"There was a spoils system in the late 1800s. It sure would be great if we could go back to that time." Technically these can be interpreted as unrelated statements (as apparently the statements are in your original comment), but most people would infer from that they were related and that the reason it would be nice to rollback to the earlier time was the aforementioned spoils system.

This is your comment basically:

People really need to read their history. When America definitively surpassed the UK in 1880 as the richest country in the world (per capita), tuberculosis was a leading cause of death: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberculosis

The advancement of antibiotics did not happen until the mid 20th century, which significantly postdates America's rise to the top. It would be a great idea to rollback science to that time when we didn't have all these life saving vaccines and antibiotics.

When the 65 year old sole proprietor of a local HVAC business sells it to a PE firm, the other option was likely winding down the business. If the owner had children that were interested in running the business, no doubt they would give it to them. But usually that is not the case. So the owner needs to sell. And if there were capitalized, enthusiastic local entrepreneurs that could buy it, no doubt the owner would consider them. But again, this is quite rare.

So the choices usually come down to: close up shop or sell to a PE firm. All other things being equal (which they never are), I think a market with more businesses is going to be more competitive and pro-consumer than a market with fewer businesses. Further, some economists have found that PE activity encourages business formation, perhaps partially explaining why the US has more small businesses per capita than Europe (where they have far less PE). So it's a double whammy: PE causes less businesses to close and more businesses to open.

A short, entertaining article on this topic: https://www.economist.com/business/2026/02/23/rejoice-privat...

If it is like you say and different people are just inherently more or less suited to different paradigms, then not everyone can be happy.

Unless of course those with a modicum of competence desire to be true public servants. Read about the character of some of our great leaders like Washington, Lincoln or Eisenhower to understand the mentality of a true public servant. Something someone like Kash Patel knows nothing about.

I don’t think this level of virtue is all that rare, though it is rarely rewarded at the ballot box.

There’s almost nothing to forget? I’m just struggling to understand.

You want the ability to choose a different “authorities” that verify and sign binaries? That makes sense to me but is unlikely to relieve any of the issues in the post.

Also what do you mean by “even yourself?” What would that option look like?

The charges could be very serious but I’m not sure what that has to do with anything, because being charged (or even just arrested) is not the same as being convicted. The author of this post claims both of their charges were dropped.

So, what, let’s torture anyone that _might_ have done something “serious?” No judge, no jury, just if a cop thinks you might have done something, straight into a psychological torture cell for weeks and months while they think about your case? wtf

Also, your description of their experience as “not pleasant” just kind of blows my mind. Like it was a long line at the DMV or something.

But there are other studies and meta analyses which cover other countries and come to the same conclusion.

I think many of the studies claiming to find significant population level decline are older and overstate the issue due to the methodological errors outlined in my previous post. If you are thinking of a particular one, please share a link.

I am not familiar with the research on testosterone levels in animals. In humans, while not conclusory, I do think the evidence suggests that increasing rates of obesity and metabolic syndrome are the proximate cause of testosterone decline.

There is a solid explanation.

First, before the adoption of mass spec, studies used a less accurate method of measuring testosterone that overstated testosterone levels.

Also, the studies showing the population level decline in testosterone generally controlled for obesity (which naturally lowers testosterone) using BMI. But BMI is a very crude measure.

When studies control with better methods like BMI + waist circumference, and only compare samples using the mass spec measurement method, the unexplained population level decline goes away. After fixing the measurement method, what remains of the decline can be explained by BMI + waist circumference. In other words, modern men are more prone to obesity and metabolic syndrome, which naturally reduces testosterone. Case closed.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22150314/

My understanding is that Gen Z comes AFTER millennials, so if you are Z, your kids can't be millennials. Maybe you are Gen X? Also, if your kids are 25 now, then they would be gen z, not millennials.

P.S. Don't shoot the messenger, I didn't make up this dumb system or these dumb names ^_^

I agree with everything in your top level comment.

Basic science also increases our understanding of the world and universe, an admirable goal in its own right.

How are you measuring the "actual standard of living?”

Still a lot of overlap with running a datacenter of ASICs and a datacenter of GPUs, but both are significant capital investments.

It is illegal to insider trade in financial markets, which makes sense to me. But financial markets and prediction markets are different; one exists to surface capital, the other information.

Insider trading is forbidden in financial markets because allowing it would be a disincentive to participation by non-insiders, which would be bad because it would reduce the amount of capital the market was able to provide.

In prediction markets, allowing insider trading would be disincentive to participation by non-insiders, which would be a good thing, because the market should surface the most accurate information as possible and insiders have more accurate information than non-insiders.

> and has long been recognized as such.

Prediction markets are in their infancy. They've only really existed for about a decade and even now are tiny compared with markets like commodities or equities. So I don't see how this could have been "long recognized."

> It is outrageous for you to suggest that it is a good thing.

This is not an argument.

> You certainly wouldn't participate in a market where you did not think you had fair odds.

Of course I wouldn't and I wouldn't advise anyone else to do so. But why would we want uninformed people participating in prediction markets? I don't think they should.

What does "fair" even mean here? If Alice is more informed than Bob about X, she'll probably be better at making predictions about X. I guess it is "unfair," but what would the point of a prediction market be if we only allowed uninformed people to participate? Then it's more like a survey of what the average person thinks will happen, which is probably common knowledge, so we don't need a market to find that out.

> Finally, since you're trying to work the information angle, would you care to share any legitimately meaninful information you've gained from prediction markets?

Prediction market odds for elections and important world events are regularly quoted in the press and AFAICT seem to more accurate than pundits and and oped writers at predicting the future. A low bar, but still, if we are going to speculate about the future, we might as well see what actually informed people think.

The good point of prediction markets is that they provide information. This information is available to everyone, for free, which benefits everyone.

Insiders help achieve this. Insiders have information and by participating in the market they then expose and share that information. So this is good. If we ban insiders, we're just banning accurate information from getting into the market. If we do that, we might as well just ban prediction markets altogether. I don't have a strong opinion either way on that, but a prediction market without insiders is pointless.

Though it’s not that different from the stock market, where the folks at WSB happily give their money to Citadel, Jane Street, and friends, because every once a while, one of them hits it big after going all in that the ball lands on green.

Gambling is a hell of a drug and there are good reasons why it is illegal in so many places. Prediction markets have some good externalities (information), but it’s another addictive outlet for those vulnerable to gambling addiction.