See this article for context:
Resolves YES if Michael Waltz, one of his staff members, or anyone else implicated in the war plans breach described by Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic, is fired or resigns by the end of June for this reason.
Resolves YES if someone is fired and it's not explicitly stated why, or an excuse is given that is different than this one, but the consensus of trustworthy/media sources are at least fairly confident that it is because of this breach.
Must happen by the end of June.
Update 2025-03-27 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): Important Update on Resolution Criteria:
Resignations linked to perjury: A resignation that occurs because an individual perjures themselves in relation to the breach described in the article will count.
Connection to the breach is required: The resignation must clearly be tied to the war plans breach as discussed, even if the stated reason (perjury) is not the exact wording used in the market description.
Update 2025-05-01 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): * The creator will resolve YES if there is reporting indicating even a loose consensus among trustworthy/media sources that the Signal group chat was one of the reasons for a relevant firing or resignation.
This applies even if there are no explicit leaks or interviews confirming the reason, provided the media consensus suggests the Signal group chat was a likely factor.
The market may still resolve NO if reporting strongly indicates the firing/resignation was for entirely unrelated reasons.
Update 2025-05-01 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): * A staff member (such as Alex Wong) leaving their current position specifically to take up a new role accompanying a promoted superior (like Michael Waltz moving to the UN) will not be considered a firing or resignation "for this reason" (the Signal group chat breach), even if that staff member was implicated in the breach.
Update 2025-05-01 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): * The outcome of any Senate confirmation process for Michael Waltz is not directly relevant to the market's resolution.
The market will resolve YES if there is reporting from multiple credible news sources indicating that a nomination (e.g., for a UN position) was made with the intention of removing Waltz from his current role due to the Signal group chat scandal (and potentially other scandals), even if the nomination was expected or intended to fail.
Resolution depends on reporting about the reasons for Waltz potentially stepping down, focusing on whether the Signal group chat scandal was a motivating factor for the removal, rather than assumptions about political strategy.
The creator notes this situation involves genuine uncertainty.
Update 2025-05-01 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): * Regarding Alex Wong: If he is not offered another position (e.g., following Waltz to a potential new role) and reporting indicates he was let go specifically because of the Signal leaks, this would likely resolve YES.
Crucially, reporting must distinguish this reason from him being let go merely due to his closeness to Waltz or other reasons unrelated to the leaks.
Update 2025-05-06 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator has outlined the resolution process if the situation remains ambiguous at market close at the end of June:
Consultation with trusted users: The creator will consult with other trusted Manifold users (who are not shareholders in this market).
Resolution outcomes based on this consultation:
If a consensus (YES/NO) is reached between the creator and these users, the market will resolve accordingly.
If sentiments are mixed, the market may resolve to PROB. This will be based on an average percentage assessment from the consulted users.
Assessment criteria for consultation: Consulted users will be asked to provide a percentage (0-100%) reflecting their assessment of whether the Signal group chat played a first-order and significant role in any relevant individual losing their position. (0% = no such role; 100% = indisputably played such a role).
Exclusion of indirect causes: The evaluation will focus on first-order effects of the Signal group chat scandal. The creator is not inclined to consider second-order causes (e.g., the scandal leading to other conflicts which then caused a departure) as a primary basis for a YES resolution.
Update 2025-05-06 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): * The creator has confirmed that the market will not resolve N/A.
If, after the consultation process detailed in the May 6th, 2025 update, sentiments remain mixed and a YES/NO consensus is not reached, a PROB resolution will be utilized. This approach is intended to capture the market's uncertainty.
1,000@traders Update on resolution:
I've been thinking about how to eventually resolve this, due to several compounding layers of uncertainty:
1) On one hand, it seems quite unlikely that Waltz would have been fired/promoted/moved were it not for the Signal leak. That lends credence to the idea that he had to leave this position due to the group chat scandal.
2) On the other hand, the role of UN ambassador is at worst a lateral move, and probably a promotion, despite de-prioritization of the UN by the current administration. This makes me think that Trump is pointedly not firing him.
