doodledee

I read about this cool website, Longbets.org, in a recent article in the New York Times. It's a place where philanthropists can wager their generous charitable donations on whether or not their vision of the future will be proven correct. Basically, some dude prognosticates some crazy idea and then bets [at least] $1000 that it'll come true. Eventually, some other dude comes along and bets their money against the prediction. All proceeds go to the charity selected by the eventual winner of the bet.

Some of the bets are a hoot. Ted Danson bet $1000 that the Red Sox will win the World Series before the United States national team wins Soccer's World Cup. Ray Kurzweil bet $10,000 that a computer will pass the Turing Test before 2029. (Sorry, Ray, seeing as Alice is apparently the best we can currently do, I don't see that happening.)

Of all the ones I read, however, this was my favorite:

Defense classes? What good will that do? When a robot grabs you with those metal claws, you can't break free... because they're made of metal, and robots are strong. They should just skip the classes and give each kid some robot insurance.

I was thinking I should follow-up that bet with one that predicts that by 2190, people will look back on the robot defense classes as being as ludicrous as another noteworthy civil defense initiative from our past. Unfortunately, I'm too into instant gratification to wait around and see if I'm right or not, so I think I'll pass.