Bets

Current

Driverless Cars

Initiated: 2017-07-12
Resolves: 2027-07-12

Bet Dave Casserly $100 to his $900 that we have driverless cars. Specifically, that we can get into a driverless car at my dad's house in West Medford, navigate to 0 Brattle St Cambridge and then to the Concord Scout House. Safety driver allowed, but if they intervene bet is lost.

Both of our contributions are invested under Dave's name in VTSMX at Vanguard.

(ref)

GitHub Copilot Litigation

Initiated: 2022-12-07
Resolves: 2027-12-07

Started a prediction market on whether the Copilot suit will succeed, and bought 133 "no" shares. On 2023-01-23 I bought 85 more "no" shares.

GDPR and Ad Fraud

Initiated: 2023-01-17
Resolves: 2028-01-01

Started a prediction market on whether the GDPR will be interpreted to ban ad fraud detection, and bought 86 "no" shares.

Long Now Foundation

Initiated: 2019-12-10
Resolves: 2030-01-01

Bet Eric Newsom $10 to his $10 that the Long Now Foundation will still be operating.

I win if I write to them to ask if Long Bets is still an active project, and they write back to say they're still resolving bets as they come due.

July Fourth Drone Displays

Initated: 2018-11-29
Resolves: 2030-07-04

Bet Colin Schimmelfing $50 to his $50 that of the top 30 US cities that have big public fireworks or drone displays on 7/4, at least 20% will be fireworks.

If a show incorporates both but one is clearly the main event (ex: fireworks, with a bit of drone stuff, or the reverse) then we count the main event. If it seems pretty even then we don't count that city at all, just like if it didn't have either fireworks or drones.

Impact of pre-2019 Leverage Research

Initated: 2022-09-15
Resolves: 2032-10-01

If a Leverage paper drawing primarily on their pre-2019 research has 100+ citations from people who've never worked for Leverage by 2032-10-01, then I'll donate $100 to a charity of Geoff Anders' choosing; if not then Geoff will do the same for a charity of my choosing.

Banning Human Drivers

Initiated: 2018-11-15
Resolves 2037-11-15

Bet David German $50 to his $50 that no state has banned human drivers. Driving on private roads or in emergency situations wouldn't count.

National Abortion Ban

Initiated: 2018-06-28
Resolves: 2040-01-01

Bet BDan $100 to their $10 that abortion will be legal somewhere in the us, conditional on a full ban being legal.

If a person gets pregnant and wants an abortion just because they want one, there is some place in the US where they can legally have one performed at some stage of pregnancy.

UK Slaughterhouses

Inititated: 2019-05-06
Resolves: 2050-12-31

Bet Dean Mullen $200 to his $200 that slaughterhouses will continue to be legal in the UK through 2050 (longbets).

Moon Visit

Initiated 2020-02-03
Resolves 2060-02-03

Bet david C $70 to his $30 that someone will have touched the moon since 2020-02-03, payment to be adjusted for inflation.

Kurzweil Lifespan

Initiated 2013-12-29
Resolves 2063-12-16

Bet Max Newman $0.10 to his $0.05 that Ray Kurzweil won't still be alive.

Past

Boston Spring Covid Wave

Initiated: 2022-02-17
Resolved: 2022-04-13 (lost)

Bet Danner Clafflin one fancy chocolate bar that there will not be a Spring covid wave in Boston. Specifically, that MWRA Biobot will not report a seven-day average over 500 copies/ml any time between now and 2022-07-01.

2020 Alaska Senate Race

Initiated: 2020-11-06
Resolved: 2021-01-03 (lost)

Bet David Chudzicki $10 to his $60 that Al Gross beats Dan Sullivan.

2020 Snow

Resolved: 2020-08-01 (won)

Bet Rick $10 to his $1 that we have no accumulations of at least 1" of snow between March 2020 and August 2020.

USA Covid Deaths

Initiated: 2020-03-09
Resolves: 2021-01-01, but resolved early (won)

Bet Jess 200 reputation points (which I value equally to $200) that Coronavirus kills 50k+ people in the US.

Tesla Privatization

Initiated: 2018-08-08
Resolved: 2018-08-25 (won)

Bet Jim Babcock that it would turn out that Musk did not have what a reasonable person would consider to be funding secured sufficient to take Tesla private at the time he tweeted. (ref)

2016 GOP Candidate

Initated: 2016-04-09
Resolved: 2016-07-21 (lost)

Bet David German $6 to his $94 that the 2016 GOP presidential nominee would be someone other than Trump, Cruz, Kasich, Romney, or Ryan.

2016 DEM Candidate

Initiated: 2016-03-02
Resolved: 2016-07-12 (lost)

Bet David C $20 that Sanders would be nominated to his $300 that Clinton would be.