Prediction markets are a pyramid scheme

[pataphor]

Contrary to what I have been saying in the previous post I now feel a
sudden sudden surge of new found insight and competence, and, instead of
wasting the moment, I've decided to make lemonade out of my self doubt.

This all began after reading about the situation in the Tigray region
in northern Ethiopia. Not claiming to understand the finer details it
seems clear to me that this war is about disenfranchising a whole
culture, probably the most important aspect of it enforcing a certain
language.

Many people in the 'developed' world cannot see this kind of thing
anymore, because it's just like the proverbial fish not knowing the
element it is in, as it is everywhere around it.

This led me into thinking about my own life, how a not quite
brilliant, but nevertheless pretty smart person like me could end up
unemployed and without means of travel or lucrative trade.

Not that I am complaining, I'm doing pretty well these days, my e-bike
has decent range with the help of a few spare batteries, and it's just
because it is a slow device, not a speed pedelec, that makes such a big
range possible, be it that it takes a long time to get somewhere and
back, sometimes I'm biking for up to 12 hours.

But it's obvious I won't get any hands on experience with distant
cultures or geographical areas this way, and also, though I seem to
have some time left on this planet, I'm slowly becoming less adaptable
to travel because of advancing age and having no extra money to
compensate.

One curious thing is, as soon as I've traveled somewhere, that place
seems to become an item in the news, which could be an argument in
favor of either simulation theory, or selective attention.

A further development in this situation are the recent flooding events
in northwestern Europe, about which I have some special feelings, as
they seem to empower local governments to designate anyone not
'belonging' in the areas they control as disaster tourists.

It's not that I am, or want to be a disaster tourist but their measures
seem to block me from having my last possibility of escape, however
local an affair that may be, as everywhere I want to bike there is a
flooding nearby, with local magistrates trying to gain power by
deflecting responsibility for the disasters to outsiders, who for all I
know, are not all that bad, many of them probably willing to help, or
at least able to spread awareness of the situation, especially if they
have seen things with their own eyes.

The world view underlying this reaction seems to assume humans coming
from abroad are all bad, just there to satisfy their base instincts of
curiosity and enjoyment of other people's misery.

There may be such people, or maybe, since the disaster undermined
traditional authority they could be a further threat to the powers that
be, which would like to maintain the illusion that they are the only
ones able and allowed to help or to see what the situation on
the ground even is, and therefore standing by and watching is all
that external visitors can do.

Having lots of experience of being locked out of meaningful action, and
recently even with being locked down, as a result of fear for the
spread of different variants of the bat disease, it is natural for me
to start wondering how all of this came to be, and what the reasons
behind this are, for me personally, and for the wider society in
general.

So, me being poor, even when achieving a minor academic degree, which
by the way, was also the result of a subsidiary pyramid scheme to the
main one, could be something of more than just individual bad luck or
incompetence.

Not that I haven't had to receive lots of criticism for my perceived
parasitism and laziness, after I gave my all to science, only to be
betrayed by the real profiteers piloting that monstrosity, and as a
result being less suited for getting a job in the system, because I had
consumed the forbidden fruit of knowledge, even if that knowledge
turned out to be mostly useless fiction; I had failed and this was
all my own fault, or so the consensus seemed to be.

Thus even after living years in poverty, it is still me who is
perceived to be unable to take care of himself, instead of using the
more natural explanation, in which I am still without fault, and it is
society controlled by the established parties which has faulted not
just me, but many like me.

But, the narrative is, we need organization, to lift ourselves out of
poverty, look at the bridges, the dams, the roads, the airplanes (which
I had never the experience of traveling in), or look at China that
pulled itself out of the swamp by its own bootstraps.

A few decades ago I made a prediction that the improbable rise of
companies like google or facebook could be explained by accelerating
technology, and, because of that we could soon expect even newer
companies to take over from them, even faster than those previous
companies rose to power.

Curiously, something like that never happened, even though by now we
should have a large technological overhang, which I would now like to
call an economical overhang.

It's like a tree trying to deprive all nearby vegetation of light, water
and nutrients.

And it is here where prediction markets, and more of their ilk, like
the various rationalist cults, with their consequentialist
philosophies, and hypocritical revoking of politics (meaning anything
that isn't according to their culture's origin countries status quo is
forbidden) were taking philosophical center stage: The people manning
these companies must be smart, why else would they be rich, and,
holding on to their heels came the Peterson variants, where if we only
support the system and meekly accept our roles in it, success will come
in the end.

I must admit, I was somewhat close to that in the past, even graduating
on a related topic, where my research pointed to the fact that foreign
students that interacted more with the ruling society had less problems
and more success.

How naive I now realize that position to be!

Apart from the fact that this insight was contrary to the prevailing
political winds of that time, which were more leaning towards diversity
and education of foreigners in their own language and culture (boxing in
foreign students with asylum seekers, laborers from abroad and anything
remote), it was also based on what I now perceive as a fallacy: That it
is right, or even profitable, to make predictions that way.

This naturally leads me to prediction markets, which seem to
operationalize this behavior, of betting on the biggest shark all the
time, even giving it some solid mathematical underpinning, making it
not just smart, but the ethical thing to do.

So super forecasters, instead of the sycophants they seem to be, always
confirming the self fulfilling prophecy of the rich, only to be
rewarded by those same rich with making them right retroactively, are
now our heroes, loudly proclaiming to be in favor of 'effective
altruism', that is, after they've become rich enough to be able to
afford such things, by siding with perversely named organizations, like
'open' ai that are only vessels to ensure the continued dominance of
the moneyed companies they arise out of.

The fact that something has worked in the past is no guarantee
that it will work or be good in the future, unless one actively sides
with those forces, making some profit in the process perhaps, and
indulging in some selective attention and moral reasoning for profit,
coming up with ridiculous narratives like 'a tide that lifts all boats'
while engaging in activities that are more likely to sink us all, with
the liars escaping with the money.

I think it is time to appreciate what predictions are, far from being
objective they are statements of intent, declarations of who one is
siding with, and justifications for the disenfranchisement of those one
isn't able to see anymore after one has taken the money.

Related to this, and coming back to academia, why is it that some
people, around the age of 10 are able to achieve one degree after
another, is it that they are exceptionally smart, or is this something
that anyone would be able to do, once we accept that all these barriers
to progress are the result of the establishment trying to stall us
all, pointing to the immense progress that their systems seem to have
achieved in the past, forgetting to mention they have left that path
themselves long ago, after they personally came to power?

[worm food]

Replying for posterity.