Latest / Before You Speak / Before You Speak | Episode 23 | News and Prediction Markets

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Before You Speak | Episode 23 | News and Prediction Markets · Before You Speak

• Derek Peterson: What's up y'all, welcome back to the Before You Speak podcast. I'm your host, Derek Peterson. You know, just processing the fire hose of my newsfeed with this guy over here. Elwyn: What's up everybody, I am Elwin and the fire hose of my newsfeed is on Polymarket with a 78.2 % chance of overwhelming me later this week. So go place your bets now. Derek Peterson: There you go. I've got insider information, Ellen. I think I'm going to bet for that. I'm going to put my life savings on. Yes, yes, that's going to. ⁓ Hey, we're both making millions on this one. ⁓ Elwyn: Yeah. I've bet $42 million on how I react to my newsfeed. Polymarket's good with that. Derek Peterson: Well, let's let's jump into the news today. Let's start with just a quick update on Iran. The the ⁓ there was claims of a ceasefire agreement ⁓ as of last night ⁓ and then claims of this morning that that ceasefire is actually not happening, according to Iran, and that Iran is still shooting missiles ⁓ all over the Middle East, ⁓ apparently. So. I'm curious what's your take on all of this. Elwyn: Well, you know, also Israel's shooting missiles at Lebanon because they're a little bit mad that Lebanon is included. They didn't know. I'm not sure. I don't know. I feel like every time there's been a ceasefire, it's kind of like if you turn the water main off to your house, the water still runs until it all clears the pipes. I feel like that's kind of what happens. It's like there's like a three to six hour window of, you know, Well, we were going to do this anyway, so let's go ahead and do it. ⁓ Derek Peterson: It's like just delayed information like hey, did somebody tell Bill the guy firing the cannons over there that we're not supposed to do this now? ⁓ no, we forgot to somebody should let him know. Elwyn: Well, H-H-Hegseth said that. He was like, should get their carrier pigeons out to their front lines. Because he's just a dick. ⁓ no, I-like, I don't see- I-I-I don't think it's wrong to say this ceasefire- Derek Peterson: Yeah. Elwyn: I don't know if there's going to be the political will from Trump to start fighting again in two weeks. I think that he was really looking for a way out and now he's got it and it'll just be kind of like, know, he'll maybe bluster, saber-rattle again, threaten the end of an entire civilization, genocide, know, the stuff that he does. A day before that the 14-day period is up and then extend it. That's kind of my sense. I was wrong about his willingness to go to war with Iran, so I could be wrong about this. But I think he was getting hammered domestically ⁓ in every way, and he was just looking for a way out, and so he took one. The terms of the deal, or the talking points that Iran put out, the ten points that Iran put out, which Trump said are a good jumping-off point for negotiations, if anything like that is part of a permanent deal, this is... This is a law, like we lost the war. Iran gets out of that war. The regime, because not the country, the regime will exit this in better financial circumstances than they entered it. I don't really see how there's any other way to look at it. If all of a sudden you're getting paid half of a $2 million toll on 100 to 150 ships a day, where you used to let those ships go by and get nothing, and you showed everybody that you know, hey, the United States and Israel can unload on you for six weeks and it's all fine. Like you're not gonna bend, you're gonna take the straight of Hormuz and why would they ever give it back at this point? You know, and you get to keep, they get to keep everything right now. Regime is still there. They still have the uranium, the enriched uranium that they had and they get more money. ⁓ Derek Peterson: Yeah. So basically we've a bunch of people have died. They have a younger Ayatollah. They keep everything. And now they hate America even more than they did before. We've potentially created more future terrorists ⁓ as a result of all of this. And we're backing ourselves out of it now because, you know, like there's midterms coming up and they know if they they know if they stay in this too long and gas prices continue to escalate. There's no chance they stay, the Republicans stay in power. it's, they're, they're backed into a corner for sure. And, ⁓ to be honest, like it's, it's a terrible situation. It's a terrible situation for the entire world. And furthermore, like seeing what Iran's doing right now is scaring the crap out of me because they are pulling no punches. Like Iran is, ⁓ they are trolling Trump. to like the ump degree, like the videos that they're putting out and the stuff that's coming from their side of things. And when you are dealing with a narcissist and it's interesting because Tamara was showing me a sub Reddit that was talking about, ⁓ how a lot of people that have grown up with narcissistic parents are triggered by, ⁓ what Trump is doing because it's the same behavior of a narcissistic parent. It's like, and we dealt with this with her dad, like a couple of years ago. ⁓ we made some changes to our vacation plans that we were paying for and invited them on. We wanted to have some photography done. So we invited this photographer to come stay for a night, ⁓ to do family photos. Her dad loses his crap threatens, like threatens to not come on vacation, pull his money out. And we're all like, okay, like, go ahead if you don't want to come. And then he's like, no, nevermind. Like he just didn't want to have the photographer there for the day. And we're like, well, we don't care because we want these photos, but it's. It's interesting because Trump's response to just about everything is exactly that. It's like that of a narcissistic parent. you can, you can see it like so many people can see through the behavior pattern now so clearly. Like, ⁓ and what's scary is that when when you antagonize a narcissist like this, they do escalate ⁓ and That's the most terrifying thing about all of this for me is that, yeah, like they know exactly what they're doing and they've tapped into a psyche that's deeper than, and he doesn't listen to his advisors. He doesn't listen to like when he gets on a roll, he just does what he does. And that's mildly terrifying. So. Elwyn: Yeah, I mean, think that at the end of the day, the only thing he cares about is himself and his own perception of his legacy. And I have to think that, you know, it's getting hard. It's got to be getting harder for him to live in a bubble where he's doing a great job. His approval is awful. Like even on the economy, it's underwater on everything. It's awful. It's like 26 % on the economy. know, they just, last night was another election. The Republicans got hammered again. 