Prediction Markets, Lotteries and the Sickness of Gambling

Polls are out and prediction markets are in.   The fact that over 90% of polling calls and texts are ignored, along with recent epic fails by polls (the first Trump victory, BREXIT), have taken much of the luster from the polling world.  Instead, new platforms that allow people to gamble on predictions are apparently becoming the gold standard for indicating likely outcomes of almost anything.

The argument is that when people put money behind something it is more meaningful and more likely to be true.  I’m not sure that I buy that, but the hype is so strong that prediction gambling has quickly become a multi-billion-dollar business.

 

I have almost no interest in gambling, so it mystifies me that so many people love it.  I have always equated gambling with an unseemly human interest in get-rich schemes and wanting something for nothing.

 

I understand that gambling has elements of a competitive game and that we are all programmed to enjoy challenging ourselves in various ways against other players or against a system.  The classic weekly poker game that so many people seem to enjoy is fairly benign, as it usually involves small sums of money and a lot of social interaction and drinking.

 

However, gambling online, at casinos, horse tracks and the like or purchasing lottery tickets or day-trading on the stock exchange is often a sickness, an addiction.  Granted, there are many who enjoy this type of activity and have the means to do it without serious ramifications.  They may even profit from it.

 

But the vast majority of gamblers are people who lose and may even lose big and whose gambling is a heavy or even catastrophic burden for themselves and their families.  A report by the federally initiated National Gambling Impact Study Commission (sadly, only as recent as 1999) indicated that the top 10% of lottery spenders account for 2/3 of the sales and are heavily weighted toward high school dropouts and people of color.  Even more damning is the fact that the popular lottery-funded scholarships such as Georgia’s HOPE scholarship are much more likely to be won by white middle- and upper-class students than the children of low-income families who actually account for the majority of the ticket purchases.

 

I am no expert in the psychology of gambling, but it is reasonable to assume that poor people are more susceptible to the lure of gambling because of the tantalizing prospect of solving their myriad money problems in one lucky pick.

 

The huge recent increase in sports gambling and more generally, prediction gambling, is troubling.  There is a slippery slope between betting on something to occur and acting to make sure that it does occur.  The dangers of both insider knowledge and insider influence are not difficult to imagine. 

 

These new gambling paradigms and the endless opportunism they reflect are one more sad reminder of how human beings are moving ever more rapidly away from promoting the good and the salutary in the economy.  The get-rich-quick mania and its mirror image, the desperate hope for instant relief, are signs of a sick society.    I hope and pray that the sobering events in the world today will prompt new ambitions for the greater good.

The Dilemma and Risk of Unilaterally Pursuing Regime Changes

Sadly, the world has many tyrants and many brutal regimes.  They range from the merely repressive to outright murderous.  They typically share some characteristics – an authoritarian leader, a powerful military that wields too much political power, a political and business class that becomes fabulously wealthy by stealing and squandering most of the resources and riches the country produces, a total control of the media, and a police state security apparatus that obliterates all opposition.

After World War Two, the USA led an effort to create a rules-based order of nations with the express intent of avoiding future catastrophic conflict between nations.  The result, the United Nations was created and given the task and the prerogative to act to prevent war.  But understandably, it was expressly forbidden to interfere in domestic affairs of sovereign nations.  The only exception to this is when domestic issues threaten the security or peace of other nations.

 

There are sovereign nations that most of the world would agree are horribly dysfunctional and repressive.  Their people are suffering and their leaders are tyrants and criminals.  Individual nations and the UN can attempt to influence these rogue states through economic and diplomatic actions, but the international community cannot intercede militarily unless that nation is threatening world peace.  

 

This is the sad dilemma of regime change by the international community.  As tragic and horrible as many world regimes are, they must ultimately be toppled or reformed from within.  There is a certain logic to this.  Regime changes from outside a nation are ultimately invasions and have rarely resulted in a stable democratic government.  One has only to look at Afghanistan and Iraq after the interminable wars and attempted nation-building by the USA and other NATO allies to see the folly of this type of meddling in other nations’ affairs.

 

Where would one start?  Myanmar is a horror show.  The whole Sudan area is in desperate need of new government.  Multiple African nations are disasters. North Korea has both nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles besides being an incredibly repressive regime.  

