Chandler Downing

If thus doesn’t hit you as one of the most dystopian things imaginable… think about the consequences for future generations. For the sons and daughters of people who become helplessly addicted to gambling…. A world where everything is financialized…. Everything is commodified…. Nobody makes a move without figuring out how to profit from it… Every corner of the economy becomes another prediction market, another bet on what might happen, another opportunity to make quick money… What happens to long-term thinking? To developing a thesis, committing to an idea, and spending years doing the work to make it happen? What Kalshi and Polymarket are doing goes far beyond the fight over state and tribal gaming laws. And the CFTC under @ChairmanSelig is actively fighting state efforts to regulate these markets and to further fuck over native Americans My concern is that they are breaking down the incentives to work and create things in America. Keep allowing these companies to grow this way, and think about what happens to the next generation of entrepreneurs, dreamers, and builders… People who want to change the world and improve it, whose attention, money, and ambition get sucked into betting on outcomes. Why spend years building something when you’re constantly being sold the idea that you can make the money you want by betting on whether someone else succeeds? The harm reaches way way beyond the person placing the bet. It reaches their family, their children, and everything they might otherwise have created…think about the young men this fucks up… And the advertising makes it worse. These platforms accept people as young as 18, including young adults who cannot legally use conventional sportsbooks in many states… @schwartzbWSJ and The Wall Street Journal has already reported that Polymarket paid creators to stage fake bets and fake wins… Think about what that teaches someone just entering adulthood about money, work, and what is worth pursuing… I believe the cumulative harm will be far greater than people currently recognize… The losses will include businesses never started, ideas never pursued, families damaged, and years spent chasing the next outcome instead of creating something that lasts… That is how this can destroy the very things that make a society worth living in. And that is the point. \rant