20 plus point swings across the boards towards the Democrats. And MTG's seat. I mean, the Republican held that one, but that was a Trump 37 district that he won by 12. ⁓ Derek Peterson: That's the Wisconsin election, the Supreme Court judge. Yeah. Cause that, that, was it? Clay Fuller still won that, but he wouldn't buy what six points. Elwyn: I think 11, 12 was what I saw this morning. So it's still a 25 point swing, right? No Democrat expected that they would take that seat. But a 25 point swing is Democrats have the Senate, Democrats have an incredible majority in the House. And I just think it's getting harder and harder for Trump to ignore that he stepped in it here and he didn't really know what was going on. And the idea of just Derek Peterson: ⁓ 11, 12, yeah. Okay. Elwyn: continuously, he needed an off ramp. So I think in this case, he was just like, I'm gonna escalate my rhetoric until I can't anymore because I don't see what we got in this ceasefire agreement. What did we get in return for the promise to stop bombing them? Derek Peterson: ⁓ we got the White House asking us for like $1.5 trillion for our military budget next year. And we got the promise of no universal childcare, no universal healthcare. They just can't do it. We don't have the money for that. When we're at war, that should be the state's responsibilities, right? Elwyn: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, got the Strait of Hormuz opened, but now Iran is all of sudden like, wait, oh, we never thought of this as a revenue stream, but this is like the most profitable toll road on earth. know, like, a good regime in Iran could use this and build an incredible society. A bad regime in Iran, which we still have, is shit. Derek Peterson: Hell Yeah, hey, when you know what was open like a month and a half ago, the Strait of Hormuz before we decided to bomb Iran. You know, it was doing just fine. Everybody was still getting oil at that time. you know. Elwyn: The straight of harm moves, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm filling up my gas tank half a tank at a time. Because I'm just like, I don't want to pay $4. Maybe it'll be down to $3.85 in a week when I'm done with half a tank of gas. Derek Peterson: You don't have to drive to call the station every week anymore, do you? Yeah. Well, and if it makes you feel any better, I drive a lot. So I end my drive a gas guzzler because that's what I, that's what I get the tax write off for. My car literally has to be over a certain size for me to purchase it as a, as a company vehicle, which I use for work all day. So I'm like, whatever. Elwyn: Thank God for that. Oh my God, don't think that didn't cross my mind a whole slew of times. Yeah, you drive them. Derek Peterson: ⁓ It is what it is. So just another way for me to pay the oil executives what they rightfully deserve. So. Elwyn: Yeah, smart American tax policy for the win. Derek Peterson: There you go. So let's touch on ⁓ Anthropix ⁓ AI. I know you came in hot today on that. What are your thoughts there? Elwyn: Yeah, I'll try and get this in before Anthropic's AI shuts us all down and kills us all because effectively that's what is being said now. So Anthropic announced yesterday that they have a new AI model, which they will not release to the public because it's too dangerous. The public's not ready for this. And in some of the snippets that they talked about, they talked about like what it costs to uncover systemic flaws in... you know, really important institutions. It was like a thousand dollars to put together an AI agent that would take down an electric company of, you know, some shit like that. And they were basically like, we can't release this. This is too dangerous. And, you know, we've talked a lot about AI and my position has been pretty clear, which is like, I understand that there's civilizational good that could come from AI, but there's also civilization ending bad. and we seem to be racing headlong towards the bad without any indication of the good or regulation of the bad and You know this guy I talked to at the gym Who was always kind of pushed back on me on AI? He's the one that sent it to me and he's like, yeah, no, we're like, ⁓ This is happening really fast. This is really bad ⁓ So yeah, not not good if the AI companies Are like no this we can't let this out. It's too much ⁓ Derek Peterson: Yeah. Elwyn: That's a problem. Derek Peterson: It is a problem and we've yet to, I think the hardest part about all of this is actually gauging it because right? the, the, we don't see demonstrations of that kind of AI. We it's hearsay from like reporters or from internal ⁓ whistleblowers. And so, you know, we're taking a lot of this information for the most part at secondhand when the reality is, that like a good chunk of the population is now using AI pretty regularly. so, and their experiences, you know, like my AI is the friendliest thing ever. Every time I ask it something, it's like, that's a great question. You should ask me 17 more just like it. I'm going to tell you how awesome and smart you are for asking me that question, ⁓ which is great. Still a little bit. Yeah. It's. ⁓ Elwyn: You use ChatGPT. There was a, I say that because the study came out talking about the sycophantic nature of chat GPT, which is by design and where it leads people and like the sort of derangement loop that it puts people in because everything is always good. Derek Peterson: Yeah. Hey, you know what? It's, when I need a little boost to my morale, I go in and ask, ⁓ my, my, ⁓ Chad GPT's name is Moose and, ⁓ I asked Moose a question. I'm like, and he always tells me how awesome I am. thank you Moose. ⁓ Elwyn: But I think you're generally right. there's this, we don't see it, right? We're not gonna see the true horror, the potential horror of AI unless we see it. And by then it's too late. Right. So it's kind of like, you know, there's this guy at the gym, member of mine, a nice guy, super fit, right? You would look at this guy, like 9 % body fat, tall, ripped, strong, Olympic trial level swimmer. And he did a... Derek Peterson: Until it's unleashed on us. Yeah. Elwyn: calcium score for his heart health and it came back, you know, alarming. And I was talking to him today and I was like, you know, what if you change the way you ate, he lost some weight, which I didn't think he could lose weight. And he was telling me about his diet. And, you know, it's just kind of thing where you don't see anything wrong until, you know, there's something that happens, you know, or you run a test and you're like, wait, ⁓ fuck. I have a problem, you know, ⁓ and that's. Derek Peterson: Yeah. That's a, that's the problem with heart issues is heart issues is like that. That's what my doctor