Someone could make an agreement with a charity that 90% of their Manifold donations to that charity get sent back to them as cash. This would be mutually beneficial for that user and the charity, effectively allowing them to sell their mana for real money by paying a small fee to the charity.
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@IsaacKing Personally, I think the criteria in the description were exactly met even though the title was bait (it's not money laundering, technically, unless they are at a minimum trying to hide where the money is coming from - and it wouldn't be possible to resolve YES if that dude didn't disclose his association with the charity, so a true money laundering market could never resolve YES without an investigation or something). I'll obviously be a bit annoyed if its N/A because I hate when people overcommit into a BS position against criteria/market purpose and start malding, but I will understand.
My final question I'd give you is, if everyone had only bet 10M, how would you resolve it? If the answer is N/A, then N/A the market. I get the feeling though that this market would have easily resolved YES if there wasn't such a large commitment/pending damage to someone pressuring you into N/A
@Gen when I read the market, I interpreted the description as an example, not as a resolution criteria. The description is a statement, not a question, and doesn't specify how it resolves. So I assumed the title was the question. I expect some others thought the same
@jack Actually, hold on, looking back at my previous comments, that is what I determined the market meant after asking Isaac for clarification. Before that I thought the opposite. Which is just more evidence that the market was very unclear.
@jack If the description is an example of what's needed for a resolution (resolution criteria) and that example exactly plays out 100% as it was written, why shouldn't it resolve YES?
The only question that was left unanswered was, is someone's decision-making status, combined with their financial incentives (on payroll) sufficient to treat them as an extension of the charity and resolve this market YES. If not, then we're essentially saying only the Founders/CEOs of a charity could possibly have the power to meet criteria.
Because this example is neither a necessary condition not a sufficient condition. Isaac said in the comment thread below that there had to be a shady or illicit component for it to be money laundering and hence for yes. The example shows how mechanically it could happen, but that's not enough alone.
@jack I don't think it matters who made the offer, I don't think that's the important part. I think what was unclear was whether it had to be illicit. And Isaac answered that it did, I think.
@jack From what I understood, the "shady" part is baked into the example. Manifold will not exist if every charity offers to buy Mana for cents on the dollar as users will cash out and they will go bankrupt. I saw Isaacs comment as saying "This example would be shady, therefore it should be reasonable enough to call it money laundering even if it's a bit of a stretch" hence why he never updated the title.
I see where you're coming from though, I did not expect that to be the source of confusion. In Australia (where I'm from) the only condition in the law to be charged with money laundering is the intention to conceal the source of funds. The delayed disclosure in this case met that condition in my mind.
Money laundering is an unspecific term which is why I deferred to the description. It isn't reasonable to claim that there is an agreed upon definition of money laundering that isn't met here, I think your only reasonable claim is that you were confused by Isaacs comments (which I believe were clear)
@Gen People offering to buy mana for cents on the dollar won't destroy Manifold at all, there are plenty of games with virtual currencies that work perfectly fine without any cash-out value. And certainly in some situations it could be shady, but by itself I don't think it is. Certainly concealing the source of the funds would seem shady, but the offer under question is public and not trying to conceal anything!
@jack The destruction comes not because the game is ruined but because if all mana is cashed out to charity $$ the entire fund will be bankrupted and the grant totally expended
@Gen Which is also why manifold have said they intend to ban it (presumably when they can accurately detect that behaviour rather than risking accidentally denying a charity donation from someone that didn’t do anything wrong
@IsaacKing I sold out of the market and made m319 in profit, so I guess n/a is the worst outcome for me as things stand. However I agree that this was ambiguous in multiple ways and n/a resolution seems fine to me.
Can you please edit the title - that's not "laundering money". This is happening here:
@MartinRandall It's definitely not laundering, but I had interpreted the question text as resolves yes if someone makes an agreement like described. I realize now that is not necessarily what the question meant.
@jack Yeah, if the question resolves yes based on a Manifold user doing it, it would have been way higher.
