Have you heard of https://www.lanternbioworks.com/ yet?

@Aboczjr Are they the same company? Aella said to use Lumina on her original tweet but Lantern seems more legit and seems to be leading the task of putting this idea/project forward.

@drcat I have no idea.

@Aboczjr I think it is and aella changed the words to her manifold question to say lantern instead of lumina. Seems kinda sketchy.. maybe lantern created lumina to be able to do the procedure overseas without drawing attention to them. I’ll investigate more soon.

Under what conditions does this resolve to NO? If a major news outlet reports the treatment is effective? If the company publishes research before 2026? If there is no negative press coverage before 2026?

@t3ss That’s a good question. I think if the company publishes research demonstrating its efficacy in humans I would resolve it to NO. Also if it gets through any board of certification (like the FDA) or even if it demonstrates that it started clinical trials under any serious institutional oversight I would consider resolving it to NO.

What do you mean if Aella changes her mind? She already has them.

@CertaintyOfVictory She also has a prediction market on whether she gets cavities or not in the next years so she can change her mind about the efficacy of the procedure

This market is itself a scam. You state that the resolution has nothing to do with whether the product works, and you'll resolve it YES under seemingly random and unrelated circumstances like Aella leaving the company or a single negative statement anyone makes about the company.

@IsaacKing Lol this market isn’t a scam bc I’m not taking real money from people, like the company itself.. My resolution terms are not random, I’m trying to find a way that would be convinceable to people that this company is a scam, whether it takes a big media outlet reporting (which honestly unlikely bc who cares), or some reliable source that is not mainstream coming forward with information (not just “one bad statement”) or aella which is the most prominent person I know sharing about this company and a person that went through the procedure and can attest to its efficiency or whether she spent money on something that does not work (a scam).

@drcat the problem is with your wording. It might turn out that this doesn't work — but a scam is an intentional setup to deceive people. If their intentions are honest but it turns out the procedure doesn't work as well as advertised, that's not a scam, that's merely disappointing.

I'd be fine with a market about whether the company will survive and show reasonable success. That's more or less what your conditions are about. But you're titling this market asking if it's a scam, which is very different.

The way you've made the conditions and the way you've responded here gives me strong vibes that you already think this is a scam and will interpret everything in that light. So now the market is at 86% because of that, you feel vindicated in your bias, and people coming in from the outside read "is it a scam" and "86%" and are misled by your bias and its downstream effects. This market makes me feel icky.

Please just change the wording of this entire market to be a more objective judgement — mainly not to mention "scam" since that's not what you're measuring. Maybe call it "will Lumina fail before 2026?" Or something in that vein.

@Mqrius I think advertising a product without known and proven efficacy could be considered a scam, yes. Do you think Elisabeth holmes just had a unsuccessful company or did they intentionally hide the inefficacy of their honestly intended product for profit? The law saw them as scammers.

You are right though that I do already have an opinion on this, the point of the market was to see whether that was shared by other people. I gave reasonable criteria to resolve it NO on the above comment though, and will be happy to do so.

I did change the question to be less misleading, and will still resolve it in 3 years time.

https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1mDJCTO2QySmQOZQcajYReDCA1MFpKs-EZ5E0VNu50Fo/mobilebasic#h.m58lbq5iiezk

@drcat that doesn't make this a scam or not