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In a "what the fuck even is this timeline" update: Anderson lee Aldrich, the Q Club shooter, is apparently non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, and already had an Encyclopedia Dramatica article detailing his career as a 15 year old "professional hacker", calling him a pedophile, and describing his absent father as an MMA fighter and porn star.
I'm feeling very vindicated in my impulse to hold off conclusions... but I would think that, given my biases, wouldn't it? The real test would be a tragedy that looks at first glance to fit my biases perfectly and allows me to cathartically Boo Outgroup. I suspect that differences in media ecosystems have that less likely... but I would think that too, wouldn't I?
Plus obvious, audacious narrative updates in real time.
And our first echo shooting, as usually happens in the immediate wake of a highly publicized mass shooting. No apparent political/CW element, disgruntled employee.
The desparation of groups to see a mass-murderer wind up belonging to the other tribe inspired me to dream up a mobile app that you could use whenever such an event was occuring live. It would allow you to bet on the identity and motivation of the perpetrators of mass murder events while they are breaking news. The odds would be based on collating data from every media headline atrocity that has occurred in the past 20 years. Imagine the odds on this guy.
Some might call it crude, but I would argue that this is no worse than the wink nudging that occurs on reddit or twitter whenever such an attack occurs.
Great idea, but if you think "suspect was known to the FBI" is bad, wait till you see the insider trading schemes for MurderBets.io.
It's a good thing that the Prediction Market Act of 2036 mandated that 10% of the bet volume goes towards life insurance of the target, and that he gets the full volume in the event he kills the assassin.
However the CCTV companies seem to be the happiest with the outcome, as they win no matter who loses.
I was thinking recently about assassination markets, and how the state would try to curtail those.
Couldn't they outlaw making bets and trades that pay off when "someone dies"? The idea is that allowing those markets sets perverse incentives -- namely, to kill the individual in question. Or maybe this legislation couldn't work because of a loophole that would let assassin markets run under the guise of life insurance?
It seems to me regular markets already have that incentive structure, at least for the set of people whose sudden unexpected death would have a predictable effect on the market. Assassination markets are kind of a distilled version of buying leveraged stock in an industry and murdering a politician who is angling to regulate it. Which ties into the old idea that having wealthy enemies is dangerous.
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