told me, which is why I'm on a bunch of medications now too. They're like, yeah, like you find out that it's a problem when you're dying usually. So like you're having a heart attack, you're having, you know, a seizure or a stroke, and then you're, ⁓ you know, you're just about to die and you realize like, ⁓ my heart is not in good a shape as I thought it was. Elwyn: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, mean, there's a this is the Dario Amadei, the anthropic CEO. He's the heart doctor here, right? And he's fucking rubbing those paddles together, getting them ready, charging that shit up. And we're we're yawning as far as I can tell. And I mean, yeah, I'm reiterating my prior positions, but not great on the AI front. Derek Peterson: So. Well, now we've got a bunch of things. have a nuclear war AI and then, you know, hopefully aliens come back at the same time. So then we have like, we went from like no world ending threats to like, you know, three at the same time. ⁓ Maybe they found something on the dark. Maybe Artemis found something on the dark side of the moon or just attached itself to the ship on its way back. We'll live another, another movie. So. Elwyn: All of them. Derek Peterson: Well, ⁓ let's jump into our topic for the day. Today we are going to discuss, ⁓ well, we're gonna discuss specifically Polymarket and Caoshi, the prediction markets. So do you want to break down what the prediction markets just in general are? Elwyn: Yeah, so prediction markets, know, Polymarket and Cauchy are the two biggest ones. are basically at this point websites. And we've all seen them, right? Like Polymarket says that the Democrats have a 72 % chance of taking the House. So that stuff is you, it's on every like crawler at the bottom of news stations and when elections come around, it's a big deal. But basically you can... We'll get to the word bet in a minute. You can pay to make a prediction on basically anything. The weather, know. Anything that's supposed to be sort of unknown-ish. I don't think that you, I still think you probably can't place a bet on, and now we'll just go to bet, on like, who's gonna win a reality show because that shit's all done and stuff like that. Derek Peterson: It's a... Yes. Elwyn: So basically what this has done is kind of like made gambling on all aspects of life prevalent and right in front of us all the time, but under the guise of it being a ⁓ quote unquote prediction market instead of gambling. what that means, and this is kind of the best that I can understand it, is polymarket is not setting odds. There's nobody working at polymarket that is researching the chances that the ceasefire will hold. and up an odd, putting up odds, okay, unlike sports where Las Vegas and sports books are doing just that. Instead, they're saying, hey world, what do you think is gonna happen? And they're effectively crowdsourcing the odds of something happening in terms of percentages. So when you see, if you say there's a 72 % chance of the ceasefire holding, let's say that's what Polymarket says, that means that of the people on Polymarket, 72 % of them have bought a share that says the Iran, the ceasefire will hold for two weeks. And 28 of them have bought a share that says it will not. Okay, and that's how this works. You're basically buying shares. Each share has the price of a dollar. So in my example, ⁓ let's say I believe that the ceasefire will hold. I can pay 72 cents for one share of that ⁓ outcome. If that outcome comes to pass, I get paid a dollar. Okay, so that's kind of how this works. It's all done through the blockchain, and I don't know enough about the blockchain to get at all into that, but it's gonna come up later. But that's basically what it is. And because it's a prediction market, it's... Derek Peterson: Yeah. Elwyn: really completely unregulated. Derek Peterson: Yeah. The, ⁓ yeah, like the, the way I was reading it today was prediction markets are the way to price, probability using money instead of opinions, which is essentially, you know, exactly what you just said, but in general, what do you think let's, I want to start here with like, are there any positives to, in your opinion about the prediction market? Elwyn: Sure, I'll go with two. One is, I think they do give us a fairly, because it's crowdsourcing this, it does give us a ⁓ pretty accurate picture of what people think is going to happen. ⁓ There's a big giant caveat in there, where I'm taking out people with more knowledge than others. But if we look at it and we're like, all right, you could argue that this is basically crowdsourcing outcome probability. And the more data you have, the more ⁓ inputs you have into anything like that, the better your prediction about whether or not something is going to happen, the more accurate that prediction is. A poll with 10,000 respondents is much more accurate than a poll with 100 respondents. And the other one is that to the extent that we care about ⁓ corrupt trading and insider trading on this, because it's done through the blockchain, it is more accurate. Or sorry, it is easier to find people who are making illegal trades. But that's it. And both of those pale in comparison to what I see as the negatives, which are basically just gambling. Derek Peterson: Yeah, I would say that, okay, so here's one of the upsides for me with prediction markets. this is something I actually think is congenuinely, ⁓ is to some degree helpful. Prediction markets allow people to hedge themselves against catastrophic events. So like say for example, you live in Florida and homeowners insurance that will cover hurricanes or any water damage in situations like that. is ridiculously expensive. So you can actually bet, hedge your bet on some of these ⁓ platforms like Cauchy and Polymarket and bet against the hurricane or bet for it and actually hedge yourself a little bit so you're covering your losses in the event that those things happen. We're starting to see farmers do this as well with crops and different things. there are, I do think in general, there is a situation where some of this actually helps people hedge themselves ⁓ against losses that are potentially out of their control. ⁓ And so in those situations where it's ⁓ being used as kind of insurance, can, that's something I could be like, yeah, I can understand it. the, what's that? Elwyn: That's insane. That's insane. Here's why. Because it's insane for two reasons. ⁓ the use of a prediction market as insurance is insane because insurance exists or should exist. You you should. No, but that's a problem in the... Derek Peterson: Why is that insane? That's all that's all insurance companies are doing. But it doesn't though. But how about when your insurance company comes in and says, hey, we're not going to cover this. Or the premiums are so damn expensive that