3) However, it's plausible that his senate confirmation is a quite difficult path, and this nomination may have to be withdrawn if he goes up for a vote that is not in his favor. There's a possibility Trump did this intentionally, in order to get rid of him, although the administration has denied this, and no credible reporting has favored this hypothesis, AFAICT.
4) There is also the matter of his deputy, Alex Wong, losing his position. However, I'm inclined to view this as "Waltz is fired/promoted, and therefore his deputy goes with him to his new position," which would be more of a second-order effect rather than directly for whatever caused Waltz's departure. Plus, there is reporting that Wong lost his position for perhaps unrelated performance/ideological reasons. I haven't found any article specifying that Wong was implicated in the Signal breach apart from Waltz naming him in the group chat as a contact to reach out to, which doesn't indicate imo that Wong was involved in the creation/confidential messaging on the group chat.
5) While some reporting has indicated that the Signal group chat was a reason for Waltz's departure, other reporting cites Waltz's other inadequacies, personality issues and clashes with other influential figures in the administration, Loomer's specific opposition to Waltz and some of his underlings (including Wong), and other reasons. This makes it difficult to evaluate whether Waltz really was moved for that reason. I'm also not inclined to litigate the basis of second-order causes, like "the Signal group chat made other dept secretaries pissed at Waltz, therefore they undermined Waltz at cabinet meetings, and then this made Waltz look ineffective at other national security functions, which then lowered his standing in the eyes of Trump" or something of this nature.
It's possible further reporting will come out with better sources/quotes, or that someone else involved with the group chat will more unambiguously be fired, in which case, the market could resolve YES early.
In the absence of that, at market close at the end of June, this is what I'll do:
Ask a couple of other Manifold users that I trust the opinions of (who don't hold shares in this market) to evaluate the situation. If there's a consensus among us that this should resolve YES or NO, I will do so. If there are mixed sentiments, which I think is plausible, this may resolve to a PROB. I will ask each of the users to give me a % from 0 (the Signal group chat did not play a first-order and significant role in any member of the administration losing their position) to 100 (the Signal group chat indisputably played a significant first-order role in a member of the administration losing their position). I will ask them to keep in mind the clarifications that have been made on this market and the discussed factors in this post, as well.
@HarrisonClarkfff2 "Resolves YES if someone is fired and it's not explicitly stated why, or an excuse is given that is different than this one, but the consensus of trustworthy/media sources are at least fairly confident that it is because of this breach."
See the discussion. There is an overwhelming amount of reporting that cites the Signal fiasco as a primary reason for Waltz leaving, despite the excuse of him leaving for the UN role.
@JPD That’s just speculation, he wasn’t even fired… he was promoted to a way more prestigious position. And regardless there is no evidence of that beyond speculation. Who is “trustworthy media” lol
@HarrisonClarkfff2 You're moving the goalposts. Hard evidence isn't required to resolve this market as a YES. A consensus amongst credible media sources - speculative to the degree of "at least fairly confident" - has been the given resolution criteria since the start of the market.
Defining "trustworthy media" is probably up to the mods/market creator - but I will point out that at least BBC, Axios, Politico, New York Times, and Al Jazeera have all cited the Signal incident as a reason for people leaving their positions.
@JPD But they are fairly confident based on what? Read the articles even they have no evidence, I could work for the BBC as an intern and write that too, it’s not like there is a whistleblower or anything. I closed my no position because these sort of vague open to interpretation markets are stupid imo.
@HarrisonClarkfff2 Maybe they have a source? Maybe it's intuition or speculation? Point is it doesn't matter - the resolution criteria just requires a body of credible media to be confident enough to cite the Signal incident as a reason for people leaving their positions, irrespective of any alternative explanations the administration provides.
Tbh I think the market creator has been left in an unusual position, I doubt they intended this to be vague or end up in a grey area - that's just how the cards fell unfortunately.
Resolves YES if someone is fired and it's not explicitly stated why, or an excuse is given that is different than this one, but the consensus of trustworthy/media sources are at least fairly confident that it is because of this breach.
@bens -- reporting about Waltz's use of TeleMessage's TM Signal has been in a lot of media lately. Do you see this affecting the resolution in any way?
