Must be for something he hasn’t publicly apologized for in the past. Doesn’t include sarcastic apologies.
Edit: To clarify, public apologies only. Reports of private apologies don’t count unless trump publicly confirms that he made them.
Edit 2: An apology must entail taking responsibility for something he had personal control over.
I’m sorry for the families who died on 9/11 = not an apology
I’m sorry that this arena (picked for a rally) flooded = an apology
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@PGeyer Intended or not, this market is a fine place to interrogate the whole idea “what is an apology.”
@JoshuaB also saying sorry you have to be there it's not an apology, it would be an apology if he said that he was sorry about being a dick about it
@JoshuaB Saying "I'm sorry" doesn't always equate to an apology. I believe this utterance isn't one.
@JoshuaB The reason I think it could plausibly count is that he is sorry that he wasn’t in South Carolina, since he is at CPAC instead, something he had control over.
@JoshuaB Kinda close, but he said he’s sorry that he had to be back, implying he has no control. Also, context is clearly light-hearted or sarcastic. Not going to resolve for this one
I honestly don’t get what’s confusing, but I’ll clarify again: an apology is taking accountability for a failure. To take accountability, one has to have been accountable to begin with, or had a task to fail. So, Trump can’t apologize for 9/11 because he wasn’t in charge of securing the nation at that time. George Bush could apologize for it. Trump can apologize for rally failures because he bears some responsibility for producing a successful event.
So, here’s the rule: Could a reasonable person draw a line between Trump’s responsibilities and what he’s apologizing for? If so, I will resolve yes. If not, then the apology is almost certainly just a general expression of sorrow, which was the point I was trying to make.
I’ll throw this in there, too: If Trump apologizes for not initially understanding a question, that counts as an apology because it involves a direct failure (the inability to understand something).
If anyone can think of a situation that would be ambiguous, post them and I’ll tell you how I would resolve.
@FoxKHTML Maybe you can try listing some examples of valid Trump apologies from his past in the description. Do any of the apologies list here count? https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-08-16/president-trump-twitter-apologize-sorry
Do either of these stories count?
I'm assuming that a valid apology would have to be either a public statement or an authenticated recording. Would Trump have to publicly admit to a recording of a non-public apology being real?
1) Those tweets don’t count. They’re both sarcastic and not admitting to a failure. “Sorry, haters and losers…” for what? That they are so misguided in their hating and losing?
2) He’s not admitting to any failure. He is expressing sorrow that the “fake news media” would make things up.
3) Said it before, but yes, his apologies for his behavior in the Access Hollywood tapes count. However, they will not count for this market if he apologizes again for the same comments.
“If Trump apologizes for not initially understanding a question, that counts as an apology because it involves a direct failure”
I object to this—here’s my reasoning. When a person mishears a question and wants the asker to repeat, there is a set of ways to do so: “What?”, “Pardon?”, “Sorry?”. These are just standard idioms that aren’t taken literally—for example, a person isn’t literally asking to be pardoned when they say “Pardon?” Similarly, we recognize that mishearing a question and wanting someone to repeat is not some failure that requires apology, “Sorry” is just the phrase we’ve landed on to ask someone to repeat.
I think there is a distinction which makes sense. If someone asks a question about a topic Trump is not familiar with, and he hears correctly but apologizes for not knowing the content of the question, I agree that should count. So I think “Sorry, I don’t know much about Myanmar to answer your question” can count while “Sorry, can you repeat?” shouldn’t.
Finally, the resolution criteria state “An apology must entail taking responsibility for something he had personal control over.” I think most people would agree that mishearing a question occasionally is something that no reasonable person can hope to prevent all the time, and that it’s not someone’s fault if they couldn’t hear a question and need it repeated.
@AdamK I tried and failed in forming any sort of generalization of what an "apology" is for this market.
1) Apologizing for shoddy venue plumbing = apology
2) Using "sorry" idiomatically = apology
3) Apologizing for being late and keeping attendees waiting = not apology
Sorry to market maker if this criticism sounds mean (though I have no idea if that was an apology)
@AdamK Okay, I agree with “sorry” as a prompt to repeat something. And I would rather the market not be decided by what I described. I’m just trying to be logically consistent, though.
How would you resolve this?
Interviewer: “Any comment on what happened in Philadelphia last night?”
Trump: “I think the mass shooting is a travesty”
Interviewer: “No, I was talking about the hurricane.”
Trump: “Oh, sorry. I think the hurricane was a travesty as well.”
@FoxKHTML so you would explicitly exclude words that denote apology like "sorry" when used in idiomatic speech? When those words are used to denote something other than a literal apology?
@FoxKHTML It seems that many people either strongly disagree with or are confused by your second example (flooding example). I'm inclined to agree with them, as you have stipulated that an apology requires taking responsibility. Could you clarify this?
@Pykess Yeah, I exited the market because of the ambiguity. Are we trying to find out if the narcissist is able to empathize with some other people? The possibility is very low. Are we going to discuss forever over the semantics of an “apology” used in a passive aggressive form? I’ll watch with some popcorn, no mana involved.
@JaimeSantaCruz Regardless of which of the two this market is intended to track, I think it could be a very interesting and fun market. It just needs clarification so traders know what they're betting on.
@FoxKHTML please clarify.
@Joshua Could you, would you be so kind as to loan me some mana so I can bet in your new market? 🥺🥺🥺