TL;DR - I made 4,000 profit on a joke market. What should I do with it - plurality decides. 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 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 poll. What should I do with this ~4,000 mana profit?
Subject to the below conditions, I’ll follow the highest voted option (and split or randomize if necessary in the case of a tie).
You are encouraged to discuss your point of view in the comments. If an unlisted option clearly has the greatest support, I'll follow that option instead of the poll choices.
I will ignore any suggestions 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 vote on this market. If I find any evidence of him or alts doing so, I’ll keep all of the mana. Once unbanned, he is welcome to comment.
I will not entertain meta-game responses (like saying give the mana to the commenter).
If I strongly suspect vote manipulation/fraud, I’ll ask Fairly Random for a random number and pick that option.
This is my first time creating a question like this. 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
@4fa I also like the option "Establish a bounty market for good social behavior on Manifold", but that's something you could do independently, if you want to and have a good idea.
I have not voted yet. While I'm partial to the social game option, I feel like you'd be able to multiply the mana a bit more if you trade with it for a while longer. I've seen the way you trade, and it's ruthlessly impressive.
If you did that, you could make a bigger pile of mana to sponsor an even bigger social game or a bigger good behavior bounty in the future, or sponsor it in a way where it doesn't sting in your pocketbook as much. In that case, I would need to vote to "keep it".
I still stand by the statements made in my previous comment too.
Thoughts?
@Quroe I'm down to run another double or nothing (and I even have a potential twist in mind) if that is the will of the people. It sounds like DJT might be up for it as well. But we will see how the voting plays out.
I can make a strong case for any of these options which is why I put it to a vote.
@MRME I thought about it more. I'll vote for "Keep it". It's cooler to do neat things with mana if it's your free will choice, not a mandate of the people.
If you truly want to run a game, it will be your own work of art. True art cannot be forced to exist by others through a market. It must be borne of your own will to bring it to be.