I don’t disagree with your post but I’m still unclear on how you envision gatekeeper should work.
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?
In any case, Gatekeeper is mostly intended to save grandmas who are at risk of downloading random malware from the internet.
If you're a developer who is reasonably aware of how computers work you might as well disable Gatekeeper entirely. You're taking many times more risk every time you use Terminal.
Nowadays (as of Sequoia, I think), I find that I need to run `xattr -c Foo.app` to clear the “this was downloaded from the Internet” bit on the application bundle before I can right-click, “Open” it. Used to be that you only needed to do that with .apps extracted from zip archives, but it seems to apply to .apps copied out of disk images (DMGs) now, too.
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.
> testosterone levels have dropped without a solid explanation
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.
That study appears to be US only, while global studies have shown the effect.
For that matter, some _animal_ studies have shown declining testosterone as well. That doesn't seem to be well-studied, but if it holds up it would make me lean toward it being something environmental (e.g. microplastic pollution)
I linked that study because it is particularly interesting because they run the mass spec test on archived blood samples.
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.
> I'm GenZ, my parents were Silent Gen (WWII vets) and my kids are Millennials.
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.
They fund more than 10k research grants a year. These grants are for research into basic, unapplied science that would be extremely unlikely to get funding from the private sector. But this research is the foundation for the applied science whose breakthroughs power our economy.
Basic science also increases our understanding of the world and universe, an admirable goal in its own right.
The current setup does sort of seem like a tax on being stupid. Why would any non-insider participate in these markets? You’re just asking to get screwed.
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.
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.
Insider trading is unethical, and has long been recognized as such. It is outrageous for you to suggest that it is a good thing.
It is not a free market if there is insider trading. If insiders are trading other market participants are by definition getting screwed by what was advertised as a fair, impartial system.
You certainly wouldn't participate in a market where you did not think you had fair odds. Tho maybe you're inclined towards the rigging side of things.
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?
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 fact remains that prediction markets and financial markets are not the same thing. Bets between people happened all the time, and you would wager based on information asymmetry, that is the whole point of it.
By making these markets public facing, you get access to this information asymmetry, whereas before it was behind doors, and these bets were already taking place, you just didn't know it, now you do.
The problem with insider trading in prediction markets isn't the "prediction" part, it's the "markets" part. Once there is real money changing hands, then the purpose of the prediction market stops being "surface information" and starts being "make money" (POSIWID sense of purpose). Since the money changing hands is a necessary incentive for the insiders to provide the information, the parts cannot be disentangled and the problem is fundamental.
Note also that prediction markets can't be too different from financial markets because prediction markets are in some sense a generalization of financial markets e.g. you can make a prediction market that predicts the price of some stock on some day.
I completely agree with you. The only thing I would add is, that prediction markets are not necessarily oracles for predicting the future. They can just as well be used for hedging: imagine, hypothetically I really do not want Trump to win. I can bet on Trump, not because I want or expect him to win, but to hedge my position (perhaps my business would suffer if Trump wins)
You're conflating insider trading and blatant corruption.
Imagine if a CEO of a company does something that would damage the price of the stock of it's own company, having shorted the stock before? That's not insider trading, that's (probably, I don't know the exact term) fraud and will lead to prison sentence.
Prediction markets enable the policymakers to make these bets. Arguably, there should probably be sorts of limit on who is allowed to be there. But there are still counter examples like Nancy Pelosi who somehow manages to go around these limitations in stock market.
"Information" is not neutrally reflective of some objective, deterministic reality. Processes involving information are slippery and reflexive, and that's the danger people are all but shouting for you to see. The feedback loops have extreme potential. The danger isn't in "exposing information" it's in people coercing reality to fit their bet. Peoples' lives are on the line.
The wild thing is that prediction market dabbler rationalists who think they're betting on the outcome of a pre-written fiction story are actually just upping the reward for someone to come along and bomb people to death. Your participation is not neutral. You are culpable in the outcome of the situation you're "gambling" on which has not been determined yet and you are literally throwing fuel on the fire. No matter which way you bet it's fuel.
I'm sorry, I don't believe you personally deserve it but for the betterment of the everyone we have no choice but to shame people like you (prediction market rationalizers) via downvotes and hot replies until you can see through the limits of your overly simple model of reality.
I don't think you're a bad or stupid person, but when it comes to your views on prediction markets, they are very bad and very stupid. Thankfully you are not your beliefs and you are free to change them at any time. I beg you to reconsider this one.
This sounds like a poor attempt at attempting to be on the right side of morality through manipulation and shame. There is nothing here that tries to help someone understand your viewpoint.
Let's start of with something simple. Should a single wager between two people be illegal, should sports betting at all be legal? Is it only illegal if one or more entities facilitate the bet?
As a hedge. Say you own real estate in UAE, and you note that insurance does not cover acts of war. Betting on something like "Iran Bombs Dubai" creates some form of real estate insurance for you.
Even if you suppose my example is bad, you should be able to envision some case where such hedge is helpful.
Yes, but the examples where it's good has a name "insurance". It exists, it's generally well regulated, and is not easily exploited.
The reason it works better is because in a prediction market, the person betting against you has no resources or ability to go after you for fraudulent behavior. Whereas an insurance company has both.
I'm not saying it's not out there, but in many cases finding insurance for act of war is difficult. It is certainly rare and almost always far less accessible than using polymarket. If you have a very large holding you can probably get someone to write it for you though.
Insurance works on repeatable, predictable risks based on models.
You can't get insurance against a military attack. But you can hedge using a prediction market. It's essentially the version of insurance for one-off events, that relies on wagers since you can't use models.
Based on just simple math there was basically no chance of turnout being over 2.5m and yet the market for multiple days had the higher buckets at exorbitant prices.
> Why would any non-insider participate in these markets? You’re just asking to get screwed.
If people who do the obvious trades (sell oil right now - it's going down) lose money, all you have to do is do the opposite (buy oil right now - it's going down) and gain money. Is it not that simple? You will profit along with the insiders when Trump blockades the strait again, although you won't have such perfect timing.
There’s almost nothing to forget? I’m just struggling to understand.
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