 

In theory, if a rogue regime is acting to endanger world peace, the UN could assemble an international military force to confront that threat under the principle of collective security.  This was done in the case of Korea and in Iraq in 1990. (An asterisk must be assigned to Korea, as the Soviet Union, a security council member, was absent from the UN at that time in protest of the Peoples Republic of China not being admitted).  But the interpretation of what poses a threat to collective security varies dramatically among UN members and it is very difficult to gain consensus for such actions.  This is frustrating, but consensus it is at the heart of a rules-based order and actions without it pose a huge risk of future conflict.

 

When the USA acts unilaterally to depose or assassinate the head of a regime, as it has recently done in Venezuela and Iran and is threatening to do in Cuba, or undertakes large scale military action without any support of the international community, it sets a precedent that can only lead to other flagrant violations by other nations.  Indeed, Russia must be delighted at recent events.  

 

The USA may be powerful enough both militarily and economically to impose its will in the short term, but other nations are fast approaching the point where they too may decide to act unilaterally in what they see as their best interests.  China, India, Russia, Pakistan and others all have their scores to settle.  The Trumpian future looks rather grim.

The Myth of the Incredibly Dangerous Iran

One of the primary reasons for Israel and the USA to attack Iran was to neutralize the incredible threat that it posed to the rest of the world and to Israel and the USA specifically.  Well let’s take a look at how dangerous Iran was.

As of March 8^th, the USA and Israel have murdered a host of top Iranian officials, bombed a school, destroyed most of Iran’s navy, and killed well over 1400 people, most of whom are civilians.  They have also severely damaged much of Iran’s military infrastructure as well many industrial complexes and oil refineries.

 

What has that highly dangerous Iran managed to do to Israel and the USA?  So far, it appears that 6 American soldiers have been killed and 11 Israelis.  Thousands of rockets and drones from Iran have essentially accomplished nothing.  In the face of the vast military and intelligence might of the USA and Israel, Iran is more or less impotent. 

 

Wow!  Good thing we started a major war, spent billions of dollars, created a potential oil crisis, justified any future arbitrary, unilateral military actions by other nations and further damaged our reputation in the world to stop this incredibly dangerous foe!  

 

Trump and Hegseth are like adolescent boys, chest-thumping and bragging about a military triumph that is so one-side it is ridiculous.  Sure, no one likes the Iranian regime.  But who is really going to suffer in both the short and the long term?  The Iranian people, of course.

 

The premise for this war was absurd from the start.  And it is all the more idiotic when one thinks about the legacy of American military actions in the past 50-60 years.  Shame on us!

Donald Trump: People’s Republic of China Hero

I can picture the banners and the murals.  Sometime in the near future the pantheon of heroic figures that China will revere will certainly include Donald Trump.  China was on the road to superpower status but for the first 15 years of the 21^st century the road looked long and difficult.  Then came Donald.

The list of the Chinese people’s exalted heroes will include Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai of course.  And Xi Jinping will naturally be on an equal level with the founders.  There will also be other heroes of communism – Lenin, Stalin, perhaps Trotsky, Castro, Che Guevara, Ho Chi Minh.  The one capitalist addition to the list will be Trump for having single-handedly ensured China’s ascendancy to stand-alone world power and economic dominance.

 

Trump’s chaotic, arbitrary and punitive tariff policy, his bullying treatment and alienation of allies, his idiotic military strikes and wars, his cruel and extreme immigrant policies, his short-sighted disengagement from all international efforts to fight climate change and protect international health, his petulant cessation of renewable energy technology development, and his endless posturing, threatening and bragging will have diminished both the hard and soft power of the USA beyond repair.

 

As King George sang in Hamilton: Oceans rise, empires fall.  Some fall faster than others though, and some shoot themselves in the foot to hasten their downfall.  Trump has set the wheels in motion for China to surge past the USA on all fronts.  China’s rise was inevitable given its size and its highly educated and motivated workforce, but a wiser US president would have created a relationship with China and the rest of the world that could benefit all. 

 

In the winner-take-all Trumpian-imagined dystopia, the USA is fast becoming a pariah.  The Chinese won’t miss this opportunity and perhaps the world will be better off for it.  China may be authoritarian and a bit on the pushy side, but at least its leader appears to not be a narcissistic lunatic.  

