August 31, 2004

Long Bets: Accountable predictions. The purpose of the Long Bets Foundation is to improve long-term thinking. There is real money involved, at least to participate, and along with bets there are predictions, some optimistic, some pessimistic and some that are just plain fanciful. And so I predict...

...that Monkeyfilter will beat the snot out of Metafilter in a nude cricket match held on Manitoulin Island in 2011. (I don't have a spare $50 at the moment, but I am a believer.)

posted by Jerry Garcia 20 years ago
  • Bbrrrr... but is it warm enough there for goin' in the nude? Oh, wait, it takes into account global warming. OK, I'm in! Got 6 years to learn cricket...
  • Can't we make it beach volleyball instead? In Rarotonga? Then the southern hemisphereans have the advantage, especially since Mathowie's going to be living in Iceland by then. You know, because he's going to love his trip there so much that he'll want to stay, and the cooler temperatures will prevent metafilter's servers from overheating. I also wager that MonkeyFilter will have trademarked lavender as a colour, and bananas, and Iwe will be very, very rich.
  • I'll have you know that Manitoulin Island is beautiful in the summer - 20-30 degrees, clear blue skies, clean water, and only some of the lakes infected with zebra mussels. Actually, the last time I was there, it was July, and so bloody hot (well above 30, maybe even up to 40) I nearly got heat stroke. I ended up in Espanola, Ontario, renting a motel room just to sit around in the airconditioning trying to recover.
  • Reading those long-term bets on there reminded me of the Book of Questions. However, I am not sure how the guy who is betting that someone born in 2000 will still be alive in 2150. Perhaps there was a portion of the site that assigned he winnings to one's heirs.
  • jb - that's in Fahrenheit, right? ;-)
  • How about we play them at Touch?
  • Oooh! I'm good at touch!
  • You do mean touch rugby, right?
  • Touch rugby? I'm in!
  • Actually, Polychrome - NO. Let me translate - it was frickin' 100 DEGREES! (Sorry for being a sour-puss - I know you were just ribbing, but I do get sick of people calling Canada cold when the summers are substantially hotter than most of Europe. Winters are subjectively warmer too, since they aren't so damp - you can bundle up against a dry cold. And most Americans just don't realise that the winters in Toronto are milder than upstate New York, and warmer than most of the Mid-West. So I just had to clear the story for all the people who will never see beautiful Manitoulin Island - also, my memories of being there and boiling (I was hiking) are quite vivid.)
  • jb - gotcha. Thanks for the, uh, clarification.