you're like, man, I have to pay how much to insure my property now, which was never, this was not a thing before, but because insurance companies are greedy and at the behest of their stockholders, have to, you know, like, so in those situations, this is to some degree people taking power back. Elwyn: No, That's right. That's a policy problem with what we allow insurance companies to do. What we're describing, the idea of hedging your bet against a negative outcome is what insurance is supposed to solve. And I know, like we have property in Colorado, getting insurance in Colorado is challenging because of forest fires where we are. So I know that that's an issue, but in states like Florida and states like Colorado, then the state... often comes in with a state-run insurance plan. The problem there though, like I'm not saying that this problem you're describing doesn't exist. I'm saying that the solution is not gambling on famine or flood. The problem is getting a better insurance market because if you gamble on famine or flood, right, let's say I have a house in, let's say my house in Colorado, okay. Let's say I pay $2,000 a year for insurance, okay. And that insurance covers, $500,000 in damage What is my annual outcome on polymarket? To give myself $500,000 a year in coverage. How much do I have to pay every year? For that right if the odds are 50-50 that there's a fire in order for me to get $500,000 I have to bet hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I have to bet that every year. Right? Like, so this is, I understand that the problem, I understand that there's a problem borne by insurance, but to look at prediction markets as the solution for that is fucking insane and completely unworkable. And sure, is that an avenue that people are able to use? And is that a positive? Yes. Derek Peterson: 250. Yeah. Elwyn: But it's not solving the problem of prediction markets, it's solving the problem of a crappy insurance system. Derek Peterson: Well, yeah, I think it's a natural response to like, like that's an instance where I can understand people doing it. Meaning like if you're, and you know, if the, if what you're doing makes sense financially, you're hedging your bet. Like, so let's say your home, your insurance is, you know, you now going to run you between 500 and a thousand dollars a month. So that let's just say to make it easy, it's. going to be 12, your homeowners insurance to cover a hurricane is going to be $12,000 a year. Does hedging a $10,000 bet in polymarket get you your home value if a hurricane destroys it? And if those numbers make sense, I can 1,000 % why somebody would take 10,000 and hedge it in the market rather, in a polymarket rather than pay insurance companies because I would be the first person that wants to tell a ⁓ an insurance company to, you go to hell. Elwyn: Yeah, the like and yeah, no, but I'm not I'm not a fan of insurance companies. But, you know, again, the fact that the fact that this is a solution that people need to turn to is in and in and of itself a really, really big issue. Like there we should not have to gamble on the likelihood of a hurricane instead of having a healthy insurance product and system out there. Farmers should not have to gamble on the success of their crops every year because they can't get insurance that will cover whatever catastrophic events, assume, bad crop. I don't know anything about farming. The idea that we have to gamble on that rather than purchase a product that's literally made for this is not a solution that we should at all accept as reasonable, rational, or sane. Like, it's instructive, illustrative of a much, much bigger problem, which we'll get to later, which is just the willingness for these large corporations to shit all over us and to throw us some bullshit band-aid when they cut our leg off. Right? It's like the fucking Black Knight in Monty Python. Right? Derek Peterson: Yeah, but I love a good Monty Python reference. What is your favorite color? ⁓ Yeah. I still think this is capitalism, capitalizing, we definitely talk like old around this kind of stuff because it's, you know, Elwyn: Let's call it a draw. Derek Peterson: We're like, man, this is the dumbest thing ever. Why would you place a bet in lieu of insurance? And then, know, any 20 year old is like, why would I not? You know, why would I pay a bunch of money to it for insurance, whether this thing is going to happen or not when I can put maybe a smaller amount in hedge a bet? And I feel a lot better about that. Elwyn: Well, it's... I have to talk to some 20 year olds, but I would say that the issue with that is related to my problem with this, with what we've been talking about, which is insurance is not supposed to be a capitalistic subject to the whims of the market product. The way insurance is supposed to work is a bunch of people say, I'm gonna pay a small amount of money. to a company that's gonna collect small amounts of money from millions of people because they know about what they're gonna have to pay out in damages every year. The problem with that model is sound. That model works when it comes to nationalized health insurance in most of the world. Okay, the problem is when the profit motive comes into play for the insurance company, when they become incentivized to not. pay out any claims, to deny claims because then they're providing more profit for their shareholders and their shareholders make more money. Insurance is not a capitalist product, it's a socialist construct, but it has to be a socialist construct. Derek Peterson: Yeah, but we're tapping into something and with that, I don't want this to become an insurance podcast because it could easily, it could easily become well, but the, and you know, like the insurance companies are the wealthiest companies, some of the wealthy wealthiest companies in the world. And all you have to do is turn on a TV to realize that there, there is a, every other ad is an insurance company ad. ⁓ and when you have that kind of, ⁓ cash, you know, and then you're continually denying claims, there's a problem. And when. Elwyn: Yeah, we got it. ⁓ Derek Peterson: somebody starts to solve that problem, you know, like in a different way, the almost always the initial pushback is like, this isn't good. This isn't how we normally do this, which I can understand, but I can also see why people would use this for this because that's really in my head. One of the few things that I think the poly market is actually like, ⁓ or prediction markets are actually good for everything else. I think it's, I have a hard time wrapping my head around much good. Elwyn: Thank Derek Peterson: coming out of this at all. Elwyn: Yeah, I am more alarmed rather than less alarmed by the use of it as a de facto insurance. this does get to something that we were going to talk