Resolves YES if my total profit is above Ṁ1,500 by Jan 1st
1,000
3.00
@GeorgeVii If I go to market details it shows my local time zone instead of UTC. Is there a way to know which time zone the market creator was in? Or do you mean by "created UTC" that the close time was midnight UTC?
@StevenK I think George's computer is set to UTC, and they're also noting that the close date was midnight UTC time rather than midnight in any other time zone.
I'm looking at the timestamps... it looks like @DesTiny's market closed at midnight GMT
Whereas Isaac's profit transfer market was only created 25 hours later
If @DesTiny says he'll leave his market open on January 1st, that should be expected to mean only 24 hours past the market's original midnight deadline.
@MichaelWheatley correction: not "leave the market open on January 1st", but rather, "resolve based on profits at the end of January 1st"
@MichaelWheatley For reference, here's the conversation we had:
If I had been told a different time, I would have simply sent the profit at that time instead.
@IsaacKing End-of-day resolution times are based on the system clock, right? So I'm curious how @DesTiny could make that mix-up.
@MichaelWheatley manifold displays all times in the local time zone of the computer they're being displayed on. If DesTiny relied on Manifold's terrible auto-info-picker for market creation rather than inputting it manually, it seems like an easy mix up to make.
@IsaacKing I totally believe that you would have just done it sooner, but on the other hand, my feeling is "Live by the exact letter of the law, die by the exact letter of the law."
@MichaelWheatley Looks like the auto picker is very arbitrary. I just created a test market with no date specified, and it chose 15:59 as the ending time.
If I enter a day but no time, it refuses to let me create the market until I pick a time. I don't know if it was working that way on the day when DesTiny created this market though. I think it's more likely that they did choose the time manually.
I agree that the letter of the law should be followed, when such a letter exists. As far as I'm aware DesTiny never made any specific public claims about exactly when the profit was being checked, they just said "after the Jan 1 markets resolve". This whole "midnight UTC" business was a very iffy extrapolation from the close date. I don't think traders get to look at an ambiguity in the market description, decide on their own post-hoc interpretation, then get mad when the creator doesn't follow it. If people wanted to know the exact resolution time in advance, they should have asked like I did.
@IsaacKing Aside from whether market manipulation like this is permissible, does it serve any useful purpose, or is it just for the hell of it? Manifold could refer new users to a long FAQ that describes the potential risks of these kinds of markets, and that's probably a good idea, For myself, I mostly avoid markets where the creator can exert a large influence on the result. But you could also just choose not to engage in this sort of behavior.
@akrasiac That's a good point. It might be easier to onboard people if they don't have to explain these things.
As I mentioned elsewhere though, a lot of markets are designed with manipulation in mind, or manipulation is otherwise fine. If someone bets a lot on a democrat winning the 2024 election and then decides to volunteer in their campaign, should that be illegal? I think it's simpler to allow manipulation in general, and only ban specific actions that they deem to be a problem, such as manipulating profit numbers.
@IsaacKing I completely agree with you. I think that manipulation should be allowed. I'm suggesting that you should voluntarily refrain from manipulation whenver 1) it doesn't serve a compelling purpose and 2) other people find it annoying. To me, creating a self-referential market and unexpectedly turning the tables on the resolution at the last minute serves no useful purpose, and it clearly annoyed some people who were treating this as a different but related question, i.e. "Will DesTiny get to $1500 in profit by predicting future events on this website?" rather than the actual, but much less interesting question, "Will DesTiny get to $1500 in profit by receiving a large, temporary donation from another user?" So I would humbly suggest that it's a silly thing to do.
@akrasiac Personally, I actually made money on this market (a pittance, but something) because I sold early. I recognized shortly after buying into the market that it would probably end with manipulation, and that turned out to be correct!
@akrasiac Ah, I see. That, I strongly disagree with. I think that unspoken social norms are much worse than clearly stated and consistently enforced rules. Fuzzy social norms lead to bad feeling between people who interpreted them different ways, and enable those with higher social status and likability to flaunt those rules.
This whole drama was caused in the first place by the Destiny crowd believing there was a norm against manipulation, and the core Manifold crowd believing there was no such norm, both groups acted on their assumptions, and this is what resulted. If instead Manifold clearly displayed to all users what to expect in a market, we would all have been on the same page and this wouldn't have happened.
@IsaacKing Well, we certainly have a fundamental philosophical difference! Fuzzy social norms are the essence of human society. A world where everything that's immoral is illegal, and vice versa, would in my opinion be quite terrible. I prefer this one, where you're allowed to manipulate markets in this fashion, and other people are allowed to censure you for doing it.
I could reply to every one of your comments on this website with rude personal criticism of you (but not so rude that I'd violate any website rules), and that would be allowed, but it would still be a foolish and unkind thing to do, and we're both better off if I refrain from doing it.
I suppose I'm making a similar type of point to this recent ACX post.
@akrasiac When a signifiant majority of society agrees on the norms, sure, they can go unstated. Spamming someone with rude comments would likely get you condemned by almost everyone else on the platform, and the admins might take action against you for spam. But when there's this sort of culture clash, I think clear rules help prevent the bad feeling that otherwise occurs.
@GeorgeVii He was also handed ~20k by Isaac (temporarily?) in private trades, whether he has to or does pay those back to Isaac, remains up in the air.
I think we need a Manifold Prison where a jury can sentence you to like 1 month. Its on the sidebar and all the manipulators/false resolvers can make markets between themselves but not interact with Manifold Main till they serve there time.
You can have visitors, you can buy commissary, you can get scammed by your fellow inmates, but gotta serve time for all the mana you stole (tho it sounds kinda fun so might not be a good disincentive haha)
