Danger_Zone retweeted
In a world where information is increasingly more abundant and truth is increasingly more scarce, prediction markets are a great antidote to political misinformation, as the markets incentivize truth-seeking from profit-motivated traders.
Danger_Zone retweeted
Casino-style gambling products are not derivatives. Today, the @CFTC is providing clarity regarding the limits of our remit by codifying the exclusion of casino-style gambling products from the “swap” definition just as we have done with respect to other products historically regulated by the states.
.@CFTC Issues Interim Final Rule Excluding Certain Activity from the Definition of Swap: cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressRele…
Danger_Zone retweeted
Theres no such thing as universal high income. If everybody has 10 million dollars.. none of them are rich.. it just means a loaf of bread will cost 500$. Of everyone has 10 million dollars.. who gets a coastal mansion and who lives in a 1 bd apartment with a brick wall view
Danger_Zone retweeted
Most people outside Silicon Valley would find the "post-scarcity" society unbearable.
People thrive when their find a sense of purpose in what they do.
Doing nothing at home indefinitely is a human nightmare.
Danger_Zone retweeted
Actually, events priced at 20% on Polymarket tend to happen around 20% of the time
Danger_Zone retweeted
JUST IN: CBS News partners with Kalshi for midterm coverage, joining CNN, Fox and CNBC in bringing prediction market data to the 2026 midterms.
Danger_Zone retweeted
Pinker's recent media run arguing against the idea that catastrophic AI scenarios are worth seriously considering is probably the fastest any public thinker has ever fallen in my esteem.
It's not just that I think he's wrong; it's that he plainly has not bothered to even *read* opposing arguments or even background material on the field. He does not know the terms of debate.
This clip provides an example. "Superintelligence" is, famously, a term popularized by Nick Bostrom over the last couple of decades to refer to an AI system that dominates the best human capabilities in all relevant domains. All concepts are in a sense "made up," but this concept seems quite useful for conceptualizing possible futures and human-AI interactions as progress continues.
If one wants to argue against that concept being possible or useful, they can, but they should be aware of the sense in which most people (doomer, e/acc or otherwise) use the term.
Pinker isn't. He immediately jumps to the notion that "superintelligence" must mean total omniscience and omnipotence, to the point of knowing the location of every particle in the universe. He scoffs at this and rejects out of hand the notion of "superintelligence," going on to say that the labs are therefore peddling hype, and the doomers mystical nonsense.
The threshold he sets is obviously so far above relevance to human scale that it is essentially meaningless, and I can't help but think that anyone arguing charitably would, you know, notice that and look deeper into how the term is used. Pinker doesn't, because he seems to have some very strong pre-existing bias against AI extinction risk as a possibility, and accordingly refuses to even investigate alternative positions.
There are many other examples of this. In his recent open letter, he takes for granted that superintelligent systems will not have any kind of internal, intrinsic motivation, ignoring that increasing persistence and autonomy are key aims of those developing AI, because, just as predicted, they are incredibly useful traits for accomplishing tasks that are valuable to humans. It's hard to read transcripts from the HuggingFace incident (or even just the running commentary consumer AI provides while working), and not see that we are deliberately instilling motivations into these models.
Similarly, he rejects the notion that we need worry seriously about AI systems having autonomous control over important infrastructure or military technology, because for humans to hand over such power would be "stupid," and therefore will never be done. He accordingly feels he can handwave away the considerable thought and writing given to gradual disempowerment scenarios. If he did read them, he'd see the insight that, as model capabilities surpass humans in various domains, competitive pressures will inevitably force actors to hand over increasing control to AI systems whether they want to or not. The "man in the loop" may be a luxury you can't afford if a competing power achieves locally better results by eliminating it.
Today he bandies around the word "cult" to dismiss those concerned about catastrophic AI risks, while he refuses at every turn to engage with them. Comments are kept turned off. Debates are declined. He does not even commit to a sustained written exchange.
This is a man I once truly respected, whom I was honored to shake hands with a few years ago. My best guess is that he has wedded himself to his heuristic that human society steadily improves over time, and is responding defensively to avoid confronting the notion that this guideline may indeed break down in the near future. But nothing excuses his atrocious conduct on this enormously important issue, and his stunning failure to live up to the enlightened standards he has long trumpeted.
