I am not a gambler, nor do I understand the thrill of staring at K-lines with a racing heart. However, when CNN and CNBC announced that they would integrate digital odds from prediction markets into their news broadcasts, I felt as if we were being toyed with by a new "truth."

Crypto bros preach that traditional polls will be replaced, that experts are the high priests of a bygone era, and that only odds backed by real money can reflect the wisdom of the crowd and the truth of reality. However, the trading logic cultivated by prediction markets aligns with Keynes's concept of a "beauty contest"; you no longer care about who is the most beautiful, you only care about "who others think is the most beautiful." The concept of beauty itself is "dissolved," much like Duchamp's urinal placed in an art gallery. Prediction markets will continue to accelerate and then stall until more and more awake individuals begin to "short" this frenzy, to "short" the narrative of prediction markets themselves.

Exchanges and casinos are two distinctly different worlds. Farmers worry about falling grain prices, while downstream food processing plants worry about rising prices, so they turn to the derivatives market to find those willing to take on risk. Due to differing demands, trading can flow.

However, in the context of prediction markets, this natural hedger does not exist. This leads to a market where, apart from market makers, there are only smart money with insider information and gamblers destined to be harvested: if a counterparty with an information advantage is willing to trade with you at this price, then this transaction is likely to be a loss for you. Once the "dumb money" is exhausted, liquidity will quickly dry up. Since insider traders are allowed to exist in large numbers, without a continuous supply of gamblers, prediction markets become an unsustainable new Ponzi scheme.

In natural systems, the value of a thermometer does not change the temperature; no matter how we bet, Halley's Comet will still return on time. But in social systems, probability itself has the power to "distort the reality stance," and the greed of observers can change the reality being observed.

Ethereum can ensure the "economic security" of its blockchain network through a staking penalty mechanism, but prediction markets cannot guarantee "social security" at all. On the contrary, they even reward destruction.

If a billionaire bets heavily on an extreme event, he is essentially providing financial support for that outcome and using the market's probability signals to create panic or consensus. Huge amounts of capital can create a massive potential energy, coercively pulling media coverage and thus influencing public confidence, forcibly collapsing an uncertain outcome into the shape desired by the bettors.

Kaito, who wanted to be the center of information distribution, ultimately became a broadcasting station that only outputs noise. Prediction markets tout themselves as telescopes for insight into the future, yet they cannot prevent themselves from becoming billboards that manufacture the future.

Many believe that with the relaxation of regulations and the influx of capital, prediction markets will surely be the next big trend. But things are always a matter of excess.

People are gradually realizing that we are at the peak of a "gambling culture" cycle.

Comprehensive financialization will only bring about emptiness. One day, people will tire of this high-frequency dopamine stimulation and return to the experience of life. We begin to turn off our screens, go hiking, touch real soil, read physical books, and build deep relationships outside of screens.

"Shorting" prediction markets is not only about going long on "human subjectivity," but also about going long on "life."

Since we cannot go back to the past, perhaps the only way out is to stop wasting time at the virtual gambling table and turn to walk into the sunlight.

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