5 ms·

You don't need Colossus-level compute or a genius-level IQ to evaluate the question "Will the steam machine cost more than $700 at release", or "Will 2026 be th

You don't need Colossus-level compute or a genius-level IQ to evaluate the question "Will the steam machine cost more than $700 at release", or "Will 2026 be the hottest year on record".

weird-eye-issue 4mo ago
Sure but that level of confidence is what would also eventually wipe you out because gamblers are not necessarily known for proper risk management. You could win 10 bets in a row but then it would only take one bet that you had 100% conviction on for you to lose and you get wiped out
- warmedcookie 4mo ago
  I don't know much about gambling but is it not common to set for yourself max bets so your pool of cash doesn't deplete like you do when buying stocks or trading options so you can leverage up or down. I know it's a little different, but there is a similar principle. Maybe only allow people to spend 1/5 their pool of cash per bet so it never reaches zero
- Dilettante_ 4mo ago
  You're sneaking in a prior assumption that people will act stupidly, and then make the argument "Well since they act stupidly they will have bad outcomes". That's like me claiming "Your startup is gonna fail, I can tell, because you'd need to be able to read and write to make it in business!"(sneaking in the prior assumption that the person in question is not in fact able to read or write) Your strategic consideration is wise, though. 'Diversification' is one of the first things people will teach wrt investment literacy.
  - weird-eye-issue 4mo ago
    Well my assumption that gamblers will do something stupid is not that far flung. And regarding your comment about investment literacy yes I agree with you but just to be clear we are discussing gambling and not investing.
    - Dilettante_ 4mo ago
      >just to be clear we are discussing gambling and not investing Where's the demarcation? The whole point of this sub-thread was "you absolutely can predict the outcome of some of these markets". If you do your due dilligence/leverage your domain knowledge to buy a thing you expect to pay dividends at a later date, how is that not investing? Are government bonds gambling in your thinking? Your prior about people acting unwise is still sneaking in via the assertion that we are talking about gambling.
      - weird-eye-issue 4mo ago
        Are you seriously trying to make a comparison between government bonds and prediction markets? What is wrong with you?
        Dilettante_ 4mo ago
        What's wrong with me is I'm autistic enough to expect people to be able to follow arguments. I did not say "There are no differences between Government Bonds and Prediction Markets", what I said was "Let's find where the line between gambling and investing is, here's an example from which to pick apart the features that make gambling vs investing".
        weird-eye-issue 4mo ago
        > I did not say "There are no differences between Government Bonds and Prediction Markets" I never said that you said that, so now you are just arguing with a straw man that you just created, and your lack of ability to understand that is going to make a productive conversation impossible. Good luck with your gambling.
        Dilettante_ 4mo ago
        You haven't been putting in any good-faith effort into having a "productive conversation" for at least three of your responses, setting up "This is how things are" with no attempt to support this with any arguments, and have equally refused/dodged out of engaging with any of mine. Your brain has just had your mental block up very obviously starting from your knee-jerk "what is wrong with you?" comment, isolating you from the scary prospect of being convinced by a consistent chain of logic, and now you're looking for a face-saving way of ejecting from the conversation.
bjackman 4mo ago
You are not evaluating those questions, you are evaluating the probability of that two things happening, and you need to evaluate it better than the other people to win. There are no easy questions, the difficulty is set by the skill/investment level of your competition.
- Dilettante_ 4mo ago
  I'm confused by how you're modeling these markets. Let's say I am quite sure that the Steam Machine will cost more than $700 dollars, and I buy a 'yes' lot for 65 cents on the payed-out dollar, those are the odds at my buy-in time. Where exactly now do the other participants' bets on the same market influence my chance to win/lose? How am I up against them and not the question "will my prediction come true"? Sure, before my buy-in the odds, and thus the value fluctuate on account of the market movements, but once I'm in I'm in?
  - stouset 4mo ago
    How exactly do you think the price is set at 65 cents, if not by the other market participants? When you win, who do you think is paying you out from the other side of the bet? When you lose, who do you think your money goes to?
    - Dilettante_ 4mo ago
      Not only did you miss the point of the conversation entirely, you're attacking a point I explicitly addressed in my comment. I well understand how the system works, ggps comment had me confused about their perspective.
      - stouset 4mo ago
        I didn’t miss the point at all. Once you’re in, unless you want to sell your stake, you’re in. But the entire point is that at the time of your bet, you’re taking a position that’s inherently disadvantaged. If there was any more EV to be gained, people with more money than you would have exhausted it. So without insider information, you’re flipping a coin but the house takes a cut.
mortsnort 4mo ago
The betting topic is only a part of the equation. Should you bet $100 to win $5 on the Steamdeck price? Should you sell your bet before the Steamdeck even comes out?
- Dilettante_ 4mo ago
  But that's about juicing the maximum amount out of each bet, not about the matter of simply winning or losing(which was what I was originally responding to). If any situation one doesn't take for all its worth is a loss then I agree that it's damn near impossible to win, but this would be true everywhere. I am intentionally flattening these trades to simple win/loss affairs(not just for the sake of this argument). You're playing the game at a higher level and "complaining" at the increased complexity(I don't mean to say you are complaining, I just couldn't think of a better word). You're talkkng about the 80% that get you the last 20%, I'm talking about the 20% that get me the 80.
rzwitserloot 4mo ago
You cannot bet 50/50 on that question. Hence, you aren't actually asked to evaluate whether the answer to the questions you posted is 'yes' or 'no'. You are instead asked 'is the actual chance of it happening higher or lower than the current breakeven chance as posted on Kalshi / Polymarket'.
- Dilettante_ 4mo ago
  Can you help me better grasp this? My intuition is thus: Sure, if I'm going at it like a proper rationalist, I'd have to do things like calculate expected value or whatever(I fully admit my lack of foundational knowledge when it comes to statistics), but at the surface the questions I feel I'm being asked is: "Is this a winning ticket?" and then "How much would you pay for a ticket set to win $1?" The latter question being obviously meaningless except for the obvious: It does not matter in the slightest, as long as I don't pay 1$ or more. So you could see how the face odds are irrelevant to me, only my internal yes/no intuition? Obviously this is not optimized, opportunity cost etc etc, but is there a big hole in my thinking you could point me in the direction of?