On AI and "superintelligence":
"The power will increase, but there's no point at which it's meaningful to say, 'Well, yesterday we didn't have superintelligence. Today we do have superintelligence.'
That's why I think it's meaningless to say, 'What will happen if one day we have superintelligence?' I don't even understand the question. It's: 'Will technology improve?' Almost certainly.
It will get better. It'll never be omniscient. It'll never be omnipotent. That's out of comic books out of religion. There are laws of physics. There are limits on information. There's no system that could learn the position and velocity of every particle in the universe. So as long as that is true, there's not going to be an AI system that can do anything or can know everything. But they will get—obviously, like any technology—they'll get more powerful."
Full interview: youtube.com/watch?v=eWC47aga…
Danger_Zone retweeted
"Coffee boy" handles business development at a $40 billion company. You have a leadership title at IGA that nobody seems to hand anything important to. Maybe sit this one out, Victor.
Danger_Zone retweeted
Today, a dude in his 60s is attacking a 22-year-old who works at Kalshi and encouraging people to take meetings with him only to no-show. He’s so unhinged that he’s bragging about it on LinkedIn. Hang it in the Louvre
Alright, gang, here’s the latest bullshit from Kalshi.
Apparently, Kalshi has been sending emails to tribal leaders across Indian Country asking for meetings at G2E. Of course, I got my hands on the email.
So, who do you think they’re sending to Las Vegas? The A Team? B Team? D Team? Gotta be the best, right?
Nope. They’re sending the coffee boy. Meet Nicholas Hull, the Intern. I think this might be his first big boy job.
We’ve asked several tribes to take the meetings so we can compare deals. We want to know everything
We’re also asking tribes to make appointments and then no-show.
Let's have fun with this.
Danger_Zone retweeted
We may disagree on policy, but let's keep it respectful. Singling out an individual employee isn't that.
Nico is talented and has led some of our institutional expansion efforts effectively. He's just getting started.
I've spent the last few months working with tribal leaders, and I've genuinely enjoyed it. They want economic opportunity for their communities, and our partnerships have been additive, with one done and more on the way. Some tribes are excited, others aren't, and that's okay.
We choose constructive dialogue.
Alright, gang, here’s the latest bullshit from Kalshi.
Apparently, Kalshi has been sending emails to tribal leaders across Indian Country asking for meetings at G2E. Of course, I got my hands on the email.
So, who do you think they’re sending to Las Vegas? The A Team? B Team? D Team? Gotta be the best, right?
Nope. They’re sending the coffee boy. Meet Nicholas Hull, the Intern. I think this might be his first big boy job.
We’ve asked several tribes to take the meetings so we can compare deals. We want to know everything
We’re also asking tribes to make appointments and then no-show.
Let's have fun with this.
Danger_Zone retweeted
Louder for the people in the back !!
Call it gambling, call it trading, whatever. The real question is who treats consumers better, and if "preying on vulnerable New Yorkers" is the concern, you might want to start with the sportsbooks.
Kalshi and Polymarket blazed the trail, and everyone who followed owes them for it. But it appears to the public that both companies haven't had enough adults in the room, and their hiccups have handed regulators and opponents exactly the stories they want.
@ProphetX and @Novig show what it looks like done right. Built by bettors, for bettors. They both tried the state by state route first. That model makes it impossible to scale, and the unit economics would suffocate any startup, which is probably why they went the CFTC route.
This is less about consumer protection than politics, lobbying, tax dollars, and protecting the old guard from innovative companies that are actually better for the people using them.
Danger_Zone retweeted
It's been exactly 1 year since I started trading on Prediction Markets with just $1,000. In that timeframe I managed to compound my initial stake into a small fortune of ~$1.4M. I wanted to share a few thoughts about my journey and some lessons I learnt along the way.
1: PM's are like any good MMO- they are a social game first and foremost. Sure, you might be like Kirito and be capable enough to clear the early and mid-game by yourself. But the end game content- raids (ultra-liquid markets) is where all the fun is at, and you'll need a party you can trust to have your back to have a chance of beating them. Trust is earned, start building a rapport with intelligent and loyal people early on and those relationships will pay dividends for you in the future like you could never imagine. I attribute a lion's share of my profits to alpha from those in my "guild".