about maybe later, which is there's this feeling that I get in society today and draft kings and fan duel, which are not They're not prediction sites. They are straight gambling sites, in Polymarket and Cauchy, I'm going to loop them all together, you know, are tools now that the uber rich class, few thousand people in this country who have so much of the money and who control so much of the power, they're fine with it because in the insurance example that we just talked about, this allows an insurance company, an insurance executive, to continue to deny claims. It gives them an out, right? So they're making our life shittier by having a worse product, a worse insurance product, a worse economy, wars in the Middle East, crap health insurance, expensive housing. The American life, the American dream of the 50s has become so far removed from the reach of know, 90 plus percent of the population. So what does a power class do? What does the ruling class do in that point? They encourage vice. They encourage gambling. I believe this has happened thousands of years throughout history, right? The gladiator kind of pokes fun at it. The new emperor comes in and he's like, what are we gonna do to make them love me? I'll fucking do gladiatorial games. These sorts of things provide this sort of ⁓ veneer. of security or fun or of distraction, like things somehow aren't that bad. It's all over the book 1984, right? They increase the chocolate rations to 20 grams, you know, so that people feel better about war. To me, that's all this prediction, all these prediction markets are doing is like papering over the wound caused by how unaffordable life has become in this country. and the people who control this country, right, the insurance executives to carry that example through, of course they're delighted to have people use prediction markets and delighted to say let's make this available to them in every way. I'll fucking, State Farm should buy a prediction market is now what I think, where they just, right, because why not? Now they take on much less risk, they have to pay out much less money. Derek Peterson: That's going to be the next step. Elwyn: It's all gambling. And the house always wins. Derek Peterson: It's gonna be in app. There'll be like, does your policy not cover this? Here, you can hedge your bet against in app. Elwyn: Yeah, of course. Why not? It's in app in ESPN and CBS Sports, right? It's not even like, it's not even not here. It's not even the future. It is here. It's just not here in prediction market world. And it is here in sports book world. So I don't know. Sure. Stay farm. Go ahead. I want to find your fee on that idea. Derek Peterson: Yeah, so I want to get your take on this because ⁓ suspicious polymarket bets netted $663,000 ⁓ before the Iran ceasefire. basically, two hours before the ceasefire was announced yesterday night, ⁓ a combined total of what, ⁓ almost 9,000 lots were ⁓ purchased in a ⁓ accumulating to approximately 950 million in bets ⁓ and those bets ultimately what did they pay out? About, yeah, like just over ⁓ or just under like 663, was it that? There was a lot more money that was taken in on it. Elwyn: Bitch. It can't be that little that people made. Derek Peterson: It's, on. It wasn't that little. was, so 950 million bet, 950 million in bets on failing or falling oil prices was announced, was placed just before. I'm trying to find the actual number of what was taken in. But in general, Elwyn: But that's the same thing that we saw a couple weeks ago, right? With the weekend sort of pause and the weekend threats and then the pause right before the market opened. And we saw it with Venezuela. know, somebody, a small number of people two hours before, it always works the same way. They create a new account, they go in, they bet the shit out of a certain probability because they know what the outcome is going to be. And then they clean up. ⁓ It's pure insider trading. I'm shocked if that $660,000 was all that was won. The only shocking thing there is that it's not $660 million. Derek Peterson: Yeah, I would agree with that. you know, like here's in general, like why I struggle with this so much, right? Like we have a younger generation of people that are already struggling to get a footing in our world. Like we have, ⁓ you know, if you're 18 to 30 right now, ⁓ there's a good chance you're struggling to get a job. You're stuck in a YouTube algorithm somewhere in somebody's basement. probably your parents, and you're trying to figure out what you wanna do with your life still. And what happens, and dude, I see this in my kids, specifically our boys. Our boys, ⁓ they know everything. I will literally listen to my 13-year-old son. somebody will ask a question in the car to me and he will jump in without hesitation and just give some answer that is just completely off the wall horseshit. Elwyn: Thank Derek Peterson: Like he has no idea what in God's name he is talking about or saying, but he is saying it with the most confidence anybody could ever say anything. Which was just like me growing up, right? So I let him go and then usually when he's finished, I was like, are you done? I was like, you know nothing about this. And admittedly, he's actually pretty good about it. As soon as I call him out on it, he would be like, yeah, I don't know. And I was like, well, why did you jump in and answer? And it's funny because it's like a... to some degree like a male human instinct, and I can only speak to the male human instinct because I am, but like we want to be right. And what the prediction markets and gambling do is they tap into that. Like they tap into this desire for men to be right. There is something about them landing on something or being smarter than people or being out in front of information. And so you have this group of guys that are just smart enough to think that they can compete against people that are actually insider trading and getting this information that's, and they may win sometimes, but the ultimate long game in that is that these people end up becoming more, like less and less risk averse and betting more and more money on things that they feel certain about that they actually have no idea about. And I think the ultimate long play in, with most of these situations in prediction markets and in gambling is that we end up with a lot of people that are bankrupt, ⁓ like sad, jobless, ⁓ leveraged, and then ultimately the answer is they become suicidal. And statistically speaking, we see people going down this path further and further, and there will be an epidemic of suicides in. the coming years if this stuff doesn't change, especially as people get more more desperate about the economy and jobs and everything else. And it really worries me. It worries, it's crazy to see what's happening. Elwyn: Yeah, think that's