This should be a win for “yes” on Zelensky because he is the only person named. “The spirit of Ukraine” is not a person or a group. I’d read it as “Zelensky as a representative of the spirit of Ukraine”.
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Sorry you got to sweat this, totally insane.
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Agree. Fingers crossed.
If they rule against you and don’t pay is a class action lawsuit possible? It probably wouldn’t be worthwhile for any single person to sue (but who knows, they might be stiffing a whale), but 100 people, maybe.
It’s a betting exchange. The site isn’t taking the money, it’s whoever bet no, and thanks to the magic of crypto those people are anonymous.
The market is still open for betting on Polymarket and is currently about 50/50. I assume the people gambling on there are plugged into the UMA discord, where the dispute is being discussed. I am not. I’m just going to wait and see what happens. I feel like I have a better shot with relative normies arbiting this. If someone like Betfair were interpreting this it would be strictly the letter of the law.
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What were the odds before the POTY was announced?
Between 65 and 70c when I was betting it, jumping to 87c after the shortlist was announced and stuff like “The Ukrainian People” and “Vladimir Putin” wasn’t on it.
I assume you’re familiar with PredictIt style lines, but if not, those lines are functionally just the percentage chance that the thing will happen.
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lol so the publication of the announcement of Zelensky as POTY lowered the odds of Zelensky as POTY. Sick stuff. You can’t even hedge, horrible.
Pretty sick for the people who got in at like 85c after Zelensky was confirmed as the only possible Russo-Ukranian War related choice and then Time pulled out a modified version that wasn’t even on the shortlist.
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It’s actually worse than that, because the released shortlist had no mention of “the spirit of Ukraine”.
This feels like an ILP “it’s a lock” story
Sick beat.
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I realised after posting that that the better comparison would have been Greta Thurnberg, like why was that not “Greta Thurnberg and the Spirit of Climate Activism” or whatever. It’s not like Greta herself has done a single fucking thing concretely, she was just chosen for being inspirational. Zelensky is way more important in terms of actually doing stuff, but for some reason he doesn’t get to have it without a hedge.
No your Obama one was better because Obama actually did stuff. Actually as soon as I typed that out I realized it wasn’t true, he just got elected, right? So maybe a better example would be in 1939 “Adolf Hitler and the Spirit of Lebensraum.”
The details are complicated, but the idea is simple. Someone proposes a resolution to the contract and usually that’s the end of it. In this case, someone disputes it. If you hold the $UMA crypto token, you get to vote, I think proportional to the amount you own, but it’s designed such that it is impossible that you can profit by buying a 51% share. People vote and there is a resolution to the dispute. The winner between the original Proposer and the Disputer are rewarded financially, and I believe you also get rewarded if you vote “correctly”, meaning you voted for the option that was eventually chosen. So everyone is incentivized to vote for the option they believe will win.
Like honestly although it’s easy to post complex diagrams and lol at this, I’m a lot happier with this process than I would be if I was at any kind of traditional sportsbook or exchange. I would for sure get rules lawyered there and be 0% to get the money. This way I have a group of real people voting on the result. If they decide the letter of the law should prevail, so be it. I’m OK with that. I’m not mad with the process in the slightest. I’m mad with Time because the editor in chief wrote this shit:
This year’s choice was the most clear-cut in memory. Whether the battle for Ukraine fills one with hope or with fear, Volodymyr Zelensky galvanized the world in a way we haven’t seen in decades.
And yet despite the “most clear-cut in memory” they couldn’t just fucking name him POTY, they had to tack on this performative bullshit.
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TBH if the “spirit of Ukraine” or “the people of Ukraine” were on the table, I think those are better choices than Zelensky. He’s been amazing but the schoolteachers and such out there defending Kyiv with borrowed weapons was inspiring as hell. If anything, putting Zelensky up front is the performative part.
I hate the whole thing of choosing groups. Have some separate thing for that. Use POTY so that people in the future understand who was considered a pivotal figure at the time.
If your view prevailed, no single person would ever be POTY unless they were a dictator, because nobody wields the kind of singular power necessary except dictators.