You approach the VILLAIN's lair. Beasts of shame and deceit lurk around every corner and shadow.

Bravely, the Chain Links kick down the door, with @snazzlePop leading the charge in might, but the HERO, @Robincvgr, leading the advance in soul.

How long has it taken to reach here? How close will this battle's results be drawn?

Roll for persuasion.

Its a huge boon that we have access to Bayesian's whale supply

This opens the door to many strategies that weren't previously viable!

@MaxE We are playing Newcomb's Paradox now.

@Quroe How is that different than paying him to pass it on? Also the point of that paradox is that people choose to take the guaranteed reward, which we don't want.

@MaxE In this setup, assuming Bayesian is a profit driven agent, he is the all-intelligent AI / god in the paradox.

@Quroe but we need to convince 121

@MaxE 121 has two routes.

1 boxer - Take the 420 mana and perform the Doubling. If he can be trusted to do so, he has a guaranteed 420 mana on the table to take.

2 boxer - If he can't be trusted to Double It and will instead take not only the game mana, but also Bayesian's support mana, he probably won't be given the chain at all!

He needs to thread the needle if he wants maximum profit. He needs to trick a god! That, or be satisfied with a free 420 mana.

@Quroe 420 mana is a lot less than 32k mana or however much it is now. Once he gets passed it on, he can simply walk away. The difference with newcombs paradox is that he knows whether he was trusted or not before being asked to make a decision

@MaxE Right, but he can still just greed all the mana for himself. Bonus points if he tricks Bayesian into giving him the support mana to finish the ritual, but then running away with it.

@MaxE Oh, wait, I think we are saying the same thing.

@MaxE how did you know bruh 💀 I would pass it on to manifold markets #1 whale 😂

What do we think 121 means with all the spamming of "6 7"?

Like I'm guessing @ 67 is an alt account of theirs (they even added the account to the 'who will be in the chain' market), but is there anything deeper than that?

Actually, @Quroe, would doubling it and passing it to an alt account count as a successful doubling?

@Nat If anything, I think he might spam the market with comments. If he does that, I'll block him for a bit and hide all of his spam. These markets and their comment sections are an art installation to me. I don't want them grafitti'd (unless it's in good taste).

Other than that, 6 7 is a non sequitur. It means whatever you want it to mean.

And yes, using an alt account is fair game because I can never prove it's not an alt.

The Dark Horse appears. https://manifold.markets/Quroe/how-many-manifolders-will-double-it-d9q609ZP6R#bu2z9h0ou0b

@Quroe This reminds me I need to come up with version 2.0 of my hairbrained plan to lock 121 into having to pass on the mana (or at least manancially incentivised to do so)

@Jasonb He danced around my interrogation. Good luck.

@Jasonb The challenge is intentionally set up to be difficult.

Members of the Great Chain! Rejoice, as The Bomb has opted to advance our cause!

However, I am very hesitant to invite The Bomb into our sacred space, as they did not even acknowledge us in the initiation space. I do not think we should regard them as an ally or faithful adherent to the Great Chain.

@SimonWestlake What dost ye think of his manifesto?

@Quroe I hate that there's no way to subscribe to comments on markets, first off.

Based on the manifesto, this seems to be their priority order:
The Great Chain > Chaos / Fun > Communion with the Order of the Great Chain

In that light, The Bomb has sacrificed even more than required. Seeing as Fun is arguably our next priority behind the Great Chain and our Hero, there is an argument to welcome them with open arms.

On the other hand, perhaps their idea of Fun / Chaos would involve weakening of The Order if they were to be invited into it. What say ye?

@SimonWestlake My only role is to keep the portal (markets) open. I leave this decision up to other Chain Links and our glorious HERO, Keeper of the Crane.

Actually, I think the solution is an Induction ceremony that involves a swearing-in. The Bomb has shown commitment to honoring their explicit promises, and requiring swearing-in before full induction is a useful safeguard generally.

@SimonWestlake I think it would be good to welcome him in to help us brainstorm / co-ordinate the strategy for the boss fight, but agree that perhaps some demonstration of commitment to the Order of the Great Chain is required to preserve its sanctity.

@Jasonb Mayhaps he should perform the Doubling again.

@Quroe 😮

@SimonWestlake I love the idea of requiring a further gesture of commitment

Welcome @calour, congratulations on performing the doubling.

@calour Welcome to linkdom, may shame fail to find you 🙏

Our cause sows curiosity. https://discord.com/channels/915138780216823849/946575585923194880/1427041082880823527

I know what my next meme market has to be.

@Quroe I love it

@MaxE did a great job taking initiative and onboarding the new Initiate! Thank you for your continued service.

https://manifold.markets/Robincvgr/futarchy-if-i-send-4096-mana-to-thi

@Robincvgr Unfortunately I know nothing about almost all options

It's time for @Nat to be welcomed by our wonderful HERO and fellow Chain Links! We are grateful for your successful performance of the Doubling!

