3 ms·

> If you want to ban profiting from the failure of clinical trials, you would start with the stock market It's not really a winning argument to say "We should

> If you want to ban profiting from the failure of clinical trials, you would start with the stock market It's not really a winning argument to say "We should be allowed to make money doing this harmful thing because many other people are also making money in a very different way with a different set of risks and potential harms"

m3047 2mo ago
What is a "winning argument"? Let's say two parties in an argument both make ad hominem arguments against the other party. Is the winning party's ad hominem "winning"? Just because the party won? There is no question of merit? What if both parties level the identical ad hominem argument against the other party? It's "winning" because survivorship bias and convenient amnesia (the winner gets to rewrite history)? What's going on here?
- autoexec 2mo ago
  What's going on is that a company was caught doing something deplorable and dangerous and because they couldn't deny their actions were a problem their spokesperson just pointed to stock market short sellers and said "What about them!" It's embarrassing that Kalshi's spokesman thought that statement would make the company look any better.
  - m3047 2mo ago
    I'll give +1 for that.
quickthrowman 2mo ago
Buying stock in a biotech company with a pre-release drug and betting that the same drug trial will succeed are functionally equivalent, the converse is also true; shorting the stock is identical to betting against the outcome of the trial. Either way, you’re putting money at risk on the outcome of a drug trial. The only difference is that equity markets are orders of magnitude larger than prediction markets in both depth and liquidity and offer much more incentive for fraud/tampering given the much much higher rewards. Should we ban biotech companies from raising money in public equity markets since the risk is so much higher than prediction markets?

m3047 2mo ago

What is a "winning argument"? Let's say two parties in an argument both make ad hominem arguments against the other party. Is the winning party's ad hominem "winning"? Just because the party won? There is no question of merit? What if both parties level the identical ad hominem argument against the other party? It's "winning" because survivorship bias and convenient amnesia (the winner gets to rewrite history)? What's going on here?

autoexec 2mo ago
What's going on is that a company was caught doing something deplorable and dangerous and because they couldn't deny their actions were a problem their spokesperson just pointed to stock market short sellers and said "What about them!" It's embarrassing that Kalshi's spokesman thought that statement would make the company look any better.
- m3047 2mo ago
  I'll give +1 for that.

quickthrowman 2mo ago

Buying stock in a biotech company with a pre-release drug and betting that the same drug trial will succeed are functionally equivalent, the converse is also true; shorting the stock is identical to betting against the outcome of the trial. Either way, you’re putting money at risk on the outcome of a drug trial. The only difference is that equity markets are orders of magnitude larger than prediction markets in both depth and liquidity and offer much more incentive for fraud/tampering given the much much higher rewards. Should we ban biotech companies from raising money in public equity markets since the risk is so much higher than prediction markets?