[masukomi]

ignoring the tech, i think many folks here are missing the point. Assume you really want to quit smoking right now, and you are also pro choice. With a system like this you can say "I will quit smoking in 2 months or this $5000 will go to an anti-abortion charity." now THIS system doesn't do that BUT the core point remains, if you can attach "significant" loss to NOT achieving a goal it can help motivate people (not all people, but you get teh point).

this system is limited in that it can only do "money" for significance. it can't also tie it to something you loathe. I don't think any of the available things ( https://www.beeminder.com/ was mentioned by someone ) can do this, but you can do it with a friend you trust.

to those who suggested having the money go to charity: Having the money go to a charity you LIKE is a terrible idea because then if you fail in your task "well at least my favorite charity is getting money" You actually have incentive to fail.

[rmaus]

Did something similar to this at a previous employer. We had a problem with a particular weekly meeting starting on time, so we all agreed on a $1 late fee, per minute. At year's end, the collected fees were gifted to one of the firm's wealthy executives whom we all disliked. The meeting's on-time rate skyrocketed.

[mulmen]

Did you send a card along with the money explaining this to the executive?

[rmaus]

Hah, yes and no. The card said we wanted the money to go to the person we thought needed it the least. However, he knew he was not well-liked, presumably connected the dots, and thought it was funny anyways.

[mulmen]

So he has a sense of humor. That would make me like him more which means I would sadly be late to a lot of your meetings.

[gitgud]

Dear Jim,

We begrudgingly offer you this gift as a token of our accumulated tardiness to company meetings.

Regards,

Your subordinates

[rconti]

The good news is, none of them have to attend the meeting anymore.

[Fnoord]

I used to run a CLI program called smoketimer [1]. It'd give an output like (from the README example):

"4 Months, one week, 5 days, two hours, 51 minutes, 39 seconds. 3084 cigarettes not smoked, saving EUR 478.02. Life saved: One week, one day, 13 hours, 36 minutes."

After I saved up an X amount of money (a year or so?), I bought myself a laptop from that; the first laptop I ever bought for myself. Quite a decent motivator if I may say so myself.

Sure, I had relapses. Multiple even. Last one in 2014, whilst on vacation (very difficult time for me not smoking on vacation). I bought one pack, ended up throwing away half of it.

[1] https://www.stack.nl/~martijnb/smoketimer.tgz

[jameslevy]

That's a very interesting idea, although it would be pretty tricky to implement in a way that didn't require self-reporting. The main obvious benefit using a smart contract could provide is automatically making the donation unless you actively lie (or tell the truth) that you didn't smoke at all, and the UI could play that up by asking you if you're sure you aren't lying.