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It can look bad, but this is just an aspect of human behavior en masse that we don’t normally get to see. A long time ago there was an incident on a military ba

It can look bad, but this is just an aspect of human behavior en masse that we don’t normally get to see. A long time ago there was an incident on a military base. A man had gotten up on a building to commit suicide, and while the officers tried to convince him not to jump, the drafted soldiers gathered underneath and started chanting “jump, jump” because of a rule that said witnessing the suicide of a fellow soldier cut down their draft length. Anyway, point being, situations where group A can benefit by harming group B are always problematic with large groups of people. The internet has produced novel and worse things than this.

victorbjorklund 7mo ago
Sounds like a urban legend.
happytoexplain 7mo ago
>It can look bad, but this is just an aspect of human behavior Why "can look", "but", "just"?
- Ajedi32 7mo ago
  I think GP is saying it's not the prediction market that's bad, but human nature itself. The prediction market just makes it more visible.
  - tclancy 7mo ago
    If we ignore that people are literally profiting from running the prediction market that happens to make it visible and giving incentive to uninvolved parties to have a STRONG OPINION about any type of event for the purpose of gambling, yeah, I guess that's a point.
    - parineum 7mo ago
      Life insurance allows people to profit from murder.
      - afavour 7mo ago
        So the existence of one unwanted side effect means we shouldn't care about any others?
        parineum 7mo ago
        No, that's not the point. The point is that such perverse incentives already exist in a lot of places. Polymarket style betting on the scale that it enables is new but it's just that, a difference in scale but not kind. The reason I bring that up is to caution against an overreaction to treating it like it's a brand new thing that needs to be dealt with in some unique way. Instead, trying to figure out why the existing mechanisms that prevent the same kind of abuses might not work at scale is a better mindset, I think.
      - deleted 7mo ago
        [deleted]
      - tclancy 7mo ago
        You gotta stop watching film noirs.
- cannonpr 7mo ago
  Because it’s one of many events that violates our belief in our selves more than the nature of human society and man as a social animal based on studies of what we actually are.
Aurornis 7mo ago
That story is most certainly an urban legend. There is a whole class of urban legends like that. Another common one among college students is that if your roommate dies you get straight A grades that year, leading to creative urban legends of desperate students doing terrible things to their roommates.
- astura 7mo ago
  >There is a whole class of urban legends like that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pass_by_catastrophe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pass_by_catastrophe
proggy 7mo ago
I don’t understand your point. You’re saying that online predictive markets are bad, but perverse incentives are bad in general, so there must be worse things out there. While that may be true, the scale and reach of these betting sites is massive, on the scale of hundreds of thousands of daily users with tens of millions of dollars on the line daily. The fact that a small number of people cheer for bad things to happen is no excuse for a betting apparatus that has captured a significant chunk of the global population.
PaulHoule 7mo ago
"Suicide is Painless" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0xy-LoDi94 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0xy-LoDi94
tomtomtom777 7mo ago
I think that's horribly fatalistic perspective. Yes, humans can be bad. But humans can change. Let's not start accepting bad stuff as not so bad, simply because it is "just human behavior".
- happytoexplain 7mo ago
  Yes - and further, even if something is "just human behavior", that doesn't mean it's never beneficial to humans to legally regulate the enablement or exploitation of that behavior.
sc68cal 7mo ago
So, because it's a human behavior, that means it's okay that there's a huge company out there amplifying that behavior and profiting off it?
thinkingtoilet 7mo ago
Your comparison is not even close to what is happening here.

victorbjorklund 7mo ago

Sounds like a urban legend.

happytoexplain 7mo ago

>It can look bad, but this is just an aspect of human behavior Why "can look", "but", "just"?

Ajedi32 7mo ago
I think GP is saying it's not the prediction market that's bad, but human nature itself. The prediction market just makes it more visible.
- tclancy 7mo ago
  If we ignore that people are literally profiting from running the prediction market that happens to make it visible and giving incentive to uninvolved parties to have a STRONG OPINION about any type of event for the purpose of gambling, yeah, I guess that's a point.
  - parineum 7mo ago
    Life insurance allows people to profit from murder.
    - afavour 7mo ago
      So the existence of one unwanted side effect means we shouldn't care about any others?
      - parineum 7mo ago
        No, that's not the point. The point is that such perverse incentives already exist in a lot of places. Polymarket style betting on the scale that it enables is new but it's just that, a difference in scale but not kind. The reason I bring that up is to caution against an overreaction to treating it like it's a brand new thing that needs to be dealt with in some unique way. Instead, trying to figure out why the existing mechanisms that prevent the same kind of abuses might not work at scale is a better mindset, I think.
    - deleted 7mo ago
      [deleted]
    - tclancy 7mo ago
      You gotta stop watching film noirs.
cannonpr 7mo ago
Because it’s one of many events that violates our belief in our selves more than the nature of human society and man as a social animal based on studies of what we actually are.

Aurornis 7mo ago

That story is most certainly an urban legend. There is a whole class of urban legends like that. Another common one among college students is that if your roommate dies you get straight A grades that year, leading to creative urban legends of desperate students doing terrible things to their roommates.

astura 7mo ago
>There is a whole class of urban legends like that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pass_by_catastrophe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pass_by_catastrophe

proggy 7mo ago

I don’t understand your point. You’re saying that online predictive markets are bad, but perverse incentives are bad in general, so there must be worse things out there. While that may be true, the scale and reach of these betting sites is massive, on the scale of hundreds of thousands of daily users with tens of millions of dollars on the line daily. The fact that a small number of people cheer for bad things to happen is no excuse for a betting apparatus that has captured a significant chunk of the global population.

PaulHoule 7mo ago

"Suicide is Painless" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0xy-LoDi94 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0xy-LoDi94

tomtomtom777 7mo ago

I think that's horribly fatalistic perspective. Yes, humans can be bad. But humans can change. Let's not start accepting bad stuff as not so bad, simply because it is "just human behavior".

happytoexplain 7mo ago
Yes - and further, even if something is "just human behavior", that doesn't mean it's never beneficial to humans to legally regulate the enablement or exploitation of that behavior.

sc68cal 7mo ago

So, because it's a human behavior, that means it's okay that there's a huge company out there amplifying that behavior and profiting off it?

thinkingtoilet 7mo ago

Your comparison is not even close to what is happening here.