all, I agree with all of it. It's all, it doesn't matter if I agree or not. It's all completely accurate, right? The data on suicide rates, on domestic violence, on broken homes and joblessness when gambling takes root in a household are incredibly clear and incredibly alarming. It is an epidemic causing. gambling causes an epidemic of domestic violence and suicide and lost opportunity. yeah, there is a lost generation that's probably taking root right now. think, you know, disease lower your brain. I don't think the gambling makes them risk averse. I don't think the prediction markets make them risk averse. I think that they are risk averse by virtue of being, let's say 18 to 24 with an undeveloped frontal cortex. And then the gambling... Derek Peterson: Sure. Yeah, but I think almost everybody goes in, I think when you first start gambling, you go in soft. It takes winning a couple things until you start to build up that confidence to throw more money at something. Elwyn: I don't think that it's confident. I think it's the hit. The action is the juice. It's the thrill of placing the bet. It's the thrill of seeing if your bet, if your horse is going to come in. The winning is the hope. The winning is what you hope for. Right? But it's that's not the drug. That's not the addiction. The addiction is the will I win. Right? And that takes hold right away. You don't need to win or lose. Derek Peterson: Yeah, the excitement of it. Elwyn: The minute you put your $5 in, you're in it. They've got you. They're testing. It's the free hit from the crack dealer. ⁓ But I think all of that is everything else. It's completely right. And young men are more susceptible to this than young women. And people who are depressed are looking for that easy way out. then they get that they're not in it because they're young and dumb. They're in it because they're asses up against the wall. Maybe they lost their job and they don't want to tell their wife, so they're going to place a bet and see if they can make this month's rent. So they buy some time and then they don't. Now they lost the money and now they have to do it again. You have the desperation plus the chemical hit of the betting. And the more we normalize this by saying now we can bet on literally everything. There are painfully, I think, There was something with the Iran war. ⁓ there was a bet on, ⁓ will they find the pilot that was shot down? And the CEO of PolyMarket was like, yeah, that seems like a bit too far. Okay, so there's a line, will an American fighter pilot be found by the Iranians and executed or found by the Americans and rescued? Is the bridge too far for PolyMarket? Wow. Derek Peterson: Mmm. Elwyn: That's a fucking hell of a line to draw. ⁓ An awful lot happens before that line is crossed, for sure. Derek Peterson: Well, yeah, it's, and the, the, the pretend, you know, moral conundrum is, is bullshit. It's the same thing. Like I view a lot of this, like growing up. And I think we've talked about this a little bit before, but I remember watching my dad come home. My dad was a WWF wrestler for a number of years. And in the early nineties, mid mid to early nineties, when they released, when the pharmaceutical companies released OxyContin. They specifically targeted industries where people were doing heavy fan manual labor and getting hurt. And the professional wrestling industry was prime for that. So they had doctors that were just writing scripts for OxyContin because it was, it was this, you know, ⁓ this non addictive, ⁓ you know, opioid that, you know, helped you get to your back to your normal life. So all these wrestlers start taking it like crazy. And I remember the day that my dad. was told that his doctor couldn't write scripts anymore. He literally came home and punched a hole in the wall. He was like screaming, losing his mind. Like was bananas. And the barrier to entry to whatever it is, like the people that are running all of this are more often than not very well aware of the long-term ⁓ side effects and outcomes of what's going to happen. Elwyn: you Derek Peterson: They know, and they don't care. They don't care because this is capitalism working as it does where it's like, it's like the first person to drink coffee, like caffeine's addictive. then now it's, almost everybody in America drinks a cup a day at least, or if not 20. there is, but everybody knows what we're doing, right? And it's now it's... Elwyn: Mm-hmm. Derek Peterson: it kind of falls on like parents' hands until kids are 18. And then after that, you really have to have the desire to live a life of like a physical life of, want to be out of the house. I want to go do things. I want to like not just sit behind a computer all day and get these dopamine hits because if you could do that, and there is a world where a 20 year old, you know, doesn't go outside for 30 years if they don't want to. Elwyn: All of that is correct and I'll throw another, you know, solution at you. How about we make this shit illegal? You know, how about we call what this is gambling and we say gambling is illegal in many, many states and we further say that online gambling like Fandl and Sport and Draft Kings is too prevalent and we make that shit illegal and we say if you want to have a casino, you can have a casino, but you gotta be there, right? How about we just wake up and say, are allowed, we need... Government is not the enemy, right? Government can do a bunch of bad things and fuck itself up, and God knows ours has, but this is exactly the kind of place that government should exist, right? I told you this story before, I read this article earlier today from some crypto bro, and he was like, talking about the possibility of regulating... ⁓ Prediction markets and he was like this is a terrible idea Here's why he said yes, there is insider trading going on on prediction markets But insert insider trading has always gone on we all know insider trading has gone on so prediction markets because they're done through the blockchain have a very clear record of who placed the bet Right and that makes proving insider trading on prediction markets much, much easier. Proving insider trading in the stock market is incredibly difficult. So his argument was like, we've already had insider trading, so let's continue to allow this massive expansion of potential insider trading because fighting it is going to be easier. Which, to me, I had to read it a couple times to fully understand what he was saying, because I thought it was the dumbest fucking argument I'd ever heard. Because to me, that's like, hey, our house is on fire, okay, let's throw some accelerant on it, put the whole block on fire, because the fire department just got this really cool new fire hose that will put out block-wide fires better than the existing fire hose, which will put out the