May 25, 2023
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/mantic-monday-52223
Whales v. Minnows // US v. Itself // EPJ v. The Veil Of Time // Balaji v. Medlock
Manifold is a play money prediction market. Its intended purpose is to have fun and estimate the probabilities of important events. But instead of betting on important events, you might choose to speculate on trivialities. And instead of having fun, you might choose to ruin your life.
From the beginning, there were joke markets like “Will at least 100 people bet on this market?” or “Will this market’s probability end in an even number?” While serious people worked on increasingly sophisticated estimation mechanisms for world events, pranksters worked on increasingly convoluted jokes. In early April, power user Is. started “Whales Vs. Minnows”: Will traders hold at least 10000x as many YES shares as there are traders holding NO shares? In other words, Team Whale had to sink lots of mana (play money) into the market, and Team Minnow had to get lots of people to participate.
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