Also, I appreciate your post explaining your resolution thought process, but I'd just like to mention that the UN Ambassador could be considered a figurehead role and likely having very little impact in comparison to being the President's NSA. While it does require senate confirmation, I think the impact of the role should be considered as well.
@bens The disappointments is immense and immeasurable on such the resolution you are making for it here. Take it from the approaching of you as trader of the market with no mask of the creator. How are you expecting for it to be solved? Solve for the x! Then you will be realizing all the errors of the ways. Using orders of operations you will be guided in resolving.
I don't have a big stake in this and don't care very much how it resolves, but it feels like Ben's overthinking it.
It's like asking "Is a fish wet?" and then having a long, thoughtful conversation about what, really, is the meaning of wet. Is the fish wet, or is it merely immersed in water?
Dude. Yes, the fish is wet. Yes, he got fired from his job over this thing. Sure, other stuff too, but Signalgate is surely a big part of it.
@DanHomerick this market is at 50% right now (as it has been for about a week) because half the traders think this is a clear-cut YES and the other half think it’s a clear-cut NO. I think it’s quite complicated. For example, did he even get fired? Some sources portray it as such, but others portray it as a promotion! Obviously you have to leave your post when you get promoted to another post at the same company (the US gov in this case).
@bens the market price reflects belief about how the creator will resolve. It can’t tell you much of anything about what traders believe themselves. (If the beliefs of the creator were a mystery then they might substitute their own beliefs but you’ve commented extensively that you’re unsure how you’ll resolve so unless people accuse you of lying I’d hope it trades near 50%).
@Ziddletwix right, but would it have been better if I’d said nothing and everyone had assumed that me not resolving meant that the Waltz imbroglio was insufficient to resolve YES and the market decayed to 0?
@Ziddletwix also this is just not true: the price of this market, which had gone up to 99%, dropped to around 50 well before I had commented on the market!
@bens If Mike Waltz fails his nomination, will this resolve "Yes"? (vs if he fails confirmation it could resolve Yes or No)
Plug for traders who want to bet on that:
https://manifold.markets/HillaryClinton/will-mike-waltz-be-confirmed-as-amb?play=true
@traders Update on resolution:
I've been thinking about how to eventually resolve this, due to several compounding layers of uncertainty:
1) On one hand, it seems quite unlikely that Waltz would have been fired/promoted/moved were it not for the Signal leak. That lends credence to the idea that he had to leave this position due to the group chat scandal.
2) On the other hand, the role of UN ambassador is at worst a lateral move, and probably a promotion, despite de-prioritization of the UN by the current administration. This makes me think that Trump is pointedly not firing him.
3) However, it's plausible that his senate confirmation is a quite difficult path, and this nomination may have to be withdrawn if he goes up for a vote that is not in his favor. There's a possibility Trump did this intentionally, in order to get rid of him, although the administration has denied this, and no credible reporting has favored this hypothesis, AFAICT.
4) There is also the matter of his deputy, Alex Wong, losing his position. However, I'm inclined to view this as "Waltz is fired/promoted, and therefore his deputy goes with him to his new position," which would be more of a second-order effect rather than directly for whatever caused Waltz's departure. Plus, there is reporting that Wong lost his position for perhaps unrelated performance/ideological reasons. I haven't found any article specifying that Wong was implicated in the Signal breach apart from Waltz naming him in the group chat as a contact to reach out to, which doesn't indicate imo that Wong was involved in the creation/confidential messaging on the group chat.
5) While some reporting has indicated that the Signal group chat was a reason for Waltz's departure, other reporting cites Waltz's other inadequacies, personality issues and clashes with other influential figures in the administration, Loomer's specific opposition to Waltz and some of his underlings (including Wong), and other reasons. This makes it difficult to evaluate whether Waltz really was moved for that reason. I'm also not inclined to litigate the basis of second-order causes, like "the Signal group chat made other dept secretaries pissed at Waltz, therefore they undermined Waltz at cabinet meetings, and then this made Waltz look ineffective at other national security functions, which then lowered his standing in the eyes of Trump" or something of this nature.
