It seems like it would be highly demoralizing to US soldiers that they are prosecuted for betting on the outcomes of the battles they are risking their lives for but those insider trading commanding them aren't.
It seems like it would be highly demoralizing to US soldiers that they are prosecuted for betting on the outcomes of the battles they are risking their lives for but those insider trading commanding them aren't.
I just couldn't, in good conscience, keep bombing childrens schools under such demoralising conditions.
On the flip side: who if not me and my precision guided munitions, will protect America (and freedom) from the clear and present danger of 8 year old iranian girls.
truly so sad how the troops must feel
"America will bomb you and 15 years later make a movie about how sad the soldiers are based on autobiographies of completely unrepentant sadists" remains true for another decade.
I wonder who the american sniper of iran will be
I get your point, but at least he wasn't betting against it and his team!
Imagine doing an easy tour in your air conditioned Kuwaiti logistics office and then getting blown to bits by a ballistic missile because no one bothered to tell you about the war that was being initiated which would cause such missiles in retaliation. Yeah, that's demoralizing too.
There will be derivative contracts of prediction markets to predict if an insider is indicted for betting on a specific prediction.
And those prediction markets will have derivative markets to predict if an insider in the prosecutor's office bet on that contract.
And those prediction markets will have derivative markets to predict if a special prosecutor will prosecute the other prosecutor.
And those prediction markets will have derivative markets to predict if an insider in the special prosecutor's office bet on the other contract.
(additional derivative markets will exist up to the divine wrath of god).
> additional derivative markets will exist up to the divine wrath of god
We already know that Jesus will come back in an election year
> derivative markets will exist up to the divine wrath of god
We already bet on the weather.
Which is totally up the gods — or a hairdryer:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/23/hairdryer-or-l...
I would offer a small correction to your point: Instead of "ballistic missile", I would substitute "Shahed-type drones". It is much easier to detect (and shoot down) a ballistic missile than a Shahed-type drone.
I don't think this is true at all? A ballistic missile is way harder and more expensive to shutdown (they are flying at Mach 5-10 while you can outrun that type of drone with a mid tier car on the freeway)
Shahed is very primitive in general and not hard to shot down but because its extremely cheap it can be used to overwhelm any type of air defenses. Wasting $4 million to destroy a $50k drone doesn't scale at all.
The OP wrote:
The purpose of my response wasn't about cost effectiveness; rather, it was about the lethality of a ballistic missile vs Shahed-type drone.A ballistic missile is easily detected by a network of outer space satellites owned and operated by the US Space Force. Whether or not you can defend against it is a different question. There is sufficient time from the detected of ballistic missile launch to move to a hardened underground bunker. All US bases in the Middle East will have these. Soldiers will regularly train for incoming ballistic missile attacks and when/how to move to underground bunkers. As a result, it is very unlikely that soldiers in an "air conditioned Kuwaiti logistics office" would be killed by an incoming ballistic missile.
On the other hand, a Shahed-type drone (similar to a cruise missile) is much harder to detect because they fly very low and difficult to catch on rader until close to base. As a result, soldiers on base will have much less time to move to underground bunkers.
start charging congresspeople with insider trading first, before you charge any regular soldier
if rules dont apply universally, then screw these rules altogether
If you are in Kuwait you will find yourself under rockets whether you knew in advance or not
I think the worse aspect is if the news of an attack being leaked to the defender and you are being blown to bits as their ballistic missiles are not decimated in their preemptive strike.
They referred to soldiers that were killed by the start of the war. They thought the situation is normal, war was started without them knowing, got killed.
Not knowing in advance was an important factor
Soldiers can't catch a flight back home when war starts (or about to), and by the time the Iranians were able to attack back after the initial shock, all US soldiers knew there's a war going on
That's why I am having great difficulty following that argument
They should have kept an eye on the prediction markets.
I mean, surely everyone in the middle east knew a war was on the horizon. Obviously not the exact plan or day, but it wasn't a secret that usa was gearing up for a war.
The war was surprised and host of people said so - goverments, expats living ij region, locals. And were pisssed
I imagine they were pissed. I dont think anyone likes being in the middle of a war. Nonetheless in the weeks leading up it was clear USA was moving massive amounts of naval assets into the region. It was on the news 24/7. I'm sure everyone in the military would have been able to read the tea leaves that something was going down soonish, even if they didn't know precisely what or when.
> would be highly demoralizing
Those people should quit. Sour grapes isn’t an excuse for putting others’ lives at risk.
I don't think active duty special forces can just "quit", can they?
Sort of. Not saying that I think anyone should do this but just explaining for the sake of general knowledge.
I'm simplifying things quite a bit, but almost all military contracts are 8-year (typically split into a 4-year active and 4-year reserve period). If you leave on your own volition during this period, you typically have to repay the cost to the government to train you. And any contract that you're on where you received a signing bonus you have to pay back.
The actual mechanism for doing this is a different between officers and enlisted and they're some paperwork but functionally you can leave if you're really motivated to and for the most part people won't stop you (outside of a few conversations where people advise you against it).
The type of discharge you receive depends on the circumstances but generally there's a way to still get an honorable discharge (hardship, education, family, conscientious objector).
There's also the more practical quitting special forces vs leaving the military entirely. Tier 1 units only want people who want to be there and if you don't you can get transferred to some other job in the military in like a day if you really wanted to.
They get transferred to a different unit - one that is not part of "special forces". A big part of the selection process is to find the soldiers who just won't quit.
One rather famous example is of a BUD/S (usually called SEAL) selectee who drowned himself. When pulled out of the pool and resuscitated, he apologized and thought he failed out of the selection process. The instructor replied something like "heck no, you passed. We can always teach you how to swim. No one can teach you to never give up".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_SEAL_select...
Or, your brigade’s master sergeant needs the invasion to hit on the 28th rather than Mar 1st.
> It seems like it would be highly demoralizing to US soldiers that they are prosecuted for betting on the outcomes of the battles they are risking their lives for but those insider trading commanding them aren't.
Why? The enlisted military has never had any issue with similar double standards in the past. George 'AWOL' Bush handily swept the military vote, as did Donald 'Bone Spurs' Trump.
Likewise, veterans routinely and overwhelmingly vote for people who cut veteran support and benefits, over people who don't.
If they think those people are fit to lead them, who are we to tell them they aren't?
Veterans generally don’t need additional support or benefits. Disability is basically a second pension at this point. SCD for veterans under 45 has risen from 16% in 2008 to 39% in 2022 [0]. If you know any young veterans, then anecdotally you will see this is true. You can (and should) get partial disability for all kinds of aches and pains that in a normal career would go ignored.
[0] https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2024/demo/acs-5...
I actually completely agree with your last phrase. Who are you to tell them anything, particularly with such ironic condescension?
In a democracy the citizens decide who leads the military not the military.
Please study the venn diagram below:
((military) citizens)