fire in my house just fine. Right? Fucking no. Just no. Improve existing insider trading laws if that's what you're getting out. you know, making insider trading available to everybody by gambling on everything is not the answer to fighting insider trading. It's why we don't make heroin legal. Because that's fucking stupid. Right? And the stats bear it out, right? The stats on Polymarket and Cal-She are like 70 % of bets lose. Derek Peterson: You Correct. Elwyn: 30 % of bets win. The winning bets are concentrated in 0.04 % of bettors. So, in the universe of people who bet on Polymarket and Cal-She, not 1 % win, not 1 tenth of 1 % win, 0.04%, four hundredths of a percent of the bettors actually win. That is a rigged Game. 100%. That means that there are a certain group of people who, if you're naive, you would say, well, they're just really good at betting, at speculative markets. But if you live in the real world, you're saying, no, these people know what's going to happen and they're betting accordingly. The whole thing is rigged against us, right? But it's marketed to us because it's what we need. It's what they want us to focus on. And it should just be made illegal. Derek Peterson: Well, it is, you're right. And this is, you tapped into something there that I think is correct is that when government sets guard rails on certain things, there's a reason for it. And there's a reason because there is a, like, we know the destructive path of human behavior and particularly men. And like, look, there's that documentary, I don't know if you've seen it yet called, ⁓ the Manosphere that would just came out. ⁓ and it taps directly into this. It's just. It's, it's, it, the guys that are making money in this, feels like a giant MLM and that's what most of them end up doing. They basically start these companies and they get vulnerable young men to buy into their products and, you know, give some, you know, BS hype story. And then, you know, these people funnel money into their trading, you know, platforms and half of them, if not more go or end up, you know, losing all their money to them anyway. And we just see this cycle going around and around. And at some point I just have to believe that like, we are going to have to put a stop to this. There is going to be enough of a problem in the near future where enough people go bankrupt. Enough people are, are squandering everything they own away ⁓ because of all of this. And you know, like, It's hard because like in a free world, we want people to do what they want to do. While at the same time, we also don't want predators to be able to take, take, uh, advantage of people that are, you know, really vulnerable and need protection in those moments. And that's where I think the noble thing to do as a government is to actually set up those protections, at least until men should not be gambling. The first time you should ever be able to place a bet is at 25. When you're Frontal cortex, when you're fully developed human, then if you want to go bankrupt, great. But if you are between the ages of 16 and 25, you should not be able to place a bet on anything in my opinion. Elwyn: Yeah, I once negotiated a wrongful death settlement back when I was an attorney. And, you know, in this particular case, we were structuring the settlement out for a young child very, very far into the future. And we structured it so that this person gets a million dollars when they turn 20 and they get another million dollars when they turn 30. And when we were explaining that to the court appointed you know, sort of financial expert that has to approve these structures, we said specifically, this is so that there's another million because they're going to fuck up the first million. Because they're fucking 20, they're going to be 20, right? And if you look at the Manosphere, it was a great example, right? Because some of the people that they talk to that are the followers of, particularly the guy who was, I think, the least objectionable, the guy with the financial Jordan something, you know, Derek Peterson: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Elwyn: They're all like they're broken childhood. Dad wasn't there. Living out was living out of their car. They are looking for anything to hold on to. Right? Just what is it? Now, you know, this guy and I think I wasn't bothered by that one guy. was like, work hard is like a big part of it. So that's that's good. But like we've created a generation of people who are so numb to scandal. Right. In 2008 financial crisis. War in Iraq for fucking 18 years. Trump won, Trump too. Biden and his fucking failing and climate change not doing anything, not doing anything about that. now Iran war and Gaza war and just, they're numb. And they can't buy a house and they can't get a job. I was talking to two college seniors who were graduating and neither of them have a job. And they're like, I don't fucking know what I'm gonna do. So what's the best thing when you feel numb like that? Drink? Gamble? Porn? Right? All these classic vices that just serve to suppress people more. And that's what we're enabling in this country. When we enable and when we celebrate Polymarket and Kalshi and DraftKings and FanDuel, I keep lumping them in, but it's all fucking gambling. So what's the best thing when you feel numb like that? Drink? Gamble? Porn? Right? All these classic vices that just serve to suppress people more. And that's what we're enabling in this country. When we enable and when we celebrate Polymarket and Kalshi and DraftKings and FanDuel, I keep lumping them in, but it's all fucking gambling. ⁓ Derek Peterson: It's all the same thing, I agree. Elwyn: So it's just an epidemic that we're not trying to solve with policy, we're trying to paper over it with gambling. And I think it's wrong. Derek Peterson: Yep. I agree. And my hope is, my hope, even for us, when we started this podcast, my hope is to one day clarify my voice in a way that we can find our way into that, those algorithms at some point to let, ⁓ specifically young men know that there is a different way, like that there is a set of values that you can hold in which provides a slower dopamine hit. but is actually really effective and, and brings unity and breeds love and breeds peace and breeds breeds joy. And that comes from, you know, holding the value of, know, understanding delayed gratification, understanding what it means to save, understand like standing up for, like standing up for things that are right and justice and you know, justice against the oppressed, like building that out because that that's such a critical part of life. And Elwyn: Thanks. Bye. Derek Peterson: People are just trading those value, people are trading the value of hard work in for the quick hit of like, can I make a buck? And my hope is, that at some point people