Discussion
‘Abhorrent’: the inside story of the Polymarket gamblers betting millions on war
cyanydeez: 'Capitalism': the inevitable reduction of all humanity to fungible currency
Chrisszz: This is becoming the kind of "VC platform for online war investments". You: 1. Plan 2. Bet 3. Invest money upfront 4. Execute 5. Redeem your profits
PowerElectronix: Now, can you find enough liquidity in the market to turn a profit? Can you find it before it becomes aparent something is off in the bet?
PowerElectronix: Betting with one another predates any notion of capitalism, or economy.
srameshc: > There is now more than $500,000 (£371,000) staked on whether Russia will capture Kostyantynivka this year .Now everyone has a chance to profit from war ! Thank you Polymarket
kingleopold: alternative is gulag(s) and literally famine(s)!but hey keep understanding things wrong, surely it helps?humanity advanced way more under capitalism than anything else in history. This does not mean capitalism is perfect, it's just fits to human greed and human behaviour more. Others systems are worse
delichon: I think they all coevolved. Some early human committed both a capitalist and an economic transaction by buying sheep and selling deer, and then bet on the next hunt.
azan_: Could you explain what do you mean? What's the plan and execution here? Planning and executing invasion? If so, there are much better markets than polymarket for making such bets.
kodegod69: Sure keep saying that to yourself. All of you sound so damn sure when speaking about socialism. Like the first nation to pierce the firmament of human fabric wasn't a socialist one. And that the union wasn't making great strides in technology.
deadbabe: Whether you like it or not, socialism is the key.
logicchains: Such great strides in technology, their standard of living was so high that their president was literally shocked just by the abundance of food in a normal western grocery story.
Throaway199999: honestly the profits aren't big enough when you can just go into business if you have that kind of influence
croes: Capitalism neither prevents gulags nor famines.And you can bet (pun intended) someone will create them on purpose if they can make profit from it
logicchains: Please do share what capitalist country had a famine in the past century.
ModernMech: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943
gib444: [delayed]
paulnpace: War profiteering for the people!
throwthrowuknow: Except it does? Capitalist countries don’t seem to have any famines. You could argue that for profit prisons are similar to gulags in some ways but the important differences are so vast it’s hard to compare them honestly.
forinti: Lots of African countries have market economies and also poverty and hunger.
ModernMech: True, but capitalism eventually makes gambling the whole economy.
forinti: Doesn't the US already have an above average incarceration rate and private prisons? Maybe, just maybe, there's some relation?
ceejayoz: Give it a bit!https://www.npr.org/2026/03/26/g-s1-115240/iran-war-strait-h...(I'm being snarky here, but COVID definitely exposed some supply chain vulnerabilities.)
PowerElectronix: I don't think it does. Capitalism only allows one to save one's fruit of their labor to use down the line. You exchange it for money, then use that money to buy other stuff.People using it to gamble has more to do with gambling people than with capitalism people. You can have gambling in communism or socialism, only stakes there are limited because the fruit of the labor of people doesn't belong to them like in capitalism.
ModernMech: Capitalist countries don't have famines at home. That's different from "capitalism prevents famines". Capitalism is happy to cause hunger, inflict death, or imprison people if it's profitable for capitalists, that's baked into the structure of the structure of the system. There's no systemic feature of capitalism that directs capital generating activity unless it violates natural and human rights.
throwthrowuknow: Poverty and hunger are not famine
falcor84: You make it sound bad, but I personally am very much in favor of regular people having access to the same bad things that the people in charge have.
hoppyhoppy2: Are users able to bet specifically on whether prisoners of war in Kostyantynivka will be killed? Or whether women and children will be raped? That kind of fine-grained war market could be groundbreaking
BobbyTables2: Reminds me of the part in National Lampoon’s Vegas Vacation when Clark Griswold goes to the 3rd rate casino and starts betting on weird things.