You don't need Colossus-level compute or a genius-level IQ to evaluate the question "Will the steam machine cost more than $700 at release", or "Will 2026 be the hottest year on record".

weird-eye-issue 4mo ago

Sure but that level of confidence is what would also eventually wipe you out because gamblers are not necessarily known for proper risk management. You could win 10 bets in a row but then it would only take one bet that you had 100% conviction on for you to lose and you get wiped out

warmedcookie 4mo ago
I don't know much about gambling but is it not common to set for yourself max bets so your pool of cash doesn't deplete like you do when buying stocks or trading options so you can leverage up or down. I know it's a little different, but there is a similar principle. Maybe only allow people to spend 1/5 their pool of cash per bet so it never reaches zero
Dilettante_ 4mo ago
You're sneaking in a prior assumption that people will act stupidly, and then make the argument "Well since they act stupidly they will have bad outcomes". That's like me claiming "Your startup is gonna fail, I can tell, because you'd need to be able to read and write to make it in business!"(sneaking in the prior assumption that the person in question is not in fact able to read or write) Your strategic consideration is wise, though. 'Diversification' is one of the first things people will teach wrt investment literacy.
- weird-eye-issue 4mo ago
  Well my assumption that gamblers will do something stupid is not that far flung. And regarding your comment about investment literacy yes I agree with you but just to be clear we are discussing gambling and not investing.
  - Dilettante_ 4mo ago
    >just to be clear we are discussing gambling and not investing Where's the demarcation? The whole point of this sub-thread was "you absolutely can predict the outcome of some of these markets". If you do your due dilligence/leverage your domain knowledge to buy a thing you expect to pay dividends at a later date, how is that not investing? Are government bonds gambling in your thinking? Your prior about people acting unwise is still sneaking in via the assertion that we are talking about gambling.
    - weird-eye-issue 4mo ago
      Are you seriously trying to make a comparison between government bonds and prediction markets? What is wrong with you?
      - Dilettante_ 4mo ago
        What's wrong with me is I'm autistic enough to expect people to be able to follow arguments. I did not say "There are no differences between Government Bonds and Prediction Markets", what I said was "Let's find where the line between gambling and investing is, here's an example from which to pick apart the features that make gambling vs investing".
        weird-eye-issue 4mo ago
        > I did not say "There are no differences between Government Bonds and Prediction Markets" I never said that you said that, so now you are just arguing with a straw man that you just created, and your lack of ability to understand that is going to make a productive conversation impossible. Good luck with your gambling.
        Dilettante_ 4mo ago
        You haven't been putting in any good-faith effort into having a "productive conversation" for at least three of your responses, setting up "This is how things are" with no attempt to support this with any arguments, and have equally refused/dodged out of engaging with any of mine. Your brain has just had your mental block up very obviously starting from your knee-jerk "what is wrong with you?" comment, isolating you from the scary prospect of being convinced by a consistent chain of logic, and now you're looking for a face-saving way of ejecting from the conversation.