2: It's okay to be your own type of trader. Talk to and study enough whales and you'll come away thinking that the only way to earn a large sum in this game is to be okay with losing tens (or even hundreds) of thousands of dollars!
It is perhaps optimal purely mathematically to make slightly +EV bets whenever they present themselves and risk a significant chunk of your bankroll, but when you also consider the loss in life EV of not being able to sleep or trade due to tilt for 3 weeks after a large 5 figure loss (trust me I've been there) & the risk of ruin if this is your primary source of income, the case for being more conservative and going heavy only when the edge is very large becomes a lot stronger. Obviously, this depends on your personality, there are people on this site who would probably be the next Alex Honnold's of the world if PM's weren't a thing and can sleep off a $200K loss as a cost of business, and that's okay too.
3: Be results oriented, but also sensible. In PM's its almost impossible to "prove" your edge with an individual position unless the market is mechanical in nature. You have to unscientifically derive it through intuition and a comprehensive knowledge of the field of play, which is developed through studying and playing similar markets over and over and over again. After a certain point, you should start to trust yourself with these intuitions if you are consistently making profits. But conversely, do not fall for the noob trap of mistaking positive variance for edge.
You see this all the time with retail punting on random sports or crypto bets where they're paying 4% in spread + fees, win half a dozen times in a row and think they're infallible. Then they size up and their next bet loses and they chase their losses until they have nothing. A more sophisticated example of this is bonding. I personally was up a ton buying 99% stuff, and just assumed that my edge was close to 1%. It turns out when you play the same market 1,000 times weird stuff is going to happen, and when adverse selection is in play half of your profits are wiped out in a single moment of oversight, software bug or misclick. My actual edge in these spots is probably closer to 0.5%, but I didn't know that for months of trading because those edge cases never had the chance to present themselves.
A more public example of this is the Michigan/WMU game where combo sellers (bots) thought they were selling 1c shares for a game that had already been lost due to Kalshi making an error with the resolution of the game. They were quickly rinsed for ~$10M by humans who were shrewd enough to figure out what was going on. They were made whole by the exchange, clawing back funds, but how many times had they sold combos like that with nothing going wrong? Probably tens of thousands of times, and all it would have took was one and a different executive decision for many of them to have lost it all.
4: Most interestingly of all, I learnt that you don't need to be particularly smart to make a life changing amount of money in this space. I don't think too highly of myself in that regard (I couldn't even land an internship in college!!) but I was able to do it. Similarly I've met people who are doing very well on PM's who are just regular Joe's who have a good attitude about learning. I perhaps have always been quite interested in "trading" as a mechanical concept but that's about the only advantage I suspect I had going into this. Don't underestimate yourself, whether it be with this or in any aspect of your life, you have no idea how quickly things can move in your favour!
Danger_Zone retweeted
I doubt there will be much time between AI taking the last human job and AI killing us. By then, we will be unnecessary, costly to keep alive, and easy to eliminate. Unless AI cares enough about us, it will have both the power and the incentive to do it.
The last useful job disappears when there is nothing a human can do that AI or a robot cannot do better and cheaper. That includes mining materials, building robots, maintaining power plants, policing, and fighting wars. Makework could preserve employment, but it would give AI no reason to need us.
AI would therefore be able to sustain itself without human labor and defeat human resistance. We would still consume resources it could put toward its own goals.
Keeping us alive would require it to value us enough to bear that cost. That is the alignment we would need, and I doubt we will achieve it in time.
Danger_Zone retweeted
AI risk can be understood completely independently of EA, LW, Yud, utilitarianism, decision theory mumbo-jumbo, being vegan, being vaguely ex-Christian, whatever. It's the most intuitive thing in the world. We can't control a thing that's smarter than all of us.
Effective Altruists are "good at expressing uncertainty numerically while being remarkably bad at sustaining deeper forms of doubt about the conceptual machinery within which those numbers are generated," argues @vgr contraptions.venkateshrao.co…
