Are you confident in your current ontology? Are you convinced that ultimately all ufos are prosaic in nature?
If so, do you want some immediate free money?
I suspect that LW's are overconfident in their views on ufos/uap. As such, I'm willing to offer what I think many will find to be very appealing terms for a bet.
The Bet
Essentially, I wish to bet on the world and rationalists eventually experiencing significant ontological shock as it relates to the nature of some ufos/uap.
Offer me odds for a bet, and the maximum payout you are willing to commit to. I will pick 1+ from the pool and immediately pay out to you. In the event that I ultimately win the bet, then you will pay out back to me.
I'm looking to give out between $5k-10k, but depends on what kinds of offers I get, could be more or less.
The Terms
- I Send you $X Immediately, You pay out Odds*X if I win
- ie, You offer 200:1 odds with max payout $20,000 and I will send you $100 immediately.
- 5 year time horizon starting from the date we confirm our bet.
- You offer the odds and maximum payout, I will pick from the available offers to maximize my expected returns, subject to my financial constraints.
Resolution Criteria
Two Worlds: All-ufos-are-ultimately-prosaic, and Not-all-ufos-are-ultimately-prosaic. I win the bet if we come to believe we likely live in the latter world. I win the bet if the ufo story ultimately gives us LW's a significant ontological shock. I win the bet if the ufo story ultimately causes the LW community to stop, melt, and catch fire. I've found it difficult to precisely nail down how to phrase this, so I hope its clear what kind of criteria I'm trying to get at.
Examples of things where if we come to believe at least one of them likely explain >0 ufo/uap cases, then I win the bet:
- Aliens / Extraterrestrials
- Biological
- Machines (Von Neumann probes, for instance)
- Actual magic/spiritual/paranormal/psychic phenomenon
- This explicitly does NOT include merely advanced "mentalist" type things / show magic
- ie, things like ESP, astral projection, demons, god(s), angels, ghosts, remote viewing, fairy's (actually anomalous, not just new kind of bird), etc.
- Basically, the kinds of things that standard atheist materialists would reject as not being real.
- Time travel
- ie, future human activities (or otherwise)
- Leftovers of an ancient civilization
- Some other unknown non-human advanced civilization on earth
- Matrix Glitches / The simulators have a sense of humor
- Some other explanation I'm missing that's of a similar level of "very weird"
- Merely advanced "normal" human tech would NOT count (+2 gens stealth aircraft/drones, advanced holograms/spoofing, etc)
- What WOULD count is if the story is significantly weird enough to cause ontological shock.
- example: Secret Manhattan style project with beyond next gen physics, that we had back in the 60's
- What WOULD count is if the story is significantly weird enough to cause ontological shock.
Important Note: The bet resolve in my favor if we think that one of the "weird hypotheses" is likely (>50%) true, NOT that we are confident in which specific explanation is true. Essentially, the bet resolves in my favor if we agree with the statement: "Whatever these most perplexing ufo/uap cases represent, they are likely something beyond our current paradigm"
Further Details
- I hereby forfeit any "gotcha" cases.
- I'm not trying to be slick or capitalize on technicalities. A world in which I win is one where the community would broadly agree that I won.
- Determination of resolution in my favor is left up to you.
- I reserve the right to appeal to the LW community to adjudicate resolution if I believe I am being stiffed.
- I hereby commit to not abusing this right. I don't expect that I would ever have to invoke it, I suspect it would be very obvious if I win or not to everyone.
- I reserve the right to appeal to the LW community to adjudicate resolution if I believe I am being stiffed.
If these terms are acceptable, please make an offer and maximum payout amount. I will select from available offers as I see fit. I would prefer to pay out in bitcoin/eth but can work with you for another method.
Cheers :D
To be clear, to resolve the bet in your favor, it has to be the case that:
a) We have >50% credence in "ontological shock" as you define it
and
b) UFOs/UAPs identified as of June 13 2023 are meaningfully a result of such "ontological shock" right?
(To be more explicit, I want to exclude scenarios like the following thing from being scored in your favor:
1. We discover novel philosophical arguments or empirical evidence that leads LessWrongers to believe we're on balance more likely to live in a simulation than not.
2. Causally, the UFOs are a result of simulations, because everything we experience is a result of simulations, including hot-air balloons).
Anyway, happy to bet at 30:1 to up to $30k of my money, assuming that I don't have to commit the $ to a third-party and this is just like a standard bet. (I'm willing to bet at those odds for either nominal USD $s or inflation-adjusted $2023 USD, if you want a different way to denominate the bet please let me know and I'll think about it).
Correct, I'm not trying to collect on something like that. I would in the case of a simulation only if it was also the case that the ufos were something unique and specific (ie, actual glitches, or something expressly put in by the programmers) as opposed to being trivially true in the way that you mention.
Correct, you do not have to commit the money to any third party, you merely have to affirm that you will pay out in the event that I win.
At the moment 30:1 is less than I would prefer, if in the next few days I do not get enough new offers then I might take you up on this. 50:1 is currently the lowest I have accepted.