Sounds like there are some arbitrage opportunities in political gambling.
Maybe the savvy gamblers are still focused on sports and haven't brought all their sophisticated parley and hedging strategies to the political world yet.
I wonder how much if it the equivalent of btc privacy vs Monero: political elections are the biggest and most important fish, they could, in theory, have the biggest upside, but if prediction markets became significant it would be such a dramatic threat to existing power structures that they would crush it, assassinate people, etc.
It's kind of funny for me to say this, since I'm normally the one who has so little patience for all the idiot conspiracies that knock around this space, the mysterious elites who are rigging your phone service and trying to make you fat through corn subsidies, etc. Anyone who's ever managed a large group should know how impossible it is to orchestrate things like that.
But when the stakes are really high, there's a phase transition, and I expect more conspiracies, not less. I'm a fat tail conspiracy theorist maybe.
I don't know anyone who bets on politics, but I've heard it's pretty tightly regulated (even beyond how tightly regulated sports betting is). I believe there are limits to how much one person can earn from it. If that's correct, it makes sense that inefficiencies could persist.
I'm sure we have similar views on conspiracy theories. I also doubt the elaborate ones, but I'm pretty open to the "Arkancide" variety of conspiracy theory.
But when the stakes are really high, there's a phase transition, and I expect more conspiracies, not less. I'm a fat tail conspiracy theorist maybe.
I think you're onto something there. :)
But aren't the stakes with bitcoin already quite high? Will not anyone who holds bitcoin (in a non-custodial way) today more or less be public enemy no. 1 in the future depending on which side of history we will find ourselves?
But yes, you're also right here:
Anyone who's ever managed a large group should know how impossible it is to orchestrate things like that.
So I guess you're onto two things actually! It might just come down to personal preference. I rather be too paranoid and suffer the consequences from that than to not have been paranoid enough and suffer the consequences1 from that.
Footnotes
However, these consequences might only be potential while being too paranoid has direct consequences on your mental health. ↩
I rather be too paranoid and suffer the consequences from that than to not have been paranoid enough and suffer the consequences
That's pretty wise, on the individual level, if you can walk the line and weight your response by riskiness, or maybe, credible riskiness, as Ray Dalio might say. Easier said than done over time, though.
I rather be too paranoid and suffer the consequences from that than to not have been paranoid enough and suffer the consequences from that.
Now you're onto something. Whether you allow more type I or type II errors should depend on the costliness of each type of error. Oftentimes, the cost of subscribing to a false conspiracy theory is just looking silly, while ignoring a true conspiracy theory might come at a ruinous cost.
Now you're onto something. Whether you allow more type I or type II errors should depend on the costliness of each type of error.
That's true. However:
Oftentimes, the cost of subscribing to a false conspiracy theory is just looking silly, while ignoring a true conspiracy theory might come at a ruinous cost.
It's not a one-time game. There's a cost to crying wolf, or heeding the cry. The cost of endless conspiracy theories that you either promote or accept is that both your credibility and your discernment trend to zero, which hurts both you and the community in which you operate -- and possibly the world, if you want to really get serious.
The damage done to btc adoption by having its most prominent and loudest voices be a mental landfill of extremism, midwit pseudo-intellectual blathering, and aggression, is hard to understate. If you think btc is an important thing for the world, then setting adoption back a decade by these folks being the public face of it [1] should make you upset.
[1] Of course the public face is always in the process of shifting. But this was true for a long time and is still significantly true.
All valid points and I didn't say anything about how you should be probability weighting when updating/forming opinions too. So, any utterly preposterous theories should be rejected regardless of how costly they'd be if true.
I was more thinking about competing explanations that have similar levels of plausibility.
The damage done to btc adoption by having its most prominent and loudest voices be a mental landfill of extremism, midwit pseudo-intellectual blathering, and aggression, is hard to understate. If you think btc is an important thing for the world, then setting adoption back a decade by these folks being the public face of it [1] should make you upset.
Yeah, I think these public figures totally ignore that you have to meet people where they are if you really want to convince them.
Political gambling is for "big dogs"... but it is interesting to see, how they try almost all of methods (not just fair mathods) to suppress the opponent
Footnotes