It's clearly you who is not understanding how shorting with options works, since the downside is limited and NOT unlimited as you wrongly claim.

Buying puts for let's say $500 let's you short a stock, now if the stock moves up, you can lose 100% ( if it doesn't come down within expiry ) but you can't lose a single cent more than that. One way to have unlimited downside is naked shorting.

sounds like you don't understand it either. put options let you sell short a fixed amount of stocks without the unlimited downside. other types of options with unlimited downside are heavily restricted by brokers (b/c of underlying regulation) and not available to the average user without going through trading approval processes where they make the risks very clear.

There is no unlimited downside with options. The worst case scenario is losing the amount you paid for the contract.

I'm game. As long as retail means everyone except institutions. So, it doesn't matter how much wealth you have, what credentials you tout, if you're a GS alumni, or if you're Nancy Pelosi's husband.

Because a financial regulation where retail was something other than an euphemism for lower classes would be a world first.

Exactly the opposite is true. Options are easy to understand and they have unlimited upside.