Your hosts Jacob (@Conflux) and Andrew (@Imbens) have journeyed to Manifold headquarters to interview Manifold cofounders Stephen Grugett (@SG) and Austin Chen (@Austin), with additional appearances from developer Sinclair Chen (@Sinclair) and cofounder James Grugett (@JamesGrugett). We discuss a wide range of topics, many suggested via bounty market: the rebrand of markets as questions (and whether we need to rebrand as the Question Manipulation Podcast), Manifold’s name backstory, the upcoming Manifest conference, Austin’s relationship markets, dogfooding, Manifund, bounty markets themselves, banning philosophy (as applied to Levi Finkelstein), the real reason Manifold employees sometimes write bad resolution criteria, Mana-chan, catgirls among us, what Manifold will look like in a million years — and we ask each of them to guess the chance that Crystal Ballin’ will become real by September.

Read about the podcast on Above the Fold!

Links:

• Manifest website
• Will non-adults be permitted to attend Manifest 2023? (88%)
• Am I one of the speakers at Manifest? (23%) / Will I attend Manifest? (11%)
• Rachel & Austin's Wedding
• Will the Crystal Ballin’ podcast release an episode before September? (78%)
• What topics should we discuss on Episode 5 of the Market Manipulation Podcast?
• Will Superalignment succeed? (15%) / according to Eliezer Yudkowsky (6%) / according to Joshua (10%)
• Will Silicon Valley Bank file for bankruptcy by April 1st? (N/A)
• (resolved 69%)
• ​​Will catgirls walk among us by 2030 (10%)
• was gonna make a market about James' last prediction, but 7-year close dates don't work...

0:00 Intro

0:35 [Austin] Markets vs questions

2:30 Manifold's name

5:02 Manifest

8:28 Relationship markets

8:58 Dogfooding

9:58 Manifund

11:22 Crystal Ballin's chances

13:43 [Stephen] Inspiration

14:29 Bounties

15:38 Mana-chan

16:56 Banning philosophy/Levi

19:52 Manifold team's resolution criteria

25:39 CB

26:24 Wobbles

28:11 [Sinclair + James] Hot takes

30:55 Catgirls among us

32:31 CB

33:15 M$ in 1M years

We play a highly fair, well-planned, well-calibrated, well-thought out Manifold trivia game created by your host Jacob (@Conflux)! Featuring special guests Audrey (@audrey), Kyle (@KyleWan), Allison (@alleycat), Amelia (@ithildulin), and Allie (@AM). Some of the episode is also featuring your other host Andrew (@Imbens), special guests Zoe (@amzoeee), Lucia (@bakedziti), Lachlan and Frank (@Conflict), and favorite guest Sophia (@sofa).

This chaotic episode was recorded live on Amelia's iPad at our "nonfire" while reserving a firepit for Manifold cofounder Austin and his now-wife Rachel's wedding bonfire! As a result, the sound quality is terrible again. But hey, it's the Market Manipulation Podcast, so what did you expect. At least we made subtitles for like the first 8 minutes before concluding that subtitling is actually pretty time-intensive.

Here are the questions we used for the trivia game, if you want to play along at home!

PROOFNIKS ON MANIFOLD

Y’all have to go around (randomize who starts) and name a distinct Manifold user. If that user is in the top 10 by the listed criteria, you get a number of points equal to their rank. (1 = 1st, 2 = 2nd, … 10 = 10th). But if they’re 11th or higher, you get no points!

1. Proofniks group top traders (by profit on Proofniks markets)

2. Proofniks group top creators (by total unique traders)

MANIFOLD CULTURE

For this one people have to “buzz in” (we used raising hands) to answer questions. 2 points for the correct answer. 1 point if you lost a buzzer race but I feel like you probably knew the answer. 1

. What word, which can be spelled with or without a U, is used to describe Spindle’s bets?

2. What was the real world market that recently featured massive insider trading?

3. MrGirl, Aba, and others, who have “stock” markets on Manifold, are “orbiters” for which steamer, popular on the Manifold website?

AUSTIN AND RACHEL

Multiple choice: everyone privately selects the answer they think is right. 3 points for correct answer.

1. How long did they date before getting married?

(a) 4 months (b) 8 months (c) 1 year (d) 2 years

2. Which website did Austin and Rachel build together?

(1) Manifold Markets (2) Manifund (3) Askhole (4) Puzzles for Progress

3. Rachel was a student at which college, where the sport Pirate Waiter has an approximately 34% chance of catching on?

(1) Stanford (2) Tufts (3) Cambridge (4) Grand Canyon University

4. Early on, Sinclair Chen had a market on whether Austin would get a girlfriend, and Manifold employee Alice bet NO. Austin commented “Et tu, Alice?” What was her response?

(1) "Only because of the profile picture!" (2) "The base rate for people in your reference class is only 18%." (3) "I just don’t believe…" (4) "I know what you did."

THE "TRUSTWORTHY...ISH" BADGE

For 1 point, say whether each of the following is a Manifold user with the "Trustworthy...ish" badge (ask each question to one person, randomizing who starts - truncate list based on number of people):

1. Austin 2. Rachel Weinberg 3. Wobbles 4. Isaac King 5. Nate Silver 6. CGP Grey

MARKET MATH

Go around and guess - closest gets 5 points, or you get 10 points if it’s exactly right. You can say the same number as someone else, but if you’re both closest, only they get the 5 points, so you’re only eligible for the 10 points. If you didn’t say the same number as someone but you’re equally close, you both get 5 points. If you make a standard YES/NO market and then bet M$69 on yes, what is the resulting percentage?

LAST QUESTION

Closest gets 10 points. 1000 points if exactly right. 20 points if within M$10,000. Think of your guess first. Guess Isaac King’s current profit. (note that the “Manifold Changes” and “Guess the Percentage” sections were not used)

In this episode, your hosts Jacob Cohen (@Conflux) and Andrew Imbens (@Imbens) primarily discuss markets that you might bet on for reasons other than belief: self-resolving markets, dating markets, and personal goal markets. We recorded this episode on April 19, which is awhile ago! It is, for example, just as the beginnings of the Whales v. Minnows controversy were heating up. Well, we finally edited it — it’s sort of a “from the vault” episode — but I think our takes aged well, such as our roasting of Crystal Ballin’ for not being real. The episode also features a certain call-in guest. For links to markets mentioned in this episode, go to tinyurl.com/mmp-ep3-shownotes!

0:00 Intro

1:08 Self-resolving markets

6:23 Mana grants (and Audrey)

9:50 Dating markets, stocks, personal goal markets

14:28 Special call-in guest

17:47 Future of the podcast