realize that and they get out and realize like, man, doing the things that other people aren't willing to do, doing the nitty gritty, being fantastic at your job, ⁓ being okay. ⁓ Like not being the top dog early in your life and understanding the value of work ethic and working your way up, learning from other people, all of those things. We're just, we're starting to bypass those things in our life. And I, and the, what's happening with the poly market is a direct representation of that. ⁓ same with gambling, same with pornography. It's, it's all kind of lumped in there. So, let's, ⁓ let's, ⁓ we're getting close on time. So we've got to get, we still got to get to our shut the fuck up. Elwyn: I Derek Peterson: for this week. who do you got for us, Owen? Elwyn: Thanks. Well, I thought for a minute there about calling an audible and telling that guy Myron, one of the influencers on the Manosphere, they shut the fuck up because he was just at a thing saying that only 270,000 Jews were killed in the Holocaust. So like, yeah, he should absolutely shut the fuck up right away. Yeah. Yeah, slide into the DMs. Derek Peterson: Yeah, I mean, that's, I don't even know if we need to, I'll tell him that. Bro, shut the fuck up. You don't even deserve Elwin's. Elwin's, Elwin's Shut the Fuck Up is only for the people that really deserve it. You don't even deserve that. Elwyn: That's right. So what I was gonna go with was, and what I'll go with is, because it's funny, shut the fuck up everybody who like tells me with great certainty what the problem is. Because in my experience they're always fucking wrong. ⁓ You know, if not about the problem, certainly about the severity of the problem. So, you know, there was a guy, he rents space near the gym and You know, I'm the property manager for those three buildings for the few different owners. So he calls, I get a call from him that the septic alarm is going off. ⁓ Which, okay, don't shut the fuck up about that. I know it's really loud and annoying and it's right in the guy's ear. But he's like, yeah, cause you know that red light it's on. And if that red light is on, it's a big problem. So, you know, good, you yeah, call them up. Cause you have, this is a big problem. And he's just fucking stalled on how big a problem it is. And in my mind, I'm like, dude, they were out here three days ago for their quarterly visit and I saw the report and there's no big problem. So fucking relax. And a month ago, we were looking at a construction thing where a roof was built weird. the people I was talking to was like, don't even go in that building. And I'm like, this is not a big problem. I'm looking at the same thing you are and this is not a big problem. This might not be a problem at all. it's like over and over and over again, people come at me and they're just like, I'm away with how big the problem is and I just feel like ⁓ they're always wrong and I'm getting tired of it. You know, it's like I agree there's a problem that we should investigate and we should determine if it's a big problem. But, you know, let's not catastrophize everything right out of the gate and go ten steps down the road and be like, this is the end of the world. Because it's exhausting to me to not... This is like this is me being a dick. It's really tiring for me to not tell those people to shut the fuck up. This is a really big problem. I'm doing it on my podcast instead. You know, like I can't be to that guy on the phone like, no, bro, I know it's not a big problem. And now I'm in an argument. Like, I just want to get off the phone, get on the phone with the septic company. You know, so it's I I'm tired of wasting the energy trying to process their, their, you know, alarmist view of what's going on. Derek Peterson: Yeah. Elwyn: and put it through my mental and emotional liver and come out with a solution on the other side. I'm just fucking 51 years old and getting tired of all that. So I want them all to shut the fuck up about what they think the problem is, tell me what the actual problem is, and let's proceed to solve it together. Derek Peterson: There you go. I'd say, uh, well, I did learn one thing from this conversation today and that's that you should never become a real estate agent because that is, that is, that is the story of my life. That is, that is every, literally every person that calls me is telling me how big of a problem something is that is usually not that big of a problem, uh, and solvable. Um, and it's only taken me, you know, 11, well, Elwyn: Yeah, that's right. ⁓ Derek Peterson: I got good at this a long time ago, the, it took me a while to realize like, ⁓ I need to stop reacting as though what everybody tells me is a giant problem is a giant problem and actually figure out if it's a giant problem first, because one, one person's like, if you get a, ⁓ if you get a father of a walking through, ⁓ an inspection report with, ⁓ with a client, ⁓ I can tell you right now. Elwyn: Yeah. So. Derek Peterson: 90 % of what he's about to tell you is actually not nearly as big of a problem as what he's gonna make it out to be. Elwyn: So really, this is to shut the fuck up all of Derek's clients. That's me saying that. That's me saying that, guys. Not Derek. Derek loves you all. Derek Peterson: There you go. hear that? If you if we need to talk about this, call me. All right. Elwyn: Derek was my realtor and he did a great job and he put up with I'm sure a bunch of that shit in that deal so I know you did so. Derek Peterson: Ha ha ha. It's ⁓ the story of my life, but it also is a valid shut the fuck up as well. So, all right. Well, what are we talking about next week, Alvin? Elwyn: You Still don't know. Derek Peterson: Still don't know. We need to do an episode on aliens at some point. That's when we really cross the line of into the Manosphere. It's when we can tap into Joe Rogan's alien conspiracies. Elwyn: and aliens. Yes. We could do the Man-osphere. Derek Peterson: You want to do Manasphere next week? I've been, dude, that means I'm going to have to watch a bunch of videos that I don't want to watch, but I can, I will do that for you. I I will watch, I will watch some of these guys videos. ⁓ and I, and dissect it. ⁓ I can't stand Andrew Tate. can't stand, I, haven't ever, I don't even think I've actually been able to make it through a full video of theirs without just turning it off. Elwyn: Yeah. You said Manistphere first. I've never tried. mean, these are the worst people in the world. Derek Peterson: huh I've tried, I just can't, but I will try again this week so we have a good conversation about it. Elwyn: Loyal listeners, Derek has taken the hit for you. I watched the State of the Union, Derek's watching Manosphere YouTube. Derek Peterson: That's how it goes. right, well, off to the Manosphere for next week. We'll see you all then.