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The SEC only exists for dad to frame people.

The vast majority of insider trading schemes are not prosecuted, many leave no evidence trail at all without going deep into black-op classified territory.

Though Manifold only uses their non-withdrawable play currency Mana.

Oh but you can. You can swap out the seed and generate any new addresses using that.

Yes, the old addresses will be compromised. That's fine. The point is that nobody can tell that you aren't actually using the same keys to generate new addresses anymore.

just move it to a new wallet

If it has a small transaction history it obscure the owners intentions. An address created right before a wager is obviously for one purpose.

Aged accounts, shell companies, it's a market

I don’t consider “raison d'etre" a suspicious phrase. It’s not something people use multiple times a day, but I’d consider it common enough that when I hear someone say it, or in this case I suppose type it, that I would give it a second thought.

I don't think that two 13 and 14 years old accounts with not that many comment per week are bots.

Yeah but someone has to give the money to the insider traders.

Betting and insider gambling wouldn’t work if people were educated and just didn’t gamble and so never used these platforms in the first place.

It’s an old question of whether government is responsible to protect people from themselves or should we give everyone freedom to go bankrupt in this specific way if they so desire.

I don’t know if there is a healthy way to gamble really. With drugs and substances at least there is some continuous spectrum but you either gamble your money or not.

Would you not say that somebody could equally cynically describe options trading in this way?

Prediction markets are very valuable because they provide information on issues that's generally much more accurate than alternative sources, such as polls. For instance Polymarket predicted 94% of the results for the 2024 election a month out, including the presidential. It can also provide more information than the news. For instance the chances of Khamenei being out as Supreme Leader of Iran by March 31st just skyrocketed up to 78%. That tells me far more than the various news sites minute by minute coverage.

Jinx!

Gambling = investing. Buying stocks is also gambling. Share buybacks, dividends, fancy words for forking money from workers to some joe schmoe that bought a lottery ticket, i.e., a stock.

The concept of a valuable service falls apart if players can influence the actual event. Without equal footing and basic honesty, you aren't measuring reality so much as you are subsidizing those with the power to manipulate it.

Prediction markets have only events whose outcome is eventually publically resolved, by design. With insider trading, the trader is incentivized to release the information as late as possible, as close as possible to the events.

Why are these big insider bets being placed within hours of the event actually occurring? The insiders are doing the equivalent of bid sniping — waiting until the last possible moment to exercise.

This is how inside info works in trading markets in general. And again this is inevitable and by design.

It also makes them largely useless, because the timeline for which useful position is shared is compressed to the point where nothing useful can be gleaned from the information.

The thing is a “lie incentiviser” — a market entirely for suckers. That’s why 95% of volume is sports betting.

That’s setting aside insider positions having an influence on the outcome of events which is a whole separate problem.

why are publicly traded companies special? The speculation is not on securities.

You're not participating in a "market" (even though they call it that), you're purely gambling and speculating. People have been doing this since currency was a thing. Even gambling laws don't apply in my opinion. If I told you the government will publish evidence of aliens existing tomorrow, and we make a bet on it, that's not really gambling, it's not so much a game of choice as it is a competition of who can predict things better. The other person might have insider knowledge, but it's up to you to either take on that risk or assume despite that your knowledge about the topic will overcome their potential insider knowledge.

Except it's not "truth" as much as it is whatever has the most financial incentive to happen.

> I generally feel like people should be free to do whatever insane stuff they want with their own lives.

The problem with people doing insane stuff with their "own money" is the burden they often exact on their family or society.

Perhaps the realm of independence starts when loans are reasonable and current, there is sufficient child support, and they are meeting a base savings rate for their retirement.

Speaking of which, perhaps any UBI could also use a minimal criteria, reviewed annually but without any barriers on first year eligibility.

>Like if someone random comes up to me on the sidewalk and says hey if OpenAI announces

Then you hopefully understand that randoms approaching you is no equal to reality.