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Comment by onlyrealcuzzo | Hacker News Reader

Giving people an easy way to profit (i.e. incentive) to use either direct political power or indirect power via bribes is going to have massive consequences on corruption.

We've made profiting off of corruption substantially easier. Anyone who thinks that isn't going to increase corruption is a moron.

Anyone who thinks having more corruption is a good thing is also a moron.

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It's also going to lead to assassination markets, either directly or indirectly.

> "Johnny CEO will be alive in 2027"

That might be banned from platforms (though not illegal), but this isn't:

> "Jonny CEO is the primary reason ComanyAbc stock is so overheated. CompanyAbc stock will close above X market cap on December 31, 2027."

That is an indirect proxy for assassination.

There are multiple things that could happen here:

- Assassin(s) place bets for outcome favored by assassination, then assassinate.

- Rival(s) place bets for outcome that do not favor assassination to either claim lack of responsibility or to attract bad outcomes. They might publicly announce it, then quietly work on implementing the outcome or let it arise naturally to take the other side of the bet.

I can think of a number of CEOs, politicians, and world leaders where this would put them in the crosshairs and make market participants very wealthy.

Even the "X candidate wins Y election" outcomes are subject to this.

> That might be banned from platforms (though not illegal)

They are currently trying to fix this: https://www.hickenlooper.senate.gov/press_releases/hickenloo...

chances of that passing are roughly in-line with chances of passing a bill to prevent our congressmen and senators from insider trading (you can also bet this as well :) )

True.. I didn't think about that lol

Is there an infinite supply of fools money? There sort of has to be if it's clear that the outcomes are being manipulated by participants in the bets.

I guess people do walk into casinos and play games that are legally controlled to have outcomes favoring the casino.

If you are KGB you can intentionally lose in order to bribe someone.

This whole thing isa KGB propaganda tool + method to give bribes and should be banmed by the Western world.

Traditional financial markets already give people really big incentives to cause all kinds of mischief. Eg buy a few puts, then publish some made up bad news about the company and profit.

Somehow that doesn't seem to be too much of a problem in practice.

I don't care if someone tanks MSFT stock artificially or deservedly.

I do care if someone pays the president of Cuba $300k to launch a rocket at a skyscraper in Miami to start a war so they can make $1M.

If you're invested in MSFT, you signed up to be some part of a casino.

If you just live in the real world, you ideally did not sign up for infinite corruption that actually impacts your life just because someone wants to bribe politicians to get an ROI.

> I do care if someone pays the president of Cuba $300k to launch a rocket at a skyscraper in Miami to start a war so they can make $1M.

Something is very wrong, if Cuba is so easily bought.

Btw, if that were so easy, why would counterparties even trade with the better at these prices? (And why wouldn't they also spend money influencing the president of Cuba?)

And: a war with Cuba with seriously dent share prices. So you can already do the bet you suggest by shorting stocks or buying put options.

I mean, the moment the American Supreme Court gave the president immunity for acts in office, they basically gave him the ability to issue a price list for doing absolutely anything.

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