limit at 5% if you want more NO

Not selling because I believe the probability to be higher than 3%, but because 2035 resolution + no loans means this market really shouldn't be above like 6% (see Eliezer UFO bet market)

Are people betting this so high just because of AI doom and charter cities? I think if the government willingly cedes 26mi^2 to a charter city for a reasonable price, that is not a bad thing but it technically counts for a yes resolution.

Probably AI

interesting take. I'm YES bc of /LegendaryFoatGucker/will-there-be-a-civil-war-violent-r

I’d only count a charter city if it has a legal system which is truly not accountable to the US, OR if its militarily is sophisticated enough to meaningfully withstand or deter a US military response.

thanks for the clarification. But de jure accountability and de facto accountability can be very different -- the loss of the monopoly on violence might only be on paper. I think there's a sense in which every country in the world is accountable to the US empire, and this is not so much weaker than the sense in which a charter city would be accountable to the US. The whole point of a charter city is to be exempt from the host country's laws and regulations, except perhaps certain fundamental ones that the host country won't tolerate any deviation from. The charter city can mostly do what it wants, under the implicit threat that if they piss off the USG enough the USG will take over and impose its will. Which is about the same implicit threat as most other countries in the world are working under.

This question resolves YES to a de facto loss of the monopoly on violence, but also to full de jure legal separation. You are right that there are many nations which are de facto accountable to the US, because of the hard and soft power the US holds. But this would not make it fair to say that the US government retains a monopoly on violence in, say, Canada. The Canadian government can legitimately administer force against its residents, and the US legal system can't veto or review its decisions.

Here's a standard I think is reasonable for charter cities: if a murder committed in the city would not be handled through the US legal system, in favor of an alternative mechanism managed by the city which cannot be officially vetoed or reviewed by US courts, I'll count that as enough legal separation for a YES resolution. I'm happy to discuss this more, though.

this seems like a reasonable take! thanks OP

Disney @ 40 square miles

This doesn’t count. Disney is accountable to US law, as are individuals within its land, and as far as I understand Disney would not be able to defend the land against tanks. If either (not necessarily both) of these change, that would be enough for a YES resolution.

What are some contemporary examples of countries that have lost this monopoly?

Haiti, Syria, and Yemen are examples that would probably count today.

Would the state of the drug cartel war in Mexico count under "Organized criminal entities act in open defiance of the law, in a manner that reveals an inability, even with reasonable military effort, for the US government to control its territory."?

I would strongly consider a YES resolution in a case similar to Mexico, where for instance dozens of political candidates are killed for opposing a cartel, if the cartel withstands a serious, militarized government response.

Hmm. Would a bunch of collective organized crime organizations count? how tied together would they have to be? would a state attempting to secede count?

What about if it was possible that a group could have this kind of control easily but just doesn't, like, say, if there were a cold-war-style scenario where some would, at a specific person's go-ahead, attempt takeover of a reigon? What about a second civil war?

(sorry for all the questions, and I hope the "Hmm." at the beginning doesn't make me sound pretentious.)

I'd say the bar should be really high for organized crime to count. It is not enough for the activity to be hard to completely root out, like Dark Net Markets, unless it reaches a point of open violent defiance of the law that far exceeds anything we've ever seen from organized violent crime. Something like persistent, organized, decentralized vandalism which results in more than $100B in economic damage and which withstands broad, militarized resistance from the government could count.

What about if it was possible that a group could have this kind of control easily but just doesn't?

I'd be willing to resolve YES in this case if the situation is plainly clear, though in most cases military confrontation would probably be necessary to meet this threshold. If it somehow becomes the case that Metooglesoft has its own drone army and a next-gen laser air defense system or something defending its cluster, and it's pretty clear that the USFG can't do much short of nuking the place, then I'd probably consider resolving YES at that point.

Were the condition for this market to resolve YES met at any point in US history after the Civil War, and if so which points?

I like this question, because it's helpful to specify where on the timeline--from de facto loss of control to military confrontation--this market would resolve. Yes, this market would have resolved YES at the onset of the Civil War, since the USFG no longer maintained military control over parts of the country. There would be a weak argument for resolving upon South Carolina's secession, since an attempt to immediately send federal troops to the state would likely have met armed resistance. There's a stronger argument for resolving at Lincoln's inauguration, when he announced U.S. marshals and judges would be withdrawn wherever federal law could not peacefully be enforced. This market would have resolved YES unambiguously after the Battle of Fort Sumter.

The takeaway is that I'll lean towards waiting for instances of direct military confrontation before resolving, though official announcements of withdrawals or agreements that cede power would also generally be enough.

Since the Civil War, the US has never met the conditions for this market. I would argue that the bootlegging period was the closest this market would have come to resolving YES, but most criminal activity opposing Prohibition did not occur in open violent defiance of the law.

NJitpick: the US government doesn't have a monopoly on violence, it has a monopoly on legitimate violence

Good point, that’s how the phrase is often understood. In this question, I’m also using it to refer to de facto military control.

Adding this for correctness, legitimate violence is a subset of violence, and therefore claiming that it doesn't have a monopoly on violence is false. Instead, say that it doesn't merely have a monopoly on violence, but also on legitimate violence