Notices by rndeon (rndeon@cosocial.ca)

@evan well, how much society wants Kalshi to be fair depends a lot on how institutional they are. Seems like, in the US, the administration is quite wrapped up in it? What they think they can win on is maybe even directing us foreign policy?
That's the rumours I'm hearing, anyway

@evan yeah, i agree, it reminds me of a rule introduced into an already-designed game because they realized it was unbalanced. I would argue that it hasn't really worked, and the stock market is still largely a force for tricking people into buying into things they will lose money on. I would also, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, note that with this widespread acceptance of memecoins and Kalshi, maybe people's investing habits are not affected by the existence of insider trading?

@evan i think i understand the point you're making, though i would take it in a very different direction. I don't see that there is an inherent difference between information that is correct vs information that is insider. Your pizza deliverer sounds like they're guessing based on very little, and so unlikely to be correct. But if they did some other work to get info way more correct, how is that different from someone learning it by being inside? The difference is only practical, i think.

Reading https://thatshubham.com/blog/news-audit ( HT @pluralistic ) and I'm astounded.
I had heard of web ad auctions.
I had heard of edge computing.
I did not realize they were pushing their ad auction calculations onto your device!
Knowing this, I think ad blockers are too polite a response. Are there any browser plugins that send them something like a decompression bomb? Or maybe that interferes in the ranking so the cheapest bid is returned as the winner? My device is the one deciding, after all!

@evan to me, that it is possible to misunderstand this has always been a bizarre design dark pattern. With physics in the world, we can't control how hard it is to know what's going on behind or inside or whatever, but in software, it's all human design! Phone apps, and software in general, could be made so you can easily open the hood and see what's happening. Someday i hope that seems worth the effort, and people do it.

@evan "past investments fighting climate change have been misplaced, and too much good money has been put into expensive and questionable efforts."
Like maybe these, Bill? https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/deep-sky-startup-grant-1.7413954
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/feb/06/bill-gates-climate-scientists-geoengineering

He's decided he's too bad at climate activism to competently allocate his billions, so... He's decided to continue making allocation choices?

@evan casa del popolo is the place where I rented out the upstairs with a group of friends every year for awhile, it's quite memorable! Does that help? 😉

@evan thanks for the explanation. I did not even think of the US election as an example, because here in Ottawa there was some drama just this weekend around the pride parade being stopped and eventually cancelled. In that case, the demand presented was kind of the opposite of what you were worrying about: either everyone expresses solidarity for both things, or no one will be allowed to express solidarity.
That case has more going on than this short summary, but it is an interesting connection

@evan i find my guesses swinging back and forth day to day. Should they have tried to get some policy wins in before announcing? Would waiting just give opponents (domestic and international) more attempts at finding the set of misinformations that catches on? Would we be in a worse position to hold an election in several months?

And then there's the worry that April 28 is already too far away. so much could happen.

@evan @dawn reminds me of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_democracy ?(which i heard about due to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nunatsiavut)

@evan for us, the best-constructed and cheapest available bags for a long time were LCBO bags, so our concern isn't for the competitive feelings of employees, but instead their judgment on our lushness when we bring 5 LCBO bags into the grocery store

@molly0xfff two questions from me:
How is it possible those huge dollar amounts are coming out of something that seemed to come and go and not produce anything!? Geez.
And what Sankey diagram tool are you using? 😁

@evan wha???
(thank you for this public service)

Phanpy question: I'm using the PWA (Firefox) on android. Most of the time, when I switch to another app (usually also Firefox!) and switch back, phanpy has lost my scrolling position and puts me back at the top, loading new stuff.
Any way to keep your position?

@evan "The companies who have followed this path have created a lot of technology products that have changed our lives."
Absolutely, 110%
"this economic structure hasn't brought us a lot of value as a society."
I'm don't think this part follows from the evidence. I see no reason to doubt that the counter factual wouldn't have also changed our lives and brought value to society. If market dominance was prevented through some mechanism, then the best investment would still be the best investment!

@evan my feelings towards the idea of a person that supports, explicitly, because of racism is more sadness than moral outrage. Their worldview is untethered, it must have come from being lied to, it's evidence of victimhood. The moral outrage is displaced onto those who cynically create the racist environment, despite knowing they're making it up, and for those who perpetuate it for personal gain, despite not being fooled.

@evan Father to Son - Queen
Father's Child - Michael Kiwanuka
Beautiful boy - John Lennon
Everyone says "hi" - David Bowie

@evan I was about to say something like "the social web will hopefully figure out a clever solution someday", but...i think the only reason i think of harassing as a web phenomenon is that I have (accidentally) curated my IRL to avoid that. maybe online just ends up being the same.
Ouch, my idealism...

@evan Huh. I wonder if this is something people just naturally gravitate to doing, sort of unconsciously, or if it is a strategy someone is teaching.
Either way, it must be stressful to try to post things earnestly, already be bracing for aggressive replies, but then also have to deal with sly misleading replies.

@evan my bad, i thought there was an implied context of "this weird thing has actually been happening to me, and i wouldn't mind venting about it"