TL;DR - I made 4,000 profit on a joke market. What should I do with it - Futarchy decision style. Read below for background and rules.
As many of you may be aware, @realDonaldTrump has been hosting daily lottery “give aways”. Maybe these are kind of stupid, maybe these are just good fun, maybe they are designed to farm referral bonuses, or maybe multiple things can be true at once.
Recently, this market (https://manifold.markets/realDonaldTrump/trumpmegamillions-m10k-prize-day-9#tf7hushwi9 ) blew up in such a way that I made just over 4,000 mana in profit.
Under the terms of the lottery, the market unconditionally resolves to 50%. Based on DJT’s previous behavior in this market from the previous day ( https://manifold.markets/realDonaldTrump/trumpmegamillions-m10k-prize-day-8 ) I could tell that he was likely running some sort of bot / similar technique to rapidly buy and sell large amounts of shares to check for limit orders. I’m not sure why limit orders bother him or why he didn’t just look at the order book periodically, but whatever - he asked people not to place limit orders and I abided by that request.
At the same time I noticed that whatever program/method he was using wasn’t actually instantaneous. So, when his new market (the first one linked in this post) came out, I decided to watch it very closely and try to catch one of his massive trades to counter-trade against it. Maybe that makes me smart, maybe it was a jerk move, maybe I was a little annoyed by what I saw as gaming the manifold trader bonus system, or maybe multiple of these things are true.
Regardless, my plan worked and I caught a large price spike from his program in real time and got off a couple of counter trades. No limit orders involved, just a fast finger.
At this point DJT realized what had happened. Rather than address the issue with me, he N/A’d the market. This didn’t sit well with me and I appealed the resolution to the mods who graciously re-resolved it correctly. This resulted in a profit of approximately 4,000 mana (almost certainly my single largest profit ever from a trade).
That said, I’m morally conflicted. On the one hand, DJT got what he deserved - you place automated actions, you live with the consequences. On the other, I’m not here to make the site worse. I like the community and I want to see it grow in a healthy way. On the third hand, I like profit and mana - maybe a bit of a humble brag, but I’ve finished at the top of my division every month since joining the site and I’m looking forward hopefully making it to master’s next month (Don’t worry @Bayesian , I’ve got nowhere near the skill or capital to compete with you). On the fourth hand, @Quroe and others believed in me and took a chance on some risky loans early on and I want to honor the culture they’ve set for the site.
And so dear Manifold, I’m resolving this in the most meta-way possible - with a futarchy style decision market. What should I do with this ~4,000 mana profit?
Subject to the below conditions, I’ll follow the highest percentage option, resolve it as yes, and N/A the others.
You are encouraged to add other options and discuss your point of view in the comments.
I will N/A any options that I find morally objectionable based on my personal definition of morality. I don’t think this will be an issue, but I want it as an out just in case this goes weird.
DJT is not allowed to trade in this market. If I find any evidence of him or alts doing so, I’ll N/A the entire market and keep the mana. Once unbanned, he is welcome to comment.
I will not entertain meta-game responses (like saying give the mana to me and then bidding that option up to the max).
If I see unusual betting patterns or suspect market manipulation, I’ll ask Fairly Random for a random number between 1-24 and disregard all trades made that many number of hours prior to close.
This is my first time creating a market like this. I will not trade on it beyond what is necessary to equalize probabilities to a reasonable level initially. Please point out flaws. I will N/A and remake if they are serious and not fixable. Manifold, the power is yours!
1,000People are also trading
@MRME You'd need a "Set" market, which is an independent type market. You can N/A some of them while resolving other answers on it YES or NO.
Mana is an interesting thing. Since it's purely fiat, its users get to decide what it's worth. I see its worth being backed by clout. Or, at least, mana is a way to gain clout.
It seems like you got the payout fair and square from your recount here, but I haven't deep dived into the lore, so I reserve the right to be wrong.
I think leaving it to the community is a super cool decision. However, this doesn't feel like a pure futarchy. There's no metric being tested here. There is no hypothesis to reject. It's just whalebait.
Perhaps we make some sort of approval poll, and ask if the futarchic result of this market makes for more approval versus not in the poll? (You already set the rules of the contract up, though, so editing it might also not be a good idea.) Hm...
Alternatively, I do have a fun idea. @realDonaldTrump has expressed interest in another round of "Double It and Pass It On". You could experience the nerve-racking joy of hosting an episode of it yourself and co-host it with him. Use some of the mana as the seed to the chain, and use another portion for some sort of prize twist, perhaps? You all are free to steal the rules and clone my market.