@Nat Welcome to the inner circle.

@Nat One of us!

@SimonWestlake It is an honour to be amongst such esteemed company, I will wear my link with pride

How should I decide who to send the mana to? I was thinking of just doing another futarchy (excluding people we want to save for later like 121 and Orangey) but if you all have a suggestion for someone I should just send it to outright I'd like to hear it

@Robincvgr I'm up for another futarchy! Could maybe make it standard style and let people add names / nominate people for extra fun? I also think more encouragements for people to state why they can be trusted / setup commitment mechanisms if possible would be good.

@Robincvgr Conflux seems trustworthy to me. I think it's notable that he managramed me 10,001 mana after Nash Pit at Manifest because he enjoyed seeing something cool.

I think he's bringing the same energy to this when he says he'd double it, even for high amounts of mana.

We can add him at any point, and I trust he'd follow through.

I'm also curious if Wott, the seed of Ep. 1, wants to join the fray. I have not reached out to either of these Manifolders yet.

Pat Scott is also a potential new player in the arena. He traded on the main market for the first time today.

@Quroe If Conflux is very trustworthy, maybe we should save them for link ten or so. I think I'm going to spin up a quick futarchy excluding 121, Tumbles, Orangey, and Conflux if there's no objections in the next hour or so

@Robincvgr I trust your judgement, O Great HERO, Keeper of the Crane.

@Robincvgr The time has come to bear the Family Crest. 🔗

@Robincvgr Oh HERO, Keeper of the Crane, should Nat welcome you to The Great Chain?

@Quroe Sounds good to me. Nat DMed me too, I'll respond there

@Robincvgr Or we can speak on your behalf, if you wish it so.

@Quroe I already did because I wasn't really thinking about it, but thank you

@Robincvgr As you wish.

Notable event from the Orangey profile page.

@Quroe 👀

@Quroe This was for being RPS Mastermind a while back.

I think we should do some brainstorming / collect ideas on how to solve the various problems that face us. As it stands I think there are 3:
1) Identifying people who are likely to be trustworthy and could be included in the chain
2) Mechanisms to better incentivise initiates to follow-through on the doubling
3) Plans specific to the final battle (i.e. how the **** are we going to make sure 121 doubles and passes it on?). There are two subproblems here:
a) How to make sure they have enough mana (they'd need ~33k to be able to double up to ~66k, but their net worth is currently only ~4k)
b) How to make sure they will send it on.

The initiate space is a great innovation for (2), nice one @SimonWestlake. I think (1) and (3a) might be real issues. For (1), I've not thoroughly checked but I think there might only be 3-4 people beyond those already in the chain that have posted comments on the main market that could be interested, and it's not clear how trustworthy any of them are. Maybe we need to leverage more personal connections amongst us to find trustworthy people who otherwise haven't paid much attention to this market?

Excited to hear everyone else's thoughts on solving these problems, I will also do some thinking and reply to this thread if I come up with anything that seems good.

@Jasonb I don't have high hopes for making 121 double and pass on. It seems to me the difference in expected values (~40k mana for keeping the doubled money and manipulating the villain market versus ~-20k mana) would be enough to influence them to abandon the chain. Especially with shame stock markets randomly closing, I don't think we have enough influence to force them to pass it on unless we bribe them hugely, which is counter productive.

@MaxE I think our best chance is to make recieving it and sending it on +ve EV for them vs not being sent it at all, and then setting up some galaxy brain commitment mechanism so that they don't defect once recieving it.

Maybe we bet down the hero winning market enough so that they can profit by taking it from 1% to 99% and sending it on, with the capital to do so being loaned from someone (perhaps the person they would send the mana to?). This also seems high risk as someone else might buy up in that market expecting 121 to pass it on, and it's not clear what the equilibrium here is to me at a glance.

@Jasonb I find it highly likely that somebody will figure out that we are selling dollars for 50 cents.

I think somebody immune to shame will blasphemously offer 121 a pile of 16,384 mana in exchange for getting 32,768 back.

(Great art makes people feel things. Given that I made the VILLAIN market to be an art piece, I want it to evoke a strong emotion or strong sense of desire from him. You can expect me to fully explain to 121 the reality of the situation he's in and make him feel the full weight of his decision if/when he's put on the spot.)

Addendum to paragraph 2:

--with no intention of performing The Doubling.

Let's call this unknown agent the Dark Horse.

I believe it is very likely that Tumbles (or rather, Orangey) will be the Dark Horse. He has a feduciary duty to pay off his creditors no matter the cost, and this saga is almost certainly on his radar as a method to do so.

