Popymarket

History Today has a feature on the long-lasting Italian industry of Pope betting. It focuses on the 1500s, a time with way too much history packed into the tiny geography of the Vatican. The church had reached a peak of secular control and wealth, then a series of wars and secessions broke it.

Meanwhile, Italian aristocrats and bankers made and lost money by betting on each papal election. Some of the cardinals were aristocrats, part of the betting culture. The cardinals chose especially old and sick popes who would die fast, in order to weaken the bureaucracy and give more control to the cardinals.

Hmm. Sounds familiar. An empire reaches maximum secular power, then a series of wars and secessions breaks it. Meanwhile the aristocrats in the legislature are betting on defense stocks and tech stocks, choosing especially old and sick leaders to favor their bets.

The Popymarket itself is still running; the article says Parolin is currently a 5-2 favorite to succeed Prevost.

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Semi-related thought, just because I need to write it down. In this week’s discussion of the popped AI bubble, most commenters assume that bailing out Altman will mean state control of AI. As usual with Shared Lies, one side says government control is good and the other says it’s bad. As usual with Shared Lies, the real question is upstream from the point of contention.

Look at the 2009 bailout. After TARP we didn’t control the banks. THE BANKS CONTROLLED US. The government maintained ZIRP for 15 years because the investment banks wanted ZIRP. Bailouts are not purchases. Bailouts are a blackmail payment. Even Bush implied that the bailout was needed to silence some unspecified “foreign” investors, not to buy and improve our banks.

If we pay Altman, we will be temporarily buying silence, not owning his evil company. We will be openly acknowledging that he could bring down the system if he wanted to.