Implied Probability
Sam was planning to meet up with his friend Dennis at the bar later, or, at least the market implied as such. He’d been planning this for months, and spectators watching their DMs had assigned it a high probability given Sam and his friend’s previous reliability. Dennis wasn’t Sam’s favorite person to hang out with, but he already held a long position, so he reluctantly decided to attend.
His semi-friend was already waiting for him. The tablet stationed at the bar televised their meetup and displayed live probabilities on the market “What will Sam and Dennis say during their meetup?” The word “hey” was trading at 95 cents.
“Hey, how’s it going?” said Dennis.
“Holy shit, I just lost $50” said an enthusiastic trader watching the livestream.
“You want to turn the sound off?” asked Sam.
“Nah, I kinda like it actually,” replied Dennis.
Sam grimaced slightly. This is what he didn’t like about Dennis.
The screen flashed and new markets began to appear. “What kind of beer will Sam order?” “Will Sam and Dennis order the same kind of beer?” “Will either Sam or Dennis raise their voice?”
There were probably dozens of traders watching their hangout. Everyone at home had setups with more than a dozen screens where they’d be watching random people’s life from every angle, or as they preferred to call it, “Monitoring the Situation.”
Sam, a quieter person, felt intimidated. After society transformed into this two years ago, it hadn’t been the same. He’d lost most of his friends because he wasn’t a supporter of Situation Monitoring. Sam still worked as a physician, one of the few jobs left besides essential workers and computer manufacturers.
At home, Dennis’ wife Lily was Monitoring her husband’s Situation. As she rapid-fired keyboard shortcuts and kept her eyes glued to the screen, the dopamine hits somehow gave her enough sustenance to never have to eat or sleep. As she looked at the available strikes on what would be mentioned, she hatched an idea. She gave Dennis a call.
“One minute; I have to take this,” Dennis said. “Everything okay?” he said into the phone.
“Dennis,” Lily spoke calmly and seriously. “I need you to read the following sentence: ‘we never thought that America would ever be healthy, but because of all of the carbon dioxide it makes sense why this beer is one of the best my dog has ever tried.’”
“And how much will you make off of this?” inquired Dennis.
“Hmm, I think around $10,000,” Lily said excitedly.
Dennis was thrilled. He repeated the nonsensical sentence to Sam, and the livestream began to go off the rails.
“This has to be insider trading, right? There’s no way this is real, this does not match up to prior data from Dennis’ speaking patterns. And besides, he’s only had half a beer.”
“I just used a blockchain analysis tool, it looks like Dennis’ wife was trading!”
The market immediately closed, and the CFTC Special Forces arrested Lily within minutes.
Dennis was visibly shaking and slightly tearing. Sam tried to console him.
“Look, Dennis, Situation Monitors aren’t good people anyways,” Sam said.
“What do you mean?” cried Dennis. “That’s my wife we’re talking about! And didn’t you know I became a Situation Monitor as well?”
“Oh, uh, great for you…”
Dennis was almost on the ground, having a breakdown. “But now I will never trade an outcome ever again! I’m done!”
The bartender, after hearing this, invited Sam and Dennis to follow him. They walked outside and opened the street panel to the staircase to get to the basement. As they ventured into the underground, Sam noticed they were approaching a door labelled “Authorized Personnel Only.” The bartender gave his ID to the guard, who let him through.
It was a jail. Each cell held its own prisoner, with a video camera and market display on each.
Dennis looked concerned. Could this be the place where Lily was going to be held?
“Don’t mind this,” the bartender said, and they swiftly walked away.
They passed the government-controlled pregnancy ward where each infant’s compartment was being televised to “NICUtrade: Powered by Crypto.com.”
Sam sighed. The world just used to be so organic, so pure. Why did every belief have to be quantified? Maybe epistemic uncertainty is the meaning of life itself, because this surely was not working.
The bartender (CFTC officer?) was staring down towards the floor, not wanting to see what he helped create. As they walked through the hall, past Verizon cancerBET, past DeathContracts by Google, they arrived at a metal wall with a sign reading “NO ACCESS: WORLD LIBERTY WORLDTRADE EMPLOYEES ONLY”
Even through the metal wall, the ground buzzed slightly. There was so much electricity going through this room at once.
“This,” said the bartender, “is where World Liberty WorldTrade hosts the blockchain. This is where every belief is quantified.”
The bartender scanned his pass to open the door. The room was filled with racks of computers powering every prediction and decision in the world.
Sam was initially indifferent, but as he looked at the huge warehouse his eyes slowly filled with rage and hatred, and he was fuming to the point where his eyes turned red and his mouth went numb. He’d never felt this way before, and he couldn’t explain what he felt if you asked him. He felt a sudden urge to destroy that he somehow needed to fulfil.
World Liberty knew what was happening, but no guards rushed in. Hundreds of cameras turned to him and a market was displayed on a screen, “Will Sam destroy the blockchain?”
He was even more angered, and he was in a state where he would either will the blockchain out of existence or die trying.
But he subconsciously already knew it was impossible. The market said so.