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[–] 169 points 7 months ago (4 children)

What a stupid world we've allowed to be concocted.

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  • [–] 22 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Past few years I've been reading a shitty sci-fi series. In this series there's a race of creatures whose entire society is founded on gambling. They bet on everything, and people frequently bankrupt themselves. The moment you look at that world-building with even a little bit of scrutiny it falls apart in its stupidity.

    This is even dumber.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Lol pretty sure I know exactly what series you're talking about (beer can?). You're right - it's dumb, and the writing isn't exactly Dickens, but it's funny. Almost finished with the series myself. Something to read until something better comes along, at least.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    Go get yourself a juice box!

    When I first started the series I almost quit at the first book, it felt very American Military masturbatory, and I wasn't a fan. Eventually though, the worldbuilding and the cast captured me. At this point however it feels like the author signed a contract to squeeze out a quota of books and quality has suffered. It's gotten so intensely formulaic to the point of not being interesting. I've fallen victim to the gamblers fallacy though so I'm still reading it; I just want it to end.

    At this point you can tell that he struggles to make compelling storylines because he's started writing self-contained short stories he's throwing in at random parts of the book just to pad it out. It's a good move though, I think they're my favourite parts of the recent books.

    Overall I like the series, I just wish it hadn't been dragged out so much.

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  • [–] 131 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    Most cyberpunk read today.

    How that shit is not illegal is beyond me. Gambling is already predatory but outside of sports and in fucking armed conflicts is abhorrent.

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  • [–] 16 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    We are in the crime is legal era

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  • [–] 7 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Crime is legal... to the degree that you are sufficiently connected.

    🔲 - White

    🔲 - Male

    🔲 - Cis

    🔲 - Hetero

    🔲 - Christian (preferably conservative evangelical Protestant)

    🔲 - Politically conservative

    🔲 - Wealthy

    The more of these you can check off, the more crimes are legal.

    "For my friends, everything. For my enemies, the law."

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  • [–] 6 points 7 months ago

    Because Trump took charge of the SEC. The crypto just handles payments - the market itself is centralized and exists with the permission of the state.

    Wake me up when there's a bet that angers people in power, it gets censored, and someone launches a fully p2p version.

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  • [–] 91 points 7 months ago (6 children)

    So uh… what are the odds on polymarket for the guy getting killed?

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  • [–] 58 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    Can you put out a contract on someone just by betting on polymarket that they won't die by a particular date?

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  • [–] 76 points 7 months ago* (9 children)

    “If you decide to go with your ego and not with your head, you are leaving behind dozens of wealthy people from all over the world who will know that you performed market manipulation and stole from them. They know who you are, you don’t know who they are. It took them less than 5 minutes to find out exactly where you live … how often you see your lovely parents … and exactly who your … brothers and sisters are.”

    So the guy threatening the journalist to change his story so the gambler can make money isn't market manipulation, but the journalist not changing his story is....

    What scary about this, and it was mentioned in the article, is how future stories by less than ethical "journalist" can be purchased so that one side can become rich. Fuck accuracy it's all about the money.

    Well it's not like that is already the case with social media, but I would like to think there is at least some aspect of reporting that is based in ethics and truth.

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  • [–] 42 points 7 months ago (7 children)

    Polymarket is one of many direct evidence of the impending fall of society.

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  • [–] 35 points 7 months ago (6 children)

    It's one of those things that would seem excessive in a story.

    A place so decadent that everything was to bet for. Even as the world ended around them, they gambled on how.

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  • [–] 22 points 7 months ago* (2 children)

    It's the real life version of the intro to Cyberpunk 2077, with the radio host talking about bets on the death toll in Night city.

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  • [–] 16 points 7 months ago* (1 child)

    Cyberpunk was supposed to be a dystopia, not a fucking instruction manual!

    But seriously, I've lost about all enjoyment in cyber-dystopian stories because these days they cut depressingly close to home.

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  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago

    yeah I've had so many story ideas just end up being too on-the-nose. and a few that are "if I put this idea out there, someone will use it and make things worse for people I don't know." I don't need that kind of karma.

