The bet is extremely one-sided. At the outset, you get a 21-year million dollar zero-interest loan, and if you win you don’t have to pay it back. There’s no upside for the other person at all. Even if you “lose”, the “winner” is giving you several million dollars in interest.
There are two reasons that offering this bet doesn’t make you look smart:
1. The problem with the bet is extremely obvious and doesn’t win you any cleverness points
2. In context, you appear to be using this bet to flout rationalist conversational norms.
3. You may also be violating the norms of the mailing list you’re using (sending jokes, sending the same email to multiple lists)
Specifically for the second point, rationalist argument norms generally expect people to do some combination of providing evidence, making a (real) bet, or acknowledging the lack of evidence (which is fine! not everything is legible, and sometimes you need time to acquire evidence).
In this situation, it seems you made an argument that at least one other person found unconvincing. They responded in a way that (from your account) sounds pretty rude. At this point you have two options, either responding to the unnecessarily personal attack or respond to their argument.
For example, it would be completely reasonable to say something like “I realize you’re not convinced by my argument, but I’d ask that you respond to the argument itself, and not generalizations about me (calling me a crackpot)”.
You decided to respond to them with a counterargument (that you are in fact a genius), at which point the conversational norms above come up. “Bob” seems to have picked “make a bet”, and you decided that “winning a Nobel Prize” is an unreasonable standard. I think you’re completely justified in turning down an impossible bet, and there are several productive responses available to you:
Turn down the bet, and choose a different avenue to make your argument (“I’m not sure if we can come up with a reasonable bet for this, but I’m working on something exciting right now. Let’s table this for now and we can see what you think when my paper/project/whatever is published.”)
Come up with a new, more reasonable bet (some options: a paper of yours is published in a sufficiently prestigious form; you’re invited to give a talk somewhere sufficiently prestigious; a neutral expert is chosen to adjudicate the bet in one year—but knowingly, not just by the accident of saying the word “genius”).
Instead, you countered with an even more unreasonable bet, sent it to multiple mailing lists, and doubled down when people asked you to stop (although they were also rude, from your account).
I hope this overly-detailed response is helpful. To be clear, I’ve never been on any of these mailing lists so I’m entirely relying on your account. My advice to you is:
1. Find a friend who participates on these mailing lists and get their opinion on whether you should apologize to the list or if just ending this thread is enough (I suspect a short “Sorry for the annoying messages / fake bet” would be helpful, but in some contexts people may just want the thread to end and would prefer not to get any more messages about it). I don’t know the full context but if this is everything, I suspect people will get over this fairly quickly if you stop making it worse.
2. In the future, if something like this comes up, don’t argue about vague things. You’re perfectly within your rights to ask people to be nicer, but in a situation like this I think it would be far more productive to go with the “Please don’t generalize about me; is there something you don’t like about the argument?” response.
3. When you are arguing a point, be aware that sarcasm is dangerous, and trying to play it straight is even more dangerous. In particular, the bet you made and the arguments around it are highly suspect in rationalist circles. No one wants to argue with someone who is being intentionally misleading. This sort of thing *might* be ok with friends and in person, but it’s almost never the right thing to do on a mailing list. If someone is arguing a point you disagree with, either give your evidence or defer the argument until you can collect more evidence.
FWIW I am attacking certain community norms, and I’m trying to use humor to do that. I can understand how this can shock and offend people I care about in the community. I’ve been through similar things before and it sucks, but I sometimes choose to do it anyway. Gadflies are important. I’m not talking about this dumb bet, exactly, but the “bet” has inspired me to work on more elaborate things that play off it. For instance: https://rokosbasilisknovel.com. Seeking constructive feedback.
The bet is extremely one-sided. At the outset, you get a 21-year million dollar zero-interest loan, and if you win you don’t have to pay it back. There’s no upside for the other person at all. Even if you “lose”, the “winner” is giving you several million dollars in interest.
There are two reasons that offering this bet doesn’t make you look smart:
1. The problem with the bet is extremely obvious and doesn’t win you any cleverness points
2. In context, you appear to be using this bet to flout rationalist conversational norms.
3. You may also be violating the norms of the mailing list you’re using (sending jokes, sending the same email to multiple lists)
Specifically for the second point, rationalist argument norms generally expect people to do some combination of providing evidence, making a (real) bet, or acknowledging the lack of evidence (which is fine! not everything is legible, and sometimes you need time to acquire evidence).
In this situation, it seems you made an argument that at least one other person found unconvincing. They responded in a way that (from your account) sounds pretty rude. At this point you have two options, either responding to the unnecessarily personal attack or respond to their argument.
For example, it would be completely reasonable to say something like “I realize you’re not convinced by my argument, but I’d ask that you respond to the argument itself, and not generalizations about me (calling me a crackpot)”.
You decided to respond to them with a counterargument (that you are in fact a genius), at which point the conversational norms above come up. “Bob” seems to have picked “make a bet”, and you decided that “winning a Nobel Prize” is an unreasonable standard. I think you’re completely justified in turning down an impossible bet, and there are several productive responses available to you:
Turn down the bet, and choose a different avenue to make your argument (“I’m not sure if we can come up with a reasonable bet for this, but I’m working on something exciting right now. Let’s table this for now and we can see what you think when my paper/project/whatever is published.”)
Come up with a new, more reasonable bet (some options: a paper of yours is published in a sufficiently prestigious form; you’re invited to give a talk somewhere sufficiently prestigious; a neutral expert is chosen to adjudicate the bet in one year—but knowingly, not just by the accident of saying the word “genius”).
Instead, you countered with an even more unreasonable bet, sent it to multiple mailing lists, and doubled down when people asked you to stop (although they were also rude, from your account).
I hope this overly-detailed response is helpful. To be clear, I’ve never been on any of these mailing lists so I’m entirely relying on your account. My advice to you is:
1. Find a friend who participates on these mailing lists and get their opinion on whether you should apologize to the list or if just ending this thread is enough (I suspect a short “Sorry for the annoying messages / fake bet” would be helpful, but in some contexts people may just want the thread to end and would prefer not to get any more messages about it). I don’t know the full context but if this is everything, I suspect people will get over this fairly quickly if you stop making it worse.
2. In the future, if something like this comes up, don’t argue about vague things. You’re perfectly within your rights to ask people to be nicer, but in a situation like this I think it would be far more productive to go with the “Please don’t generalize about me; is there something you don’t like about the argument?” response.
3. When you are arguing a point, be aware that sarcasm is dangerous, and trying to play it straight is even more dangerous. In particular, the bet you made and the arguments around it are highly suspect in rationalist circles. No one wants to argue with someone who is being intentionally misleading. This sort of thing *might* be ok with friends and in person, but it’s almost never the right thing to do on a mailing list. If someone is arguing a point you disagree with, either give your evidence or defer the argument until you can collect more evidence.
Thank you Korin43! I found this feedback super-useful.
FWIW I am attacking certain community norms, and I’m trying to use humor to do that. I can understand how this can shock and offend people I care about in the community. I’ve been through similar things before and it sucks, but I sometimes choose to do it anyway. Gadflies are important. I’m not talking about this dumb bet, exactly, but the “bet” has inspired me to work on more elaborate things that play off it. For instance: https://rokosbasilisknovel.com. Seeking constructive feedback.