[comp_throw7]

> No one has participate in the "rationalist" subculture's weird practices.

True!

> It means nothing to refuse to take a bet like that, let alone that the claims made in the article are suspect (which you seem to be implying).

False! If the author was sufficiently confident in their claims, they'd be happy to take the free money (or, if they're sufficiently liquidity-constrained, propose a smaller bet at similar terms). You can certainly argue that the practice of betting on one's beliefs is "weird" but that objection is circular. If you claim to see free money on the ground, and other people notice that you aren't picking it up, they would be correct to wonder why.

[seanhunter]

It's not free money on the ground, it's a bet on the outcome of some event.

You're presupposing that the only possible rational reason they might have to not bet might be that they are not confident but that's obviously not the case.

Just to pick one possible rational reason, maybe they or a loved one have been touched by the negative consequences of gambling so they don't believe in betting?

[Dylan16807]

> It's not free money on the ground, it's a bet on the outcome of some event.

If you have convincing enough evidence for it, a bet is more likely than something that looks like money on the ground. Imagine betting the sun will rise tomorrow.

> You're presupposing that the only possible rational reason they might have to not bet might be that they are not confident but that's obviously not the case.

They didn't say it's the only reason, just that refusing to bet weakens their claim of confidence. Plausible but unconfirmed reasons are why it's only a weakening rather than disproof, but it's still a weakening.

[seanhunter]

It may weaken their claim for you. To me, refusing to take an ego bet with some random on the internet suggests they're not 9 years old.

And no I wouldn't bet that the sun will rise tomorrow. For a number of reasons. Firstly I don't care that much about money (shocking but true), so there is little to no upside if I was to win the bet other than the general benefit I would derive from the sun rising and I get that whether I bet or not.

Secondly I think betting about facts is an incredibly foolish thing to do in general. If anyone offers you a bet about some fact, you are the sucker and you just haven't figured out how yet. Your best move is not to play.

Finally betting with some random that I have no reason to think would make good on their side of the bet if I was to win. idk man that just seems like a really dumb idea. I don't understand why people think it makes them smart to think otherwise.

[Dylan16807]

It's only an ego bet if you don't care about money. Most people would significantly enjoy an extra hundred or thousand dollars. It's a big upside.

> If anyone offers you a bet about some fact, you are the sucker and you just haven't figured out how yet. Your best move is not to play.

I think it's pretty clear in this case that's it's a genuine disagreement about the fate of the company.

> Finally betting with some random that I have no reason to think would make good on their side of the bet if I was to win. idk man that just seems like a really dumb idea. I don't understand why people think it makes them smart to think otherwise.

There are plenty of trustworthy arbiters/platforms available. For most people spending a couple hours looking into it is easily worth the money... if they're right.

[comp_throw7]

> Secondly I think betting about facts is an incredibly foolish thing to do in general. If anyone offers you a bet about some fact, you are the sucker and you just haven't figured out how yet. Your best move is not to play.

Well, that sure sounds like a claim about how confident one should be about their understanding of reality. One most people disagree with, incidentally - do you own any equities?

Counterparty risk is a valid reason to avoid certain bets (or bet structures), but a totally separate objection from "betting is a weird thing that only weirdos do".

[tivert]

You need to come up for air. You seem to be stuck so deep in that weird subculture's "logic" that you're having trouble imagining someone who isn't.

I don't gamble, and even if I did I certainly wouldn't take a bet for a large sum of money with some internet rando playing a rhetorical game.

[why_only_15]

If you are making a prediction about the world, why not gamble on it? It shows to others that you have an actual stake as opposed to blathering.

[tivert]

Come up for air. I'm not part of that subculture and I feel no need indulge it or to prove myself to members of it by participating in its rituals.

[ifyoubuildit]

As someone who doesn't know what subculture you're talking about, parent's argument sounds reasonable to me. There's even an old saying that everyone has probably heard - "Why don't you put your money where your mouth is." Is that some kind of fringe thing now?

[tivert]

> As someone who doesn't know what subculture you're talking about...

Bets like the one discussed here are a rhetorical tic of the "rationalist" community.

> ...parent's argument sounds reasonable to me.

Kinda sorta. It's just a weird ritual of theirs to demonstrate commitment, and they often have a really hard time understanding that their weird rituals and mores are not universal and they can't reasonably go around expecting random people on the internet to follow them. Challenging someone to a bet like this comes off exactly as a challenge to prove your commitment by putting a bucket on your head and banging it with a stick for an hour, just because that's some weird thing the challenger's friends do among themselves.

[comp_throw7]

This is an argument about social perception. Once you get over the fact that some community on the internet does this thing, and you think that community is weird (and therefore the thing itself is also weird), you may observe that all human actions are implicit bets on various beliefs. Explicitly wagering money is just a special case of making certain narrow beliefs much more legible.

I agree that in practice, it's pretty likely that the author of the piece refuses to bet at least in part because betting substantial sums of money on outcomes that are non-central subjects of wagers (i.e. not an explicit game of chance, sports, politics, etc) is socially unusual. But I also think that if he was very confident he'd be happy to take the money.

[ifyoubuildit]

You're using the word weird a lot, but I don't see what's so weird about the concept of "put your money where your mouth is" (or "put up or shutup", or "wanna bet?", or other variations on the theme).

The bucket on head example certainly is weird. I just don't see how that's related. The logic I'm seeing is 1) the "rationalist" community does x, 2) I don't like the rationalist community, 3) so x is stupid. Is there more to it?

[fragmede]

the market can stay irrational liner than you can stay solvent though, and $10k is a lot of money to bet for those of us who didn't get crypto rich. refusing to take part in your weird games doesn't say what you think it does.

[consteval]

> If the author was sufficiently confident in their claims

What? No.

I'm very confident in my driving skills. I'm a great defensive driver. But I won't bet on me not getting in a wreck this next year.

Because the real world is complicated and truly anything can happen. That doesn't mean you're right, that means you got lucky.

For example the Simpson's creators aren't clairvoyant geniuses, they just happened to get a lot of stuff right.

[comp_throw7]

> But I won't bet on me not getting in a wreck this next year.

You already have, by deciding on a specific level of coverage for your auto insurance policy.

(That aside - really? Either you get into many more accidents than the average person, or you're not extrapolating out into the future. If given the chance to take the same bet at 1:1 odds every year, surely you'd then take it every year until you decided to stop driving for safety reasons?)

[consteval]

I commute 15 hours a week. In Texas.

I see a few accidents a day. Nobody actually wants to drive really, we just do it because we have to. If I could teleport to work or even take a train I'd do it, and I'm not alone in that.

Point is, I don't feel comfortable betting on things where there's a large amount of outside influence. And no, insurance isn't betting. It's risk pooling, not betting.

[imtringued]

Nobody cares about someone being wrong in the past, because people update their beliefs all the time.

Meanwhile a bet over a silly internet discussion can get stuck in significant transaction costs vs buying, selling or even shorting a stock for the same money.