 78: "Hence in certain regions of Catholic name, it has been laudably sanctioned by law that men immigrating there be allowed to have public exercises of any form of worship of their own." - Condemned.[58] However it's thought by some that once it becomes apparent these contradictions exist, it will lead to a kind of reorganization of things and an election of a forthcoming pope... and the issue of gambling will present itself again.
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- henryfjordan 2y agoAccording to the Wikipedia there's even a weird subset who view Benedict's resignation as the point of separation (not Vatican 2). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedevacantism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedevacantism People get up to the wildest ideas. Thanks for sharing
- meepmeepinator 2y ago[flagged]
- protocolture 2y agoSo when I started the papal betting pool at my catholic high school all those years ago I was actually practicing and respecting history.
- kindeyoowee 2y ago[dead]
- curtisszmania 2y ago[dead]
- at-w 2y agoThere's interesting data on the accuracy of US presidential markets if you're interested in this kind of thing. It's especially remarkable how accurate they were (both at predicting the outcome and how close the results were) many decades before modern political polling came on the scene. >As a basic if unsophisticated measure of the accuracy of the betting markets, the favorite almost always won, the only exception being in 1916 when betting initially favored the eventual loser (Hughes) but swung to even odds by the time the polls closed. In the 15 elections between 1884 and 1940, the mid-October betting favorite won 11 times (73 percent) and the underdog won only once (when in 1916 Wilson upset Hughes on the West Coast). In the remaining three contests (1884-92), the odds were essentially even throughout and the races very close. https://users.wfu.edu/strumpks/papers/BettingPaper_final(JEP_Resubmit).pdf https://users.wfu.edu/strumpks/papers/BettingPaper_final(JEP... https://www.sportsoddshistory.com/other/potus-odds/ https://www.sportsoddshistory.com/other/potus-odds/