At end of 2025, resolves based on the probability (rounded to 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100%) that Trump ever (when above the age of 20) had any kind of sexual relations with a girl below the legal age of consent.
A broad but reasonable definition of “sexual relations” will be used. The age of consent is based on the laws of that jurisdiction at that time.
My plan is to resolve by averaging probabilities given on a poll of legitimate Manifold users. I will conduct this poll when 2025 is over, assuming that the correct resolution still needs to be determined. I may resolve YES early if clear evidence emerges.
Originally I said this market would resolve to my judgement (my current gut feeling is close to 50%), and I reserve the right to change the rules to ensure that the resolution is fair and reasonable.
General policy for my markets: In the rare event of a conflict between my resolution criteria and the agreed-upon common-sense spirit of the market, I may resolve it according to the market's spirit or N/A, probably after discussion.
1,000
3.00@AutopoieticErgodicity I think I've been pretty clear. I will resolve based on the age of consent in the jurisdiction that the alleged event occurred
He was already directly accused of raping a 13 year old with Epstein years before the Epstein case reached broad public consciousness. There was a witness who described the pattern we know to be common with Epstein of finding a down on their luck child, luring them in and then getting them to lure in others.
The case was dropped right after Trump won in 2016 and there was talk it was due to death threats against the alleged victim. This saga was overshadowed a bit in the media by the access Hollywood tape of him bragging about sexual assault and didn’t reach a legal conclusion like Jean Carol’s case.
@JasonQ The timing of the lawsuit was quite suspicious though, the alleged crime took place in 1994, the (anonymous) lawsuit was filled during Trump's 2016 election run.
@HannesLynchburg I mean if your rapist is running for president that might change your mind on whether you want to sue or not.
@JasonQ
>The case was dropped right after Trump won in 2016
There was no "case." She made the accusation and then dropped it after Trump threatened to sue her for libel.
I tried to make a related question with cleaner criteria. Hopefully a mix of questions is a reasonable way to get at a complex topic here.
Ya, I mean, I'd probably give the odds at below 10% but it seems like the market views the odds as much higher. Regardless, I have some mid-sized YES limit orders set up in the 30s% to sell out of my position for anyone looking to set up larger NO positions. @Joshua @Robincvgr @Bayesian
Undoubtedly- evidence https://youtu.be/dYRmLnsfh-g?si=KbpZ9DsqeGif5bwr
You don't say your age limit is 12 if your age limit is 18.... Trump doesn't know how to not tell on himself always.
@FergusArgyll At this point, I will probably conduct a poll to resolve. Or some other process that doesn’t weight my personal opinion too much
@FergusArgyll Among other issues, (1) those outlets may not report on speculation, and (2) some may believe the mainstream media outlets are even more biased than a poll
@FergusArgyll This market should hopefully reflect the probability that the sexual relations occurred, not the probability that they become public.
@Conflux selling my “yes” at a loss because you seem to be changing the resolution criteria from your judgement to poll, which is probably worth about 25% difference
@Conflux A lack of any remotely credible allegations despite all the incentive in the world, and a heavy discounting of the general trend of everyone in politics constantly calling all their politicial enemies pedophiles because it's a good way to win elections.
Your prior should be under 1% for anyone of trump's status being a secret pedophile.
@Joshua under 1%??? what if it only happened once or twice, and there are NDAs or other incentives to keep it silent? what if it was ivanka?
@Conflux I mean your prior for anyone of Trump's level of importance. So other modern presidents, vice presidents, scotus justices, etc. These people are under constant scrutiny from the best journalists and political operatives in the world. There is no precedent for something like this being kept secret. Also manifold comments suck so come to the discord channel where I have elaborated more
@Lorelai So were many people and yet here we are decades later with no evidence. The burden of proof is obviously on people who believe the conspiracy theories
@Joshua what incentive, we have tons of evidence that Trump was running catch and kill campaign for decades. He paid off anyone and had them sign ndas. You think there’s an incentive to going through a traumatizing trial process where MAGA will smear your name and threaten you and your family?
@Joshua “There is no precedent for something like this being secret” seems like a silly phrase. If it was a secret, maybe we never found out?
@Conflux the entire argument is silly. If victims have so much to gain then why do the Epstein files implicate many of the wealthiest people on the planet? His argument is illogical at its core.
@KevinCurry The incentive is for journalists and political operatives to discover and publish the truth in a convincing format, and this is a very strong incentive which makes it impossible to keep something like this a secret indefinitely. Exactly the same logic by which I can tell you <1% we faked the moon landing without knowing a thing about retroreflectors or aerospace engineering.
We can get into the gritty details and how they should update you from your prior for a conspiracy theory on this scale, but obviously your prior should be very low.
@Joshua Is Dennis Hastert not precedent? He was a sitting representative for 20 years, and speaker of the house for 8, and the entire time he was hiding having molested kids before his time in office.
@Nick6d8e Hastert is a good reason I'd bet no at 10% but not at 1%, but a speaker of the house elected by his peers pre-social media is an order of magnitude less famous than Trump, the most famous human for decades.
To play some more reference class tennis, you can't jump from "the pope knew priests who abused children" to "there is a 50% chance that the pope himself abused children". If the pope was abusing children we definitely would have heard about it, the absence of evidence is quite strong bayesian evidence for absence. Same goes for Trump, Biden, Clinton, etc.
@Joshua I dunno, I think there was a lot of media pressure to find dirt on Hastert - especially near the end of his career he was facing several scandals and there was a lot of blood in the water for the media. Sure, he didn't have the same universal name recognition among the public as Trump does, but the media and political operatives had an extremely strong incentive to uncover things about him, and they didn't find it. I just don't don't think it's true that "it's impossible to keep something like this a secret" is as powerful a piece of evidence here as you suggest.
@Joshua love that girls'/women's testimony just doesn't count to men
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/12/donald-trump-jeffrey-epstein-alleged-rape-lawsuit
of course there's no way she was ever bought off/ bullied /intimidated into dropping the suit