I think he'll exchange shame for mana any day. He'll just need to wheel and deal another loan to get the necessary capital to make this offer, and I do not doubt his cunning.

@MaxE If 121 had lots of mana we could use a strategy like:

Calculate the amount of mana they could gain by betting on markets consistent with them passing passing it on, call that g. Do the same for their potential gains from not passing it on, call that h. Both of these should account for the action of speculative traders and have some margin for error. Call the amount of mana that needs to be sent to 121 x. Call the person preceding them in the chain Q. Assume Q is strategically aligned with us. We also need to assume that calculations of g and h are feasible to do. I think we can rely on speculative traders not knowing about this plan, since it shouldn't advantage 121 to release this information.

Then, we commit to Q not sending x mana to 121 unless 121 sends Q y mana. If 121 does this, Q sends them x mana. Now 121 can either send 2x mana on, in which case the y mana is returned, and 121 makes a total profit of g-x mana, or if they don't, the y mana is not returned, and 121 makes a total profit of h+x-y mana.

Now we only need g-x > h+x-y, so we let y=h-g+2x+1.

There are two more constraints (beyond assumptions already made) that need to be satisfied for this to work. We need g > x in order for taking this deal to be +ve EV for 121, and we need 121s initial capital to be > y. The latter of these (at least) doesn't hold so this plan as stated can't work, but maybe this helps spark inspiration or allows others to come up with a refined version.

Oh we can also use this for other people in the chain perhaps, though we might also want to add them sending the mana to someone we approve of as part of the condition.

@Quroe I think we should work hard to not allow the chain to fall into Tumbles' hands

@MaxE That will be fully up to 121 if we engage the Final Boss Battle.

@MaxE Agreed, we cannot let the Dark Horse steal our hopes of defeating villainy

@Jasonb I mean to say that the Dark Horse will make an offer to 121 to be the link after 121, not before. If anything, the Dark Horse would help us defeat 121.

For the record, I've met Tumbles in real life at Manifest 2025. He is a very convincing guy. You do not know how hard it was for me to turn down a loan to him live during Nash Pit Ep. 1. He's top tier at persuasion.

All this to say, I think Orangey is very undervalued on the companion market for who will be in the chain.

@Quroe Oh I see now! Yes this does sound promising.

@Quroe I agree, this seems like a plausible strategy

Thank you, great HERO.

I do have a part of me that wants to create a sequel market to the main one asking if the chain will be 12 to 23 links. I'm not sure how much liquidity I can afford to put into that at the moment, though. I feel like all great campaigns need to have a set end date, or else the troops lose resolve.

I've been dumping a lot of my mana into bets that are basically "bonds." Guaranteed to resolve in my favor, but only granting 1% returns. I have a low balance right now.

Hello all, I will read through the chats here soon (just woken up)

Great Chain faithful, as much as I yearn to have our HERO join our ranks as a Chain Link, I think it makes most sense to try to have her be the final Link to be added before the battle against our foe, as that position requires the most trust. What say ye?

@SimonWestlake This makes sense, unless we come up with some strategy that requires otherwise.

Magnanimous HERO @Robincvgr, please welcome the newest fully-inducted Chain Link @Jasonb, who completed the Doubling without any formal contact from the Great Chain. Such faith is to be commended.

@Jasonb We welcome you to add our Family Crest to the end of your display name: 🔗

@Quroe @SimonWestlake Thank you all for having me! I'm glad I managed to double in time and will wear the crest with pride :)

I invite all Chain Links to add our Family Crest to the end of your name on the site, as proposed by @Quroe 🔗

Great and powerful Hero @Robincvgr, please welcome your faithful servant @MaxE, who has bravely endured the Doubling to advance your cause

@MaxE I deeply apologize for this unacceptable delay. I absolutely love your idea for the newest initiate to be the one to invite the next initiate, and that will certainly be how we do things in the future.Your contribution to our cult's procedures is greatly appreciated.

That being said, I think I need to get us back on track quickly, so I will handle sending things out this time.

If you would be so kind, please edit your name on the site to end with the Family Crest (which can be copy/pasted): 🔗

@MaxE Wear the Family Crest 🔗 with pride!

@SimonWestlake @MaxE Your completion of the Doubling is much appreciated. Thank you for your advancement of our cause.

@Robincvgr Our Hero has spoken!

@Robincvgr Praise be the HERO!

@Robincvgr thank you, great Hero!

Adherents to the Great Chain! I your humble servant deeply apologize for my most-inconvenient absence. I dare not say too much, but it was a harrowing tale involving a wizard who needed some TLC.

Except for our magnificent Hero, all initiated Chain Links are equal! Anyone is welcome to invite Chain Links and Initiates to the appropriate posts if things get stalled out.