 

It’s not too early to get the Chinese students and party members working on Trump posters and banners.  We know how much Donald loves adoration.  He’ll be delighted.  

 

A Double Wag the Dog

The rationale for the Israeli and American war on Iran is a Chinese menu – Imminent nuclear threat, regime change and freedom for the Iranian people, long term security for Israel, punishment for Iran’s existential threat to Israel and regional stability, democracy for Iran, or, most likely,  cover for two corrupt and diabolical leaders – Netanyahu and Trump.

Few will mourn the demise of the Ayatollah or his henchmen.  They have impoverished and terrified the Iranian people over the last 40 years.  Their support of the extremist proxies Hezbollah and Hamas has contributed to the growth of right-wing authoritarianism in Israel.  Rather than aiding the Palestinian cause, this support has made any progress highly unlikely.

 

But the assassination of Iranian leaders and all-out war that Trump and Netanyahu have initiated is unjustified for many reasons.  The first is that Iran by all reasonable assessments is incapable of nuclear warfare any time in the near future.  This has been verified by the UN’s nuclear inspection agency and other neutral third parties.

 

The second is that Israel is far superior to Iran in military capabilities and the idea that Iran is an existential threat to Israel is simply laughable.  Even without US support, Israel has little or nothing to fear from Iran. Moreover, Netanyahu has been chafing to attack Iran for decades and argued that Iran would have a nuclear weapon imminently back in the early 90’s.  He was delighted to discover that he could stroke Trump's ego enough to lure him into fulfilling his dream.

 

The third is that the recent history of overthrow of Mideast regimes through warfare has been dismal.  Both Afghanistan and Iraq were foreign policy and humanitarian catastrophes, whose ill effects are still reverberating throughout that region.  Have we learned nothing?

 

The fourth reason is that unilateral military action against sovereign states and leaders is an abandonment of international rules-based diplomacy, a way for Russia to further rationalize its invasion of Ukraine, and an invitation to future unilateral actions such as a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

 

The fifth reason is that war’s result is unlikely to be a democratic, secular regime in Iran.  The current Islamic state is so deeply embedded that it is difficult to imagine it changing dramatically.  The more likely scenario is a long period of chaotic, tragic internecine battles between various factions.  Furthermore, the idea that Trump and Netanyahu have the slightest sympathy for the Iranian people is totally absurd.

 

And the final reason is that there were clearly vile and cynical personal motivations for both Trump and Netanyahu to launch this war that have nothing to do with noble desires to free the Iranian people.  Trump is facing a disastrous midterm election that could completely derail his presidency.  Netanyahu has so far managed to avoid the consequences of his administration’s security failures and prior support of Hamas by his brutal destruction of Gaza and murder of close to a hundred thousand Palestinians, but a time of reckoning was approaching.  His corruption and legal problems were also threatening.

 

Yes, the Iran war is a classic wag the dog scenario.  Both Trump and Netanyahu are authoritarian leaders who are totally unscrupulous and diabolical.  Their capricious use of military force with unclear objectives is intended to distract a public that has been easily wooed by violence and warfare in the past.  One can only hope that this time the ruse won’t work and that they will pay for their arrogance.  But the sad truth is that this war will cost the lives of thousands and perhaps tens or hundreds of thousands if history is any guide.

The Charade of Governance

One has only to listen briefly to Donald Trump’s mad musings to realize that he views himself as dictating and controlling every aspect of our country’s government and foreign policy.  I believe that is what one would call a dictator.

US Presidents have embraced and utilized executive privilege in various ways throughout our history, but there has never been a president who does not even attempt to work through the normal paths of governance.  Trump only uses congress as a rubber stamp for his desired policies and his cabinet sets its agenda in total obedience to his whims.  The only independent body in the government now is the judiciary, and many of the critical judges are Trump appointees, which calls into question their independence.

