Cool it with the moral outrage. Even if I did believe that prediction markets are bad, "easily the worst things to grace the internet by far" is such a ridiculous hyperbole that it strains any belief.
Someone on HN suggested that prediction markets would be interesting if only politicians were allowed to participate. For example, politician says that this bill will make the economy better (insert tangible metric here). Well Mr politician, put your money where your mouth is. If you indeed believe this is best for your constituents, bet on it, and if you're right, you'll reap the benefits of your legislation. If not, you're either incompetent or a liar; in either case, your people deserve to know.
Theres obvious issues with this system, but I thought it was a fun thought experiment.
Prediction markets need to be banned globally ASAP, but it would've helped the article to bring proof of:
- the emails
- the whatsapp messages
- the discord messages
- the X messages
Mind you, I'm not stating the journalist is lying or overblowing, in fact I suspect this is all more widespread than we think, but it's odd that the journalist puts emphasis on the sources of his information in the case of the missile, yet it's not about his direct threats, some of those public like X replies.
same as you. wake up, go to work, waste your day on hackernews, collect a big fat pay check, take a 2 week vacation to Disney world with the stacks your bringing in.
I don’t understand how this isn’t an immediate open and shut case for the police, assuming certain facts are verified independently. At the point that you’re making death threats to strangers you should be removed from civil society.
US cops don't care about solving crimes or making people safe, they only care about making a profit. And harassing random motorists on the side of the road is way easier and safer profits than trying to deal with real crime involving people with money that can afford their own lawyers to fight back.
So, just to point it out: people don't get violent and criminal magically because they made a bet. They get violent and criminal to backstop a bet they can't cover. The story here isn't that horrible criminals are using Polymarket. It's that Polymarket bettors are overleveraged, and at the margin some of them turn to crime to avoid losing their shirts.
We've all been looking around for the trigger for the market-crash-we-all-know-is-coming. Seems like "too much betting on a stupid war of choice" is just dumb enough to fit the timeline we've been trapped in. Very on-brand.
In other news: I'm almost entirely out of volatiles in my own portfolio right now. Cash and bonds until this pops. Frankly the chances are that today will be the day[1] are about as high as they've ever been.
[1] Trump, sigh, basically went on camera and capitulated, telling the world that there is no plan, the US doesn't have the capability to ensure trade through Hormuz and that Iran will deny access until Iran decides otherwise. Markets don't like uncertainty, but they really, really hate losing wars.
An additional complication is that both Iran and Israel are engaging in heavy censorship of news articles, obstensively to prevent the opposing side from getting intelligence/feedback on their missile strikes/other activities, but it is also definitely to control the narrative:
This could definitely affect key polymarket bets in the near term. I expect over the long term the truth will come out, but in the near term, it could be obscured.
>“When will you update the article?” one was titled. The email had no text content, only an image — a screenshot of my initial interaction with Daniel.
>Except it did not show my actual response to Daniel, but a fabricated message that I had not written.
>“Hi Daniel, Thank you for noticing, I checked with the IDF Spokesperson and it was indeed intercepted. I sent it now for editing, it will be fixed shortly,” I supposedly wrote. (To be clear, I wrote no such thing.)
this seems to be a main issue.
Would it help journalists if emails were quotable by default and the first party email providers could verify specific quotations? This way this class of fraud, market manipulation, and fake news would disappear.
I don't see why people wouldn't leave their responses as quotable when responding to journalists, for example, and journalists could also set their responses as quotable by default.
Yes, and BTW this problem is another proof that crypto doesn't solve any of the real world issues apart from avoiding (very natural) institutional regulations.
Alan Kay had a great quote: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” A quote that many technologists and inventors have used as inspiration over the years as they create things.
It looks a little less inspiring when applied to prediction markets. Because yeah, one way to win a bet is to bet on something you already know you can make happen. AKA insider trading.
But even worse, another way to win a bet is to cajole / threaten / bribe someone into lying about what really happened. That’s the stakes in this story. And at that point, the social value of prediction markets has gone negative. You’ve no longer got a tool that helps predict reality, you’ve got a new way to reward people for lying about what is real and not real.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 94.4 ms ] threadI suspect the gambler probably would have won on the basis of what happened but lost on the basis of what the times reported.
Theres obvious issues with this system, but I thought it was a fun thought experiment.
- the emails
- the whatsapp messages
- the discord messages
- the X messages
Mind you, I'm not stating the journalist is lying or overblowing, in fact I suspect this is all more widespread than we think, but it's odd that the journalist puts emphasis on the sources of his information in the case of the missile, yet it's not about his direct threats, some of those public like X replies.
Could work in some crime procedural.
* https://www.npr.org/2025/11/13/nx-s1-5605561/college-athlete...
... and many, many other stories.
We've all been looking around for the trigger for the market-crash-we-all-know-is-coming. Seems like "too much betting on a stupid war of choice" is just dumb enough to fit the timeline we've been trapped in. Very on-brand.
In other news: I'm almost entirely out of volatiles in my own portfolio right now. Cash and bonds until this pops. Frankly the chances are that today will be the day[1] are about as high as they've ever been.
[1] Trump, sigh, basically went on camera and capitulated, telling the world that there is no plan, the US doesn't have the capability to ensure trade through Hormuz and that Iran will deny access until Iran decides otherwise. Markets don't like uncertainty, but they really, really hate losing wars.
A million dollars for a single bet is extremely high stakes.
https://www.972mag.com/israel-media-censorship-iran-war/
This could definitely affect key polymarket bets in the near term. I expect over the long term the truth will come out, but in the near term, it could be obscured.
Here's the actual headline:
> Gamblers trying to win a bet on Polymarket are vowing to kill me if I don’t rewrite an Iran missile story
>More emails arrived in my inbox.
>“When will you update the article?” one was titled. The email had no text content, only an image — a screenshot of my initial interaction with Daniel.
>Except it did not show my actual response to Daniel, but a fabricated message that I had not written.
>“Hi Daniel, Thank you for noticing, I checked with the IDF Spokesperson and it was indeed intercepted. I sent it now for editing, it will be fixed shortly,” I supposedly wrote. (To be clear, I wrote no such thing.)
this seems to be a main issue.
Would it help journalists if emails were quotable by default and the first party email providers could verify specific quotations? This way this class of fraud, market manipulation, and fake news would disappear.
I don't see why people wouldn't leave their responses as quotable when responding to journalists, for example, and journalists could also set their responses as quotable by default.
What do you think, could this help this issue?
It looks a little less inspiring when applied to prediction markets. Because yeah, one way to win a bet is to bet on something you already know you can make happen. AKA insider trading.
But even worse, another way to win a bet is to cajole / threaten / bribe someone into lying about what really happened. That’s the stakes in this story. And at that point, the social value of prediction markets has gone negative. You’ve no longer got a tool that helps predict reality, you’ve got a new way to reward people for lying about what is real and not real.