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  • [–] [S] 35 points 7 months ago

    Oh yeah, it is messed up and doesnt even cover the section where apparently another journalist the writer knows was bribed to try and coerce the flow of information to get that win. It basically confirms that there is already a willing lack of integrity somewhere to think it would work here.

    A few hours later, a colleague from another media outlet messaged me. He said that someone he knew asked him to ask me to change the report on the missile impact in Beit Shemesh, and that it would be “negligible” for me if I did make the change.

    Going further, the acquaintance even offered the journalist compensation, from his winnings, if he managed to convince me to change my report.

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  • [–] 49 points 7 months ago (12 children)

    Polymarket is one of the largest prediction markets in the world, where users can wager their money on the likelihood of future events, using cryptocurrency, debit or credit cards, and bank transfers.

    So this is a market place where rich people can bet on how gruesome poor people can die in war zones and genocides. Is this any different from the rich hunting the poor for sport? Instead of a trigger, they click a button, but it's not that different.

    Isn't humanity awesome? Can we please start jailing these (or at this point, all) psychopaths?

    Seriously, 99% of the population consists of awesome people that take care of one another. The problem is that psychopaths, like the ones from the article, have the need to be on top and control everything and we let them.

    Seriously, as far as I can tell, humanity could kill a few 10.000s psychopaths and all of the sudden, no more wars, no more hunger, no more conflicts, no more senseless pollution, the world could heal and humanity could enter a phase of sustainable awesomeness.

    No. I am not suggesting we kill them, it was just to make the point. However, I do feel we need to start testing people for psychopathy (as far as possible and work in better screening) to ensure we keep these fuckers from positions of power and money. We need to stop psychopaths from gaining any real power.

    Hell, if it were up to me, nobody would get great power or money. I'd have a world wide wealth cap, nobody can be worth over, say 1 or 10 million. Anything over that goes to taxes. THAT will stop people.frok amassing great wealth and power and just stop this shit

    For the website: I wish people were still masquerading as Anonymous and would just continuously hack this site into the ground where it belongs, next to its disgusting creators.

    Fuck I hate this world :(

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (7 children)

    More like 10 million psychopaths. 4% psychopathy rate.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (6 children)

    I didn't believe you. can you present evidence?

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (5 children)

    I can try to find. The 4% is the population rate of being without empathy. So that would cover sociopathy, psychopathy, and narcissistic personality disorder. It's still damaging and terrifying.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (4 children)

    how does the dsm define psychopathy

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago* (2 children)

    I think it's just "antisocial" traits. I also think it might have been updated to exclude sociopathy, but I read books about this a long time ago, so not sure. Psychopaths are Machiavellian, have no empathy, and are narcissistic, iirc. It's called the dark triad. Narcissists still experience anxiety, so they are different that way. Borderline folks often feel bad about themselves rather than having a grandiose sense of self, and I think they only have periods of lack of empathy during episodes. Really, I'm not sure borderline folks count in the 4%. I'm also not sure sociopaths and psychopaths are still classified separately in DSM.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    i have to admit i was baiting you because i knew psychopathy isn't a diagnosable condition in (ok, now just as far as i know) any version of the DSM. but then i read the wikipedia entry on psychopathy.

    it turns out, even though it's not diagnosable as such, there are evaluation criteria for it so it sort of sits in this weird middleground.

    anyway, i think we should just treat people as people and not like a diagnosis. i don't want people to treat me like "depressed commie" or "anxious commie" (not conditions i have diagnosed, just using examples). i want to be treated as a whole person. writing off people who hit certain evaluation criteria as "just a psychopath" is pretty shitty.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago*

    I think they usually do not attempt diagnosis before people are around 21. Maybe has to do with prefrontal lobe development. The reason is that kids are just stupid and do things that might be considered antisocial but are just growing up. Since there is a great stigma attached to those personality disorders, even in the mental health industry, they typically don't want to risk the mistake of incorrectly diagnosing it.

    Some psychopaths are highly functional and seem to be useful at times. I'd rather have a psychopath trauma surgeon for example. But I do think they will make the planet uninhabitable with all the wars and data centers. I've toyed with the idea of eliminating the genetic component through DNA tech, but then it opens Pandora's box for eliminating depression and all other sorts of things that can be natural adaptations or responses to environments, so the next thing you know we would just have perfect people without the imperfections that make us human.

