For whatever it's worth, Kalshi refused to pay out on the bet because Khomenei died, and they refuse to allow people to profit off of death so they returned everyone's bets.
While I think this policy removes one avenue of incentivizing death of real people (many bets involving real people can probably be resolved by some sort of assassination attempt), I honestly think the whole concept of betting on real world events is ludicrous to begin with, including sports. It always incentivizes behavior that doesn't naturally occur (the trope of fixing horse races comes to mind).
Just this afternoon I was reading an account of one of the earliest known betting ledgers, the "Betting Book" at White's, a private member's club in London. In the 18th century, one of the most common bets taken up by members was which Lord or nobleman would outlive another. One bet had a note under it that the wager was not settled up by the bettors because the subjects both died of suicide within a few months of each other.
Well, certainly, if they had chosen otherwise it is unlikely they could have continued to operate:
> ...the Commission may determine that such agreements, contracts, or transactions are contrary to the public interest if the agreements, contracts, or transactions involve—(I) activity that is unlawful under any Federal or State law; (II) terrorism; (III) assassination; (IV) war; (V) gaming; or (VI) other similar activity determined by the Commission, by rule or regulation, to be contrary to the public interest.
Not sure. For the record I don't think of Kalshi as an ethical company. I just found it interesting that it's the only company that seems to be getting press coverage for refusing to pay out because of this.
I always thought that "Gray's Sports Almanac" in Back to the Future 2 would quickly become useless as all sorts of factors after large public bets would cause events to change and sports scores just wouldn't line up anymore.
I guess it is just human nature to gamble on everything, anything. And when government puts down a heavy hand they turn to more lucrative underground shops.
Yeah I had to reread that part... I was like, no way the CEO of Polymarket publicly said on record that it incentivizes leaks. Had to check to make sure I wasn't on the onion.
In Islam, a Muslim who dies in war is considered a martyr, and it's desirable to die in the month of Ramadan. In other words, it's something that most Muslims want to have happen, but it's not like something we want to make happen. Like I don't want to die right now, but if I were to die, may as well be during Ramadan.
Yeah, I was recalling public references to Husayn ibn Ali (Haider) [1] preparing for battle. This individual is revered for both martyrdom and victory, so I guess which one he had in mind is technically ambiguous…. It’s also the same figure that the Iranians referenced after his death .[2]
Yeah I personally don't give it much thought. I write what I want to write, reread what I wrote, make sure it makes sense and briefly check for errors, then submit (at least as that's how I write HN comments, other venues may require more or less process).
Admittedly sometimes I'll pass my text through an LLM to check for obvious mistakes I may have missed. But the text itself was mine.
If that makes someone think I'm a bot, then maybe it's OK that we didn't engage anyway.
I'd argue this entire HN discussion is proof that whether or not content is LLM generated, people can engage and have a meaningful discussion. I see lots of viewpoints in this discussion.
> And to what end?
The same could be asked of engaging with human commenters on HN :)
I comment on HN because writing is cathartic for me. If the person I'm responding to is a bot, or used a bot to generate it, it doesn't matter. I still stand by what I write. And other commenters can engage with what I wrote, regardless of the provenance of the text of the comment I responded to.
I read that comment as the commenter trying to decipher the meaning of the post, and saying what meaning would be interesting.
I think it's interesting that there's a few camps of commenter in this discussion who think this post is Ai generated and refuse to engage with the content. And there's others who are enjoying it for what it is. A silly blog post.
I think this is one of the moments where the adage "it's the thought that counts" makes sense! If you're just throwing a prompt at a generator and send it to your friend as a birthday gift then that's a bit tacky. I once got a hand drawn picture in a card from one of my best friends. It was terrible! But I knew how much effort he put into it.
If I found out that he just used AI to make the picture, then I'd probably ask him what his workflow was.
I'm not against using AI to generate images and stuff! I actually have been playing with image generation (Nano banana and also comfy ui). I like making silly pictures for friends and family as e-cards (or whatever they're called now). If it's not a close friend, then I'll exchange prompts with nano banana and generate a few dozen images and then pipe it into veo to make an animated e-card. Maybe takes 10-20 mins including image generation time.
For closer friends I'd spin up comfy ui, spend some time looking for workflows or loras, probably generate a few dozen images as well, and pipe the one I like into Wan video.
This process can take me about an hour, which includes generation time. But I tell my friends they're ai generated, not that I need to because they all I know I can't draw. They don't mind, even if they don't necessarily know how much effort I put into their picture. To their eyes, maybe I just used nano banana. But no ones ever accused me of being lazy with them. It's all in good fun anyways.
That's a bit reductive. Let's say worst case that LLMs can't generate anything truly novel because of their limitations. That means that whatever they generated is just someone else's words, which could have been that person's art.
On the flip side, let's say LLMs are able to generate something novel. Well, then it could potentially generate thought-provoking art.
Not everything is deserving of finding meaning in. But the fun part of life is looking for things to find meaning in. Whether it's the words of God or an LLM or the President, people will always find meaning. And if it makes them happy and fulfilled, who are we to say it was a waste?
As an aside, I remember some time ago that Tesla stock went down because the growth of the Model 3 sales went down... After years of being one of the best selling cars on the planet.
If number don't go up fast I guess people get scared.
https://xcancel.com/mansourtarek_/status/2029996077554815268
While I think this policy removes one avenue of incentivizing death of real people (many bets involving real people can probably be resolved by some sort of assassination attempt), I honestly think the whole concept of betting on real world events is ludicrous to begin with, including sports. It always incentivizes behavior that doesn't naturally occur (the trope of fixing horse races comes to mind).
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