Comment by philwelch
12 hours ago
> Are you gonna tell me residents in Tel Aviv will be able to hedge their chances of surviving tomorrow?
Yes, of course! If you had some advance warning your home town was likely to be struck with missiles soon, are you seriously saying you can't think of a single thing you could do to prepare? I would, at a minimum, make sure I was stocked up on first aid supplies, water, and food that I could eat without needing power or gas to cook it.
I live here, I don't need Polymarket to know that there will be missiles tomorrow. In fact, that's why I'm on HN now even though it's just past midnight here. Because it's a well known law of nature that just as I drift off to sleep my phone will violently alert me with this horrid bzzhhh-bzzhhh sound that missiles are incoming. Then I'll turn on the TV, any news channel, and see the "polygon of uncertainty" overlaid on a map of the country, updating in real time, and I'll decide how fast to put my shoes on. Polymarket odds ain't got nothing on that.
More seriously - I used to think this was a good argument. But the night before the war broke out, I checked Polymarket and the odds were under 20%. I also checked the news and listened to my gut, and I'm glad I made the call to fill up my car's tank and prepare my go-bag. Came in handy when we woke up to sirens and had to move fast to get closer to shelter.
Yes, it's anecdata, etc etc
And don't you see the other part of the medal?
That there are economical incentives to make it happen just to make money?
Such events have little-to-no "wisdom of the crowds" those events decided by a handful of people. And their consequences catastrophic.
What if there was a derivative for whether you will be hit by a car tomorrow?
What would you say if there was a contract on whether your county will burst in flames this month?
Are you happy because you can hedge this event, or don't you realize the obvious peril?
> That there are economical incentives to make it happen just to make money?
I don't see how there is. The liquidity in a prediction market is not high enough to compensate for the expense of going to war.
The war was going to happen irregardless of the prediction market. The prediction market only let us know when it was going to happen with some hours to spare.
Ballistic missiles are pretty expensive. You'd have to bid a lot of money for it to be worthwhile to shoot them at a country just to make money on Polymarket.
If there was a prediction market for whether I'll be hit by a car tomorrow, and it was lucrative enough that it would actually be worth anyone's time to deliberately hit me with a car, I'd stay home and bid on "no". Pretty sure I'd make more than enough to cover the cost of ordering pizza.
There are already perverse incentives to commit arson, like insurance. And it's entirely possible that prediction markets can make insurance even more cost-effective.