 

The list of policies and actions that Trump has personally dictated or pressured is long, but here are some of the most egregious examples:

 

• Unilateral levying of tariffs both for economic and punitive purposes
• Targeting and deportation of student protestors
• Changes in vaccine policy
• Rejection of climate change science and all government activities to address it
• Cancellation of wind farm, solar and charging station projects
• Wholesale reduction or elimination of environmental and financial regulations
• Pulling the USA out of many international organizations and agreements
• Government blackmail or extortion of law firms and universities
• Justice department investigation and prosecution of Trump’s adversaries
• Wholesale pardoning of January 6^th convicted criminals
• Changing names and titles of geographic places (Gulf of Mexico)
• Government support of Crypto
• Ending government DEI efforts and applying pressure to end them everywhere else
• Military actions in Iran and Venezuela; extrajudicial killings in coastal waters
• Threats to Greenland/Denmark, Canada, Mexico and NATO allies
• Abandonment of support for Ukraine in its war with Russia
• Threat to end birthright citizenship
• Threat to effect national changes in elections
• Dangerous buildup of a paramilitary organization (ICE) to deport undocumented aliens
• Use of the National Guard to intimidate democratic-controlled cities

 

Some MAGA Americans support this kind of dictatorship as a necessary evil to overcome the paralysis of democratic government, what they view as unsettling cultural changes and the post-industrial economic malaise.  But the vast majority of democratic and independent voters view Trump’s actions as authoritarian and dangerous.  

 

Trump slid into office by a mere 1% of the popular vote, a fact that many forget and that certainly does not give him the mandate to dictate such extreme policies.  His win was based on the expectation that he would dramatically improve the economy and fix the immigration problem.  The economy is no better and may be heading for worse after one year, and his draconian, police state policies on immigration have been a national disgrace.  Playing emperor and conqueror may thrill his base, but the American people will hopefully have finally realized that the emperor has no clothes and give him a resounding rebuke in November.

The Dangerous Rush to Push AI Into Schools

Recent testimony to a senate committee by Dr. Jared Horvath, neuroscientist and educator, presented studies that showed alarming downward trends in student cognitive development since the mid-2000s across developed nations.  This was the first decline since the beginning of the 20^th century, when standardized education sparked a century long improvement in those same cognitive abilities.

Dr. Horvath concludes that the aggressive introduction of technology and extended periods of screen time have had a deleterious effect on education and cognitive development.  This testimony will no doubt be strongly contested by the technology establishment, as it calls into question one of the key claims that AI makes for its future profitability – the goal of enhancing human intelligence and lives across class and cultural barriers.

 

I have some anecdotal evidence that supports Horvath’s thesis as I have spent the last 6 months tutoring Hispanic high school kids in math.  All of their work is on Chromebooks.  There is no math textbook and every problem is presented and worked on the computer.  The students enter every calculation into a subject line as part of their solution and use associated calculators to perform them.  Not a single student has immediate recall of multiplication tables (8 times 7 for example) or knows how to add fractions using common denominators.  Even basic addition is wanting.

 

This would perhaps be ok if their command of higher-level concepts were solid, but their work is almost totally mimicry or use of AI in other web windows.  They struggle to do any problems that truly require deeper understanding of the theory.  These students are much less capable than the very weakest students I taught in my three years as a high school mathematics teacher from 2006-2009, before any significant introduction of technology.

 

Schools and universities are desperate to avoid the stigma of missing the boat on AI, so they appear to be embracing AI and other technology components with willful abandon and probably spending funds that could have been used to hire and train teachers.  The hype and pressure from AI companies and their legions of pundits is immense.

 

Horvath’s research on cognitive development theorizes that human evolution is much better adapted to person-to-person learning focusing on a single task.  The combination of screen time trances, application multi-tasking and non-academic app distraction create a net negative effect when technology is the centerpiece of instruction.  His survey of research indicates that reading comprehension and retention are much stronger on paper, as is note-taking, particularly for complex or extended texts or tasks.  

 

Technology used for practice and remediation to support learning objectives has been shown to be net positive in many studies, but this type of limited utilization is anathema to the tech titans who see their products being center stage and ubiquitous.  They will no doubt be relentless in their insistence that the future is in AI education and that it is only a matter of educators adapting to the new tools.

 

Public policy failed us completely during the advent of social media and legislators allowed tech apps to foul the waters of social intercourse and adolescent mental health in the name of so-called free speech and the free market.  Let us hope that Horvath’s warnings will be heeded and that the avalanche of AI-based education ‘miracles’ will be subjected to careful scrutiny, monitoring and control before we find that we have irreversibly damaged our species.  But then again, those future generations will be so much more easily manipulated by AI, so perhaps it is all just part of the master plan!