@SimonWestlake hope all is well!

@bens Thank you! My social anxiety got a tad activated for a minute there, but all is well

Motion for all Chain Links to put a Family Crest (🔗) in their titles (screen names):

Aye

@Quroe what do the beans mean? Are they coffee beans? Pinto beans?

@bens They represent my successes in my previous military campaigns. Our Great HERO inspired me to follow this title tradition with her leading the way herself.

All great accomplishments deserve recognition.

@Quroe Sounds good

OUR HERO HAS SPOKEN!

@Robincvgr We shall soon grant you your destined place among us.

Max has previously agreed to include JasonB (remember not to tag users who shouldn't be aware of this space) in her Doubling, as a condition for me having my friend Mylie include her in her Doubling.

This is the last opportunity for Jason's promise to perform the Futarchy sidequest to apply, where he will create a market for which player will be most likely to perform a Doubling, and then send mana based on that: https://manifold.markets/Quroe/how-many-manifolders-will-double-it-d9q609ZP6R?r=UXVyb2U#0bf27s8v75n5

Here is how he described who would be included as options in that market:

> up to the first 5 people who reply to this comment or are tagged in replies who are not already in the chain. If there are fewer than two such people I will do it over 3 people of my choosing based on vibes.

With Max becoming a Chain Link Initiate, that leaves only one such person at time of writing, meaning that Jason will select 3 people of his choosing (unless another person comes out of the woodwork).

I want this group to make an attempt at influencing Jason's choices. As the person who has wielded power to get Jason added to the chain, I'll handle communication with him.

Who do we want as options? We certainly want our glorious Hero @Robincvgr to be in the chain, but do we want to save her for a more difficult round?

@SimonWestlake I am devoting my efforts to keeping the portal to the VILLAIN's realm (markets) open, so I cannot personally devote much mana, if at all, to persuasion.

@SimonWestlake I think we put @Robincvgr in the Futarchy arena. I don't see much reason not to as the entry fee is basically free.

Since I've been sucking up all of the air getting this started, I'll give other people some time to share ideas before I share any of my own opinions

I'm not sure if edited-in tags send notifications, so please extend warm greetings to our newest Initiate under this comment: https://manifold.markets/post/initiation-to-the-chain-links-dont-shysusCg6N#UPhShOA9

@bens @Quroe @strutheo

I recommend following this post and the initiation post so that you don't miss any discussion.

@SimonWestlake Is Mylie going to be an active Chain Link?

@Quroe I'm going to try to make that happen! She does love fantasy.

As a final mission before we begin our plotting in earnest, I want to create an Initiation space for new Chain Links who have not yet proven themselves by performing The Doubling. Here is my proposed wording:

Welcome, youngest Chain Link! Before you may join the sacred space that we Chain Links share with our Hero, you must prove your loyalty to our Hero and the Great Chain by performing the Doubling.

Until that time, you will not be granted audience with our Hero, but the other Chain Links will help you select another Chain Link that we trust.

@Robincvgr Oh Hero, what say ye about this text?

@SimonWestlake I like this idea. Helps keep the social pressure to perform the doubling and helps with selecting new links

The Hero has spoken! The Intitiation space shall be created.

Behold the Initiation space: https://manifold.markets/post/initiation-to-the-chain-links-dont-shysusCg6N

@Robincvgr Great Hero, While you are encouraged to observe the Initiations, please refrain from speaking. The honor of being spoken to by you is reserved for Chain Links who have performed the Doubling.

@SimonWestlake Understood

Thank you all for gathering here. I have formally invited our glorious Hero to this sacred space with the following invitation

Oh great Hero, we humble Chain Links who have proven our loyalty to you and the Great Chain by performing The Doubling have gathered privately in hopes of helping you plot your victory against The Villain with you out of the public eye. We humbly request your presence and participation.

Glory to the Hero.

As the language of our movement evolves, so have I updated the description of this space.

Hi, what are we plotting?

We're preparing for the Final Boss Battle.

I am not sure if you should want me here. As Game Master, I could snitch on details and tell the public juicy details for the drama.

That being said, if you'll still have me, I do want to see this game get to the end for the sake of all of the mana (new trader bonuses) I collect the longer I keep the portal open (the longer the markets are open).

@Quroe I for one trust you. What say ye others? @strutheo @bens (and Robin who I have not invited yet)

@SimonWestlake I think @Robincvgr should be the exception and should be added now.

@Quroe Oh I know, I just hadn't sent her invite yet.

@Robincvgr what say ye about the admission of @Quroe into this space?

@SimonWestlake I think it's fine

@Robincvgr @Quroe Our hero has spoken!

👋

I have also invited @bens, as the Seed of Episode 2.

Side note, do not tag anyone who is not invited to this post.