The 'suckerification' economy [View all]

A dominant theme of life during the waning days of 2025 is that the economy feels a lot like a casino—or at least is suffused with the spirit of gambling. In a mature attention economy, people are vying for eyeballs, posting over and over again, hoping to hit an algorithmic jackpot. Meme stocks, crypto speculation, sports betting—all these varieties of wagering have become more popular in recent years, in part because they are an escape hatch for people who feel stuck or like they’ve lost access to the normal pathways to progress and financial security.

One of the emergent and growing elements of this cultural casino is prediction markets. These platforms let people wager on elections, award shows, the most trivial internet ephemera, and more, framing bets as tradable “shares” that rise and fall like stocks. With billions in weekly trading volume, massive new funding rounds, and even a CNN partnership with Kalshi, a leading prediction-market platform, this type of betting is quickly moving from a niche curiosity to a mainstream-media fixture. Recently, Kalshi’s CEO told a crowd at a financial conference that the long-term vision of his company is to “financialize everything and create a tradable asset out of any difference in opinion.” Tech CEOs always talk a big game, and yet this feels like a perfect example of the extractive hyper-growth mindset that plagues not only Silicon Valley, but our culture, economy, and politics in general.

So today’s Galaxy Brain episode is about prediction markets. I’m joined by writer Max Read, who argues that prediction markets sit at the intersection of gambling, finance, and a broader “suckerification” economy aimed at young men. He helps me understand whether the markets actually reflect the “wisdom of crowds” or whether they’re little more than a meta-game of vibes, ideology, and misvalued dumb money. Prediction markets may promise clarity, but what they really offer is another way to feel excitement in a world that seems rigged.





https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/2025/12/prediction-markets-and-the-suckerifcation-crisis-with-max-read/685330/

https://archive.ph/Tifq7