@jack Oh, ok. Are the 75 cents coming out of the same pool of money as Manifold's donations go to? (Either Nuño's personal funds or QURI's funds.) If so, I think that counts for this market. If on the other hand Nuño is paying their personal money in order to incentivize donations to QURI, then that's more like donation-matching, and I don't think that qualifies for this market.
@IsaacKing Nuno is just buying mana for dollars and committing to use the mana to send to charity. That might or might not have the same effect as laundering depending on funging details that we don't know about, but it's not laundering.
Ok, although I'm not sure I see the difference being that important, I guess it depends on how you look at the counterfactuals of charity matching. In my view, most donation matches for specific charities are just changing how the money is accounted on paper with little practical effect on how much money charities actually receive. https://blog.givewell.org/2020/06/25/why-youll-see-more-matching-campaigns-at-givewell/ (Donation matches like ones some companies offer where they match donations to a charity of your choice are different and do actually matter.)
Specifically, if Nuno was going to donate $X anyway, and now achieves the donation by paying someone else for mana, it's the same as what you describe in the market description. But it's definitely not laundering. Which is why I asked for clarification on what the question means - is the question really about laundering, or is it about an agreement like described in the question description?
@MartinRandall Not analogous, the charity is paying $0.75 so that they get $1.00 in donations. It’s not clear to me the extent of their association, but if they’re on payroll, it’s clearly met the criteria.
@jack It refers to any sort of shady activity where money is run through a charity to facilitate something illicit. I think it's reasonable to describe that as "money laundering"?
@IsaacKing Thanks, that answers my question. I had previously interpreted the question differently, as asking about any movement of money through a charity, not necessarily shady. This clarifies it for me and I don't think Nuno's offer counts because it is not shady/illicit.
@jack Well, Manifold tolerates that sort of stuff for now, but they've implied they'll have to ban it soon. And it's pretty much exactly what I described in the description, so I'm confused why you'd bet NO based on this information?
@IsaacKing I don't really see the problem with it right now while charity donations are open - it's in many ways analogous to a donation match. This offer would not be possible when donations are closed, so during that time it can't possibly resolve YES. So unless I'm missing something a YES resolution seems extremely unlikely?
@jack If I start a charity, will you match my donations to my own charity? I will of course pay myself those donations so that I can donate again so you can match them
Infinite money glitch
@MartinRandall That doesn’t change the resolution here though. If the CEO of QURI was found to be giving money to a homeless guy to do it for them, would you say “it’s a homeless guy!!! Not QURI!!”
Of course not. The outcome is the same, and it’s still a QURI agent that is leading the decision making and financing the act. It’s like a hedge fund manager paying someone for inside information, but they personally don’t trade on it- the hedge fund does. Would you absolve the fund because they didn’t write the check?
The only argument against this counting is if Nuño has absolutely no influence over QURI spending, or receives no money from QURI. I can’t see any other reason why it isn’t exactly what the description describes
@Gen If the Ozzie Gooen, president of QURI, was giving QURI money to a homeless guy to buy mana and donate to QURI then the homeless guy would be an agent of QURI.
https://quantifieduncertainty.org/88710d8de8c1406782c131b1e6431680
However, I have no evidence that Nuno was acting on behalf of QURI when he tweeted, and I have no evidence that Nuno will be claiming his mana purchases as QURI expenses, and being reimbursed, and I am betting NO as a result.
Perhaps I will lose on these bets. May the best predictor win.
@MartinRandall If you believe your first statement, you’re saying Nuño is an agent of QURI if he has received payment from QURI equivalent or greater than the amount used to purchase mana?
We don’t have evidence of that, but Nuño was asked in discord to disclose his association with QURI and he apologised because he thought “it was obvious”
The obvious part presumably being that he is paying people $0.75 to donate $1 to QURI, which is irrational unless
you either act for QURI or
Pay less than 25% income
(as if you pay >25% income tax, the benefit you would receive from a personal deduction would exceed 25%)
@IsaacKing what's your thinking on whether this counts? I think at this point the market is mostly just predicting what the resolution criteria mean, not predicting what events will actually happen.