When I read that, I didn’t expect him to actually pay up in the unlikely event the proof was right—there’s a big difference between saying ‘I bet my house’ on your blog and actually sending a few hundred thousand or million bucks to the Long Now Foundation’s Long Bets project.
It was an example of a more credible commitment than a blog post. To paraphrase Buffet’s Noah principle, ‘predicting rain doesn’t count, building arks does’.
EDIT: an additional disadvantage to Long Bets is that they stash the stakes in a very low return fund (but one that should be next to invulnerable). Depending on your views about the future and your investment abilities, the opportunity cost could be substantial.
When I read that, I didn’t expect him to actually pay up in the unlikely event the proof was right—there’s a big difference between saying ‘I bet my house’ on your blog and actually sending a few hundred thousand or million bucks to the Long Now Foundation’s Long Bets project.
Likewise.
With Long Bets you lose the money (to your chosen charity) even if you are right, so not an ideal comparison.
It was an example of a more credible commitment than a blog post. To paraphrase Buffet’s Noah principle, ‘predicting rain doesn’t count, building arks does’.
EDIT: an additional disadvantage to Long Bets is that they stash the stakes in a very low return fund (but one that should be next to invulnerable). Depending on your views about the future and your investment abilities, the opportunity cost could be substantial.