It's possible further reporting will come out with better sources/quotes, or that someone else involved with the group chat will more unambiguously be fired, in which case, the market could resolve YES early.
In the absence of that, at market close at the end of June, this is what I'll do:
Ask a couple of other Manifold users that I trust the opinions of (who don't hold shares in this market) to evaluate the situation. If there's a consensus among us that this should resolve YES or NO, I will do so. If there are mixed sentiments, which I think is plausible, this may resolve to a PROB. I will ask each of the users to give me a % from 0 (the Signal group chat did not play a first-order and significant role in any member of the administration losing their position) to 100 (the Signal group chat indisputably played a significant first-order role in a member of the administration losing their position). I will ask them to keep in mind the clarifications that have been made on this market and the discussed factors in this post, as well.
@copiumarc On the other hand, I literally now have a stake in this resolving to either [YES, or NO, or PROB], and [specifically not N/A]. I did volatility trading and hold a zero amount shares now. N/A would undo my gains.
All of my further arguments should be colored in this bias and viewed as such.
Edit: I will respect whatever choice is made at the end of the day.
@bens rather an N/A and if you want, a new market with similar criteria, than this because the line has definitely moved
@copiumarc @sn I will not resolve N/A, I think N/A resolutions are really bad for prediction markets, and a PROB resolution would better capture uncertainty and gray areas for this market. Someone should link the Manifold essay on why N/A resolutions are bad and should generally be avoided (I think @IsaacKing or @Joshua might know where that is?) but, for example, a NO resolution would be much worse (financially) than a PROB resolution for the people who bought up to 99%. I also, think that this genuinely was a market where it looked 99% likely that someone was fired, until it came out that the reason for Waltz's resignation was because he was being nominated for a Senate-confirmed position, at which point the market dropped dramatically (without the resolution criteria changing at that point). It would be one thing if I had made some sort of clarification that caused massive market movement by moving the goalposts, but the event that caused the market to move was actually just real-world events placing the criteria of this market into a gray area where the resolution became more subjective.
This is also another reason why I avoid betting on my own markets: so I can remain as objective and fair as possible in resolving. The ability for a PROB resolution is also a huge benefit over real money markets like Polymarket and Kalshi that can't do PROB resolutions for structural/crypto reasons.
Well, I argue for an N/A because it feels like this is a different market. One where the line has moved. one place where the line on this resolving has completely moved is Alex Wong. You all realize the original criteria includes “Resolves YES if someone is fired and it's not explicitly stated why”. The general media consensus is that it’s not exactly known why, even if a few articles seem to say it’s for unrelated reasons the majority and consensus do not.
The other place where the goalposts have moved is what the definition of fired means. One can be fired and rehired for the same job or a different, lateral job right after. Very obviously the announcement of the move came hours after, yet this market treats it like those events happened simultaneously. You, as the market creator, and quite a few of the people betting have a different semantic definition of what firing is.
@sn you quoted that line from the criteria out of context. The actual criterion was:
Resolves YES if someone is fired and it's not explicitly stated why, or an excuse is given that is different than this one, but the consensus of trustworthy/media sources are at least fairly confident that it is because of this breach.
The consensus is obviously not "at least fairly confident" currently that Alex Wong was fired due to the Signal group chat, as several articles explicitly say the reason for his firing was due to Loomer's actions, and others seem to imply he will follow Waltz to his new position.
The gray area is that "being fired" typically does not mean "being promoted to another position at the administration". This is not a good enough reason to N/A though, because markets like this always have room for some subjectivity.
I understand why you'd like an N/A resolution, it looks like you bought most of your shares during the 30 minute period when people knew that Waltz might be resigning, but it wasn't yet announced that he would be nominated for UN secretary. I'm sympathetic to this, but I will note that it makes your interpretations of events slightly biased in your own favor:
@bens also, I'll note: there was never a point in time where Waltz had "announced he was resigning" but hadn't yet been promoted. There was only a point in time where the media had indicated that Waltz resigning was imminent, but reporting had not yet emerged on WHY (because Trump had promoted/moved him)