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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34999 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022

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On November 13th, a prediction market was created on Manifold Markets asking if former Chinese president Jiang Zemin would die by the end of November.

He died today (November 30th). What could the explanation for this be?

Jiang Zemin

as Stefferi mentioned ,he was 96

Explanation for what? The prediction market? Comments on it indicate there were rumors going around about his death. There's also another market that was started back in September about whether Jiang would survive until 2024.

Explanation for his death? He was a 96 year old with leukemia according to the article. I don't know the exact numbers but I imagine the prognosis for that is not good.

Is there supposed to be an implication that the prediction market opening is related to his death? On the basis of what evidence? That they happened close in time?

Is there supposed to be an implication that the prediction market opening is related to his death?

Prediction markets can be used to hire contract killers. If you want somebody killed create a market on whether they will be dead by [end of next month] and offer lots of shares at a few cents each. A contract killer can buy the cheap shares, kill the person and collect his fee by cashing out since the shares are now all worth $1 each.

Manifold uses fake money so I doubt that's what happened here

Manifold Markets uses play money though.

This could make for a good film or an episode of a police procedural.

Sure, I'm happy to accept the theoretical possibility that prediction markets can launder contract killing, but what is the evidence that happened in this case.

The average 96 year old has about two years of life expectancy and he just happens to die within two weeks of someone making this market for no apparent reason. One commenter said there were rumours of his having already died, but that appears to be it. It doesn't look like it was publicly known that he was sick.

The apparent reason would be someone reading about the CPC conference and the Hu Jintao affair, remembering that Jiang Zemin is still alive, noting that he's a sickly 96-year-old, and conclude that he's probably at the death's door.

Meanwhile it seems like Jack Ma is alive and well in Tokyo after all.

...being 96?

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