I was mildly disappointed in the responses to my last question, so I did a bit of thinking and came up with some answers myself. I'm not super happy with them either, and would love feedback on them + variations, new suggestions, etc. The ideas are:
1. I approach someone who has longer timelines than me, and I say: I'll give you $X now if you promise to publicly admit I was right later and give me a platform, assuming you later come to update significantly in my direction.
2. I approach someone who has longer timelines than me, and I say: I'll give you $X now if you agree to talk with me about timelines for 2 hours. I'd like to hear your reasons, and to hear your responses to mine. The talk will be recorded. Then I get one coupon which I can redeem for another 2-hour conversation with you.
3. I approach someone who has longer timelines than me, and I say: For the next 5 years, you agree to put x% of your work-hours into projects of my choosing (perhaps with some constraints, like personal fit). Then, for the rest of my life, I'll put x% of my work-hours into projects of your choosing (constraints, etc.).
The problem with no. 3 is that it's probably too big an ask. Maybe it would work with someone who I already get along well with and can collaborate on projects, whose work I respect and who respects my work.
The point of no. 2 is to get them to update towards my position faster than they otherwise would have. This might happen in the first two-hour conversation, even. (They get the same benefits from me, plus cash, so it should be pretty appealing for sufficiently large X. Plus, I also benefit from the extra information which might help me update towards longer timelines after our talk!) The problem is that maybe forced 2-hour conversations don't actually succeed in that goal, depending on psychology/personality.
A variant of no 2 would simply be to challenge people to a public debate on the topic. Then the goal would be to get the audience to update.
The point of no. 1 is to get them to give me some of their status/credibility/platform, in the event that I turn out to be probably right. The problem, of course, is that it's up to them to decide whether I'm probably right, and it gives them an incentive to decide that I'm not!
Thanks! Yeah, your criticism of no. 3 is correct. As for no. 1, yeah, probably this works best for bets with people who I don't think would do this correctly absent a bet, but who would do it correctly with a bet... which is perhaps a narrow band of people!
How high would you need for no. 2? I might do it anyway, just for the information value. :) My views on timelines haven't yet been shaped by much direct conversation with people like yourself.
Counterfactuals are hard. I wouldn't be committing to donate it. (Also, if I were going to donate it, but it would have been donated anyway, then $4,000 no longer seems worth it if we ignore the other benefits.)
I agree with "at least slightly".
Idk, empirically when I discuss things with people whose beliefs are sufficiently different from mine, it doesn't seem like their behavior changes much afterwards, even if they say they updated towards X. Similarly, when people talk to me, I often don't see myself making any particular changes to how I think or behave. There's definitely change over the course of a year, but it feels extremely difficult to ascribe that to particular things, and I think it more often comes from reading things that people wrote, rather than talking to them.