I want to state here that I regret my previous post, and have retracted it, primarily because it was not constructive and I think this post does an excellent job of calling out what a specific constructive dialogue looks like.
Of the above, the only ones that seem likely to me in the world I was imagining are MMLU and APPS—I’m much less familiar with the two math competitions, which seem like the other plausible ones.
I think I’ll take you up on the 2026 version at 1:1 odds.
Is it really constructive? This post presents no arguments for why they believe what they believe which should serve very little to convince others of long timelines. Moreover it proposes a bet from an assymetric position that is very undesirable for short-timeliners to take, since money is worth nothing to the dead, and even in the weird world where they win the bet and are still alive to settle it, they have locked their money for 8 years for a measly 33% return—less than expected by simply say, putting it in index funds. Believing in longer timelines gives you the privilege of signalling epistemic virtue by offering bets like this from a calm, unbothered position, while people sounding the alarm sound desperate and hasty, but there is no point in being calm when a meteor is coming towards you, and we are much better served by using our money to do something now rather than locking it in a long term bet.
Not only that, the decision from mods to push this to the frontpage is questionable since it served as a karma boost to this post that the other didn’t have, possibly giving the impression of higher support than it actually has.
On the reduced value of money given catastrophe: that could be used in a betting circumstance. Someone giving higher-than-market estimates could take a high-interest “loan” from the person giving lower estimates of catastrophe. This can be rational and efficient for both of them, and help “price in” the implied probability of doom.
By the way, just in case you didn’t know, you can edit your original post with a disclaimer at the beginning or something, if you want to make clear how your opinions have changed.
I want to state here that I regret my previous post, and have retracted it, primarily because it was not constructive and I think this post does an excellent job of calling out what a specific constructive dialogue looks like.
Of the above, the only ones that seem likely to me in the world I was imagining are MMLU and APPS—I’m much less familiar with the two math competitions, which seem like the other plausible ones.
I think I’ll take you up on the 2026 version at 1:1 odds.
Is it really constructive? This post presents no arguments for why they believe what they believe which should serve very little to convince others of long timelines. Moreover it proposes a bet from an assymetric position that is very undesirable for short-timeliners to take, since money is worth nothing to the dead, and even in the weird world where they win the bet and are still alive to settle it, they have locked their money for 8 years for a measly 33% return—less than expected by simply say, putting it in index funds. Believing in longer timelines gives you the privilege of signalling epistemic virtue by offering bets like this from a calm, unbothered position, while people sounding the alarm sound desperate and hasty, but there is no point in being calm when a meteor is coming towards you, and we are much better served by using our money to do something now rather than locking it in a long term bet.
Not only that, the decision from mods to push this to the frontpage is questionable since it served as a karma boost to this post that the other didn’t have, possibly giving the impression of higher support than it actually has.
On the reduced value of money given catastrophe: that could be used in a betting circumstance. Someone giving higher-than-market estimates could take a high-interest “loan” from the person giving lower estimates of catastrophe. This can be rational and efficient for both of them, and help “price in” the implied probability of doom.
Well, if OP is willing then I’d love to take a high-interest loan from him to be paid back in 2030.
By the way, just in case you didn’t know, you can edit your original post with a disclaimer at the beginning or something, if you want to make clear how your opinions have changed.
Already done.