bjackman 4mo ago

You are not evaluating those questions, you are evaluating the probability of that two things happening, and you need to evaluate it better than the other people to win. There are no easy questions, the difficulty is set by the skill/investment level of your competition.

Dilettante_ 4mo ago
I'm confused by how you're modeling these markets. Let's say I am quite sure that the Steam Machine will cost more than $700 dollars, and I buy a 'yes' lot for 65 cents on the payed-out dollar, those are the odds at my buy-in time. Where exactly now do the other participants' bets on the same market influence my chance to win/lose? How am I up against them and not the question "will my prediction come true"? Sure, before my buy-in the odds, and thus the value fluctuate on account of the market movements, but once I'm in I'm in?
- stouset 4mo ago
  How exactly do you think the price is set at 65 cents, if not by the other market participants? When you win, who do you think is paying you out from the other side of the bet? When you lose, who do you think your money goes to?
  - Dilettante_ 4mo ago
    Not only did you miss the point of the conversation entirely, you're attacking a point I explicitly addressed in my comment. I well understand how the system works, ggps comment had me confused about their perspective.
    - stouset 4mo ago
      I didn’t miss the point at all. Once you’re in, unless you want to sell your stake, you’re in. But the entire point is that at the time of your bet, you’re taking a position that’s inherently disadvantaged. If there was any more EV to be gained, people with more money than you would have exhausted it. So without insider information, you’re flipping a coin but the house takes a cut.

mortsnort 4mo ago

The betting topic is only a part of the equation. Should you bet $100 to win $5 on the Steamdeck price? Should you sell your bet before the Steamdeck even comes out?

Dilettante_ 4mo ago
But that's about juicing the maximum amount out of each bet, not about the matter of simply winning or losing(which was what I was originally responding to). If any situation one doesn't take for all its worth is a loss then I agree that it's damn near impossible to win, but this would be true everywhere. I am intentionally flattening these trades to simple win/loss affairs(not just for the sake of this argument). You're playing the game at a higher level and "complaining" at the increased complexity(I don't mean to say you are complaining, I just couldn't think of a better word). You're talkkng about the 80% that get you the last 20%, I'm talking about the 20% that get me the 80.

rzwitserloot 4mo ago

You cannot bet 50/50 on that question. Hence, you aren't actually asked to evaluate whether the answer to the questions you posted is 'yes' or 'no'. You are instead asked 'is the actual chance of it happening higher or lower than the current breakeven chance as posted on Kalshi / Polymarket'.

Dilettante_ 4mo ago
Can you help me better grasp this? My intuition is thus: Sure, if I'm going at it like a proper rationalist, I'd have to do things like calculate expected value or whatever(I fully admit my lack of foundational knowledge when it comes to statistics), but at the surface the questions I feel I'm being asked is: "Is this a winning ticket?" and then "How much would you pay for a ticket set to win $1?" The latter question being obviously meaningless except for the obvious: It does not matter in the slightest, as long as I don't pay 1$ or more. So you could see how the face odds are irrelevant to me, only my internal yes/no intuition? Obviously this is not optimized, opportunity cost etc etc, but is there a big hole in my thinking you could point me in the direction of?