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Gamblers trying to win a bet on Polymarket are vowing to kill me if I don’t rewrite an Iran missile story
(www.timesofisrael.com)
this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2026
387 points (98.7% liked)
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So the guy threatening the journalist to change his story so the gambler can make money isn't market manipulation, but the journalist not changing his story is....
What scary about this, and it was mentioned in the article, is how future stories by less than ethical "journalist" can be purchased so that one side can become rich. Fuck accuracy it's all about the money.
Well it's not like that is already the case with social media, but I would like to think there is at least some aspect of reporting that is based in ethics and truth.
Polymarket is one of many direct evidence of the impending fall of society.
It's one of those things that would seem excessive in a story.
A place so decadent that everything was to bet for. Even as the world ended around them, they gambled on how.
20 years ago, if you wrote a story about a dystopian future sci-fi setting that included polymarket, readers would interpret it as a heavy-handed metaphor for widespread cynicism and derealization
It's the real life version of the intro to Cyberpunk 2077, with the radio host talking about bets on the death toll in Night city.
Cyberpunk was supposed to by a dystopia, not a fucking instruction manual!
But seriously, I've lost about all enjoyment in cyber-dystopian stories because these days they cut depressingly close to home.
yeah I've had so many story ideas just end up being too on-the-nose. and a few that are "if I put this idea out there, someone will use it and make things worse for people I don't know." I don't need that kind of karma.
Really seems like a future dystopian sci-fi, where the main character is going to bring the whole system down.
Who's the main character in this scenario, Johnny Barronhand?
Oh yeah, it is messed up and doesnt even cover the section where apparently another journalist the writer knows was bribed to try and coerce the flow of information to get that win. It basically confirms that there is already a willing lack of integrity somewhere to think it would work here.