    It's a fascinating topic. After being the target of a malignant psychopath I read some books (after I moved away). I found myself wondering which one of us was really flawed. Is it us for having empathy and vulnerability, or them for the damage they do? After deciding that they are creating barricades for climate change efforts (oil companies repressing clean energy tech, Trump killing wind farm efforts, bombing things constantly), I have come to the conclusion that they will contribute so much to the destruction of our species that it must be them that is flawed. We'll say rather, the condition is flawed since you're right about recognizing individuals as people and not their mental diagnoses.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    Seriously, 99% of the population consists of awesome people that take care of one another.

    hmmmm

    Susan Sontag was asked what she had learned from the Holocaust, and she said that 10% of any population is cruel, no matter what, and that 10% is merciful, no matter what, and that the remaining 80% could be  moved in either direction” —Kurt Vonnegut

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  • [–] 38 points 7 months ago

    We should make sure every person on the Internet has their identity confirmed at the device level and then we can punish these people for writing the wrong Iran story.

    • Department of War
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  • [+] 30 points 7 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] [S] 14 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    I was thinking it was just to not use polymarket but dang... I guess I was wrong.

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  • [–] 53 points 7 months ago

    Time to boost this post. I have received death threats from Zionist, but I have a feeling these poly market people are scarier since they have money on the line

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  • [–] 41 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Holy shit.

    Not only this is horrifying cause of the threats, it’s also very unsettling that something with such a recipe for disaster would attract so many rubes to be a working business model.

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  • [–] 13 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah, it sort of makes me wonder how many bets have been fixed already.

    I'm guessing a lot. Our wealthy like to gamble and are not normally subject to justice.

    Distressing is right, there's a lot of potential there. Especially with all the didling going on indicated by the Epstein files.

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 7 months ago

    There was an article recently about some account called like "magamaster###" creating a bet about Iran, winnining $900,000 and all within the span of about 2 days before just disappearing.

    Pretty sure the people that win aren't doing it by luck anymore.

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  • [–] 17 points 7 months ago

    The "gamble on news" site causing psychos to threaten journalists wasn't something I expected, but I blame a lack of imagination on my part regarding human depravity.

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  • [–] 15 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    So what happens to him if he does change the story? Like... The new losers will be PISSED at him. It's a no-win situation.

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  • [–] 6 points 7 months ago*

    Also, the video of the strike clearly exists. If he changes the story there will be many other outlets reporting on the sudden change, the bets, the public requests for the change, and showing the video which apparently clearly shows a strike on Israel's soil.

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  • [–] 14 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Shame death threats aren't prosecutable

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  • [–] 12 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Given all the entanglements of all the big players, I genuinely wonder how much polymarket is predicting vs influencing events

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  • [–] 9 points 7 months ago

    This was my takeaway from the article as well. Before the death threat, how many asks did the reporter get to change their reporting? How easy is out to cut someone in by promising $5K of they change just one little word? Who would it harm?

    It seriously gave me dystopian hellscape vibes.

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  • [–] 12 points 7 months ago

    I feel like if I were trying to manipulate that market I'd be trying to bend reality in a better direction.

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  • [–] 30 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    US: promotes no gambling to children by suing Valve and their lootboxes mechanics

    Also US: has an app where anyone can gamble on real life events.

    🤷‍♂️

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  • [–] 8 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Polymarket is (or was, anyway) not operating within the US. These are non US people threatening the journalist.

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago

    It was not for a short period of time, but since 2025 it does.

    My point that it was originated in US and is US based company that operates in US and globally - the same US of A which recently began fighting gambling in games, specifically Valve games.

    Also, just recalled that US has a literal gambling city. Hi-fucking-larious.

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago

    no gambling to children

    "protect the children" is used to justify all sorts of bad laws but there is absolutely no conflict between stopping something for children and allowing adults.

    You: "The US is so stupid, it doesn't allow marketing cigarettes to children."

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  • [–] 10 points 7 months ago

    I really hope their money loss is huge and will bankrupt them, because I doubt they will otherwise let any consequences for their threats

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