Polymarket

No one in the DC political class is cool

No one in the DC political class is cool. For all our American spirit of independence, democracy still defers to the majority, and power compels even the most singular, Machiavellian mind to mold itself in the image of the people. Politics drains the blood out of the individual, replacing him or her with a bland and legible product, flattened into the image of at least 50 percent of the population. Prediction markets are a perfect example of this effect, shining the brightest lights into the caverns of cool, calcifying opinions into trends, trends into probabilities, and probabilities into certainties. There is nothing that poses more of a threat to cool than this, and no market hungrier for it than the politicos of Washington, DC.

Is the survival of prediction markets a safe bet?

On a cold January night in New York City, Chris Hayes walked off the set of CBS’s Late Show with Stephen Colbert only to face a pressing ethical dilemma. As he left the Ed Sullivan Theater and walked on to Broadway, he got a text from a friend who covers technology for NPR with a screenshot of a Yes/No market that had been spun up on the prediction market Kalshi, based on what Hayes might say on the evening’s broadcast. What would he say about Donald Trump? Would he talk about affordability, Russia, China, Greenland or other topics? It was just a $22,000 market in volume, a minor amount. But what struck Hayes as truly bizarre about the market was this: it was a prediction market about something that had already happened.

prediction markets

The Ashley St. Clair podcast you cried out for is here

After a six-month absence from Cockburn’s sights – far too long, really – Ashley St. Clair, baby mama to Elon Musk’s 13th child (that we know of), resurfaced Monday. St. Clair has launched a 30-minute video podcast sponsored by Polymarket, the cryptocurrency prediction company. Sitting in what appears to be a luxury bedroom somewhere in Manhattan, wearing a black tank top and looking no worse for the motherhood wear, the Florida-born St. Clair didn’t waste any time, exhibiting some lightly ironic vocal fry, with this opening paragraph: After a year of unplanned career suicide, many questionable life choices and a gap in my LinkedIn profile that cannot legally be explained, I have decided to start a podcast.

ashley st. clair