[UA] Hello, and Merchant Godwalker war

[Hammons, Jade]

And even before it had gotten legs... they shut down the idea.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/07/29/terrorist.market.ap/index.html

And just like that, someone fails to ascend. The market is closed. bang
the gavel. fade to black.

Jade Hammons




-----Original Message-----
From: The Dylan [mailto:me at thedylan.net]
Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2003 11:29 AM
To: ua at lists.uchicago.edu
Subject: RE: [UA] Hello, and Merchant Godwalker war


This is my quick analysis of it [I wrote this in reply to a friend's
question "have we gone insane?" so some of it won't be exactly relevant
but I don't have time to rewrite it]:

No, we haven't or at least not recently.  We might still be insane but
it's really not that different from the London Bond Market [might be
called something else] in 1776 when Ben Franklin was over there and he
had a british friend bet his money on the American Colonies declaring
their Independence.  The Founding Fathers made a lot of money for the
revolution this way.  I think this idea is amazing.  I don't believe for
a minute that the creators of this idea really think that it will make
average investors in the US magically supply information when the
numbers are crunched with some modeling software they've developed.
What I believe they think is that a bunch of regular investors might bet
on things and lose a lot of money, helping to fund the federal
government.  Kind of like loans that you probably won't have to pay back
[especially if they do their jobs correctly, that is, stop the terror
action, the 'house' is activiely doing everything in it's power to stop
that fut!
 ure from happening].  But the main gist, I believe, is that they hope
terrorists [or someone close to them] will attempt to replay what Ben
Franklin did in the 1776(?) and we can then nab them before it happens,
creating a stool pigeon out of the process of insider betting.
Personally, I think it's the smartest intelligence gathering idea I've
heard.  Now of course what I'm worried about is regular Americans having
a vested interest in bad things happening.  An even worse scenario, is
Intelligence agents finding out some vital piece of information and
connecting the dots and betting on it but not telling anyone for their
own selfish reasons.  I would like to know what sort of safeguards are
in place to stop something like that from happening.

Of course, it doesn't matter too much since before I was finished
writing that I got news from AM talk radio that they have decided cancel
the project due to the uproar.  Damnit, our country was founded on
insider betting and our leaders have made a lot of money from insider
trading.  We must let this American institution stand if for no other
reason than it's historical relevence, kind of like turning the real
world into a museum.

I really like the ideas of how to relate this to UA.

Could definitely use that contagion/tilt idea.

Side note: Perhaps we haven't found Bin Laden since he ascended because
the US gov't/media has turned him into the Archetypal Terrorist.  [my
guess is that this was probably already discussed but I'm new to the
list so...]

NiallSweby at ivac.org.uk sent this on Tuesday, July 29, 2003


>What most struck me about this is the UA style
>contradiction inherent in the process. As I understand it
>(and I could be wrong) the stated purpose of this trading
>is to apparently improve the intelligence gathering and
>analysis ability of the government (from www.bbc.co.uk
>news) so that is is better informed in making decisions.
>
>However if the market indicates an event that the
>government does not like (i.e. the overthrow of the king
>of jordan if the Iraq conflict dragged on) will the US
>government then change its policy to stop this? The system
>seems to allow for traders to hedge their bets based on
>their own lack of knowledge in certain areas, but this
>seems to penalise traders who do have all the relevant
>knowledge and can make confident predictions without
>hedging their costs, but who then loose money when the
>government intervenes. For example if you bet in January
>2001 that a major terrorist event would happen in the US
>sometime that year, and this was the warning sign that
>triggered security agencies to prevent september 11th, you
>would in fact lose your money even though you were right.
>
>For UA this might mean
>
>-Insider trading on the futures market has a whole new
>meaning. Adepts can make predictions but wait until the
>very last moment to trade their options. You might not get
>as much but you could realy make a killing.
>
>- Great source of charges for rumourmancer adept on the UA
>site.
>
>- If an event is being traded, does that make it less
>likely to happen or more so? Adepts could use the trading
>as a form of contagion/tilt ingredient to push reality
>into that direction, so that the event becomes more
>likely.
>
>- Of course avatars reveal themselves in the chance
>interplay of action and belief. If you are at war with the
>avatar you might find the odds of your city being nuked
>creeping up.
>
>Niall

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