If someone is run over, their name resolves Yes. If they aren't run over, their name resolves No.
Each name has been randomly paired with another name, and presented as a poll. These polls will resolve N/A, and all mana you spend on them will be returned to you. But at market close, I will tally everyone who holds Yes and No shares in each poll and use this to determine who is run over by the Time Trolley. The individual names then resolve Yes or No accordingly.
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The Fiction:
You are the conductors of the Time Trolley. There's been a terrible accident, and you've been marooned in a distant timeline.
The only way home is via a branching series of Time Tracks through nearby timelines. Unfortunately, each Time Track necessarily runs right through a historically significant figure at a historically significant time. If the trolley runs over someone, they suddenly die of an aneurysm and that timeline has to deal with the consequences.
As the Time Trolley conductors, you must choose which tracks to take and therefore which historical figures will survive in those timelines.
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The Mechanics:
In this market, you can submit significant historical figures and the moment they will die if run over. Limit of 4 submissions per user.
When I think we have enough options, I will randomize a time of day to close this market to submissions and then randomly pair up the submissions. I will then create a poll for each pairing, asking who the trolley should hit. Exact randomization and poll format is TBD, but will be announced in advance.
I will make only small trades in this market, to show support for submissions but keep myself impartial. This is an experimental format, and I may make minor adjustments to the rules if anyone has good suggestions.
You are encouraged to argue the merits of running over each person or not in the comments, to try to win support for your bets.
Related questions
🏅 Top traders
| # | Name | Total profit |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ṁ341 | |
| 2 | Ṁ93 | |
| 3 | Ṁ76 | |
| 4 | Ṁ75 | |
| 5 | Ṁ58 |
@Joshua It's made! I just matched up the survivors in ways I thought would be interesting this time instead of randomizing:
@Joshua The interesting matching is so much better than the random one ❤ Thanks for putting these up.
@Lion Thanks! Some of them are tough, I've got no idea who to pick between Tolkien and Martin Luthor
@Joshua One guy wrote fantasy stories and the other one made antisemitism in Germany popular and started a few civil wars.
I've a pretty strong opinion on this one.
@Lion right, didn't Martin Luther regularly insult the Jews because of the death of Jesus, and say people can't be blamed for killing them because of their blasphemy/rejection of Christ? he was pretty extreme. easy choice.
@shankypanky yes, he was pretty extreme in his views, especially in his later years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_and_antisemitism
to be fair, I don't think everything he did was bad and the civil wars would have probably taken place anyways. But I prefer this option over Tolkien any day.
@Lion I agree that not everything he did or stood for was inherently bad (bold move to stand up to/attack the predominant religion in his era!) and I tend to think civil wars are somewhat unavoidable because of who we are as a species. I find it curious that he was anti-Catholicism and antisemitic but despite his rejection of Islam he still wanted to see translations of the Qu'ran printed and circulated.
I just checked the market to see if there was someone on the run-over-Tolkein side of the argument but alas
@Lion I go to a regular philosophy Meetup and we met last night. interestingly, I have a friend there who is really knowledgeable about history/religion so I told him about these markets, and he would run over Tolkien without hesitation! basically he says even with Luther's clear downsides, he sees a lot more value in the on effects of his contrarianism and the civil wars (though he seems to question the actual impact of Luther's texts on WWII) and that Tolkien "just wrote stories."
@shankypanky I don't mind other opinions, I just have a different one ;) [I think this is why these polls are great; people have different ethics and priorities.]
One important question for me when answering these questions was, as well as for your friend: How would this change the world we live in?
For example, in the Parks/Turing question, I'd choose Parks (if it were impossible to choose suicide). I think Parks is an amazing person with high morals and is a hero. However, as stupid as it sounds, she was historically replaceable. Turing was hard to replace.
The questions about Luther are: Was he replaceable? What would be the outcome? What would be the difference in the world we live in today? Considering his rich sponsors and the reasons behind it (the Catholic Church was way too powerful at this time) and the size of the movement, I'd say he was. (That is my personal interpretation and thesis of history. Everyone is encouraged to disagree.)
The problem with antisemitism in Germany isn't that it was a temporary problem, it is and was an ongoing problem. Germans have a long history regarding this. However, this would be a real deep dive into German history because Germany didn't exist as a country until 1871 and was always more like an umbrella term for principalities that all acted independently and differently.
To end on a positive note: I think the world would be a better place if everyone accepted other religions without any hate and judged people based on their intentions and actions.
@Lion I saw @RobertCousineau yesterday and we talked about this trolley problem as well, and he also has the "definitely Tolkien" perspective. I just sold all my positions in the other market not necessarily because I've changed my mind but because I'm still not entirely settled in my perspective on this one (which surprises me a little, given I obviously think stories > antisemitism).
The arguments I've gotten about Luther were about the on effects of the civil wars and his role in the Protestant reformation, though I'm not qualified to speak in depth about them (I'd love Robert to chime in here if he feels like it).
Related to antisemitism in Germany, I'm curious to read more about Luther's role and who else played a part. He was obviously very vocal in his violent views against the Jews, but was he the first? I don't actually know.
tbh I haven't participated much in this market (and pt2) but it's one of my favourites from my short time here.
Seconding your tag to @PlasmaBallin if they feel like joining this exchange.
@Lion The replacability argument is a pretty good one. Tolkien is sort of inherently unreplacable because no one would have written the stories he wrote if he hadn't have lived. So if Martin Luther was replacable in the sense that someone else would've done something similar even if he had died, then maybe we should go with running him over instead. But then again, if you run over Luther, it will probably prevent Tolkien from ever existing anyway since it would change history from that point on.
The main reason I don't want to run over Luther is because I think religious plurality was important to the development of ideas like freedom of religion and separation of church and state. And before Luther, there wasn't very much religious plurality in the western world - almost everyone belonged to the Catholic Church.
I believe this is a majority of positions in the poll for running over Musk, so he was correctly run over.
Uhh but separately, I seem to have accidentally resolved one of the polls to yes 🤦
I think I did the rest correctly though?
@Joshua Ahhh, my mistake then, I thought the resolution depended entirely on the poll percentage rather than number of positions. Makes sense to handle it democratically as opposed to plutocratically
@BlueDragon I could be wrong cause I'm new to this, but didn't Altman get more votes than musk? Somehow I won on a musk 'yes' tho
1: Changing things that happen before you're born means you almost certainly don't exist
2: The lack of biological/nuclear etc attacks on major cities has been pretty nice and may change in unpredictable ways if things are changed
3: Everett branches
4: factory farming
Really any one of these has the potential to utterly outweigh every other consideration in weird ways, depending on what you value/believe