I’ll take Bashkirtsev’s can’t-lose side of the bet with James Annan
December 26, 2018
James Annan is low-key:
Clearly, James was out-maneuvered, and that's why I prefer Bashkirtsev's position. You make a bet with someone honorable, and if he loses, he pays, while if terms come out wrong for you, then you refuse to pay and instead offer him a new chance to lose his money. Repeat as needed.
I'll take a bet that gives me a one-in-a-million chance of winning and zero chance of losing. Bashkirtsev, I salute you!
More seriously, Nature magazine covered the original bet and should cover the resolution. Better yet, they should fly James to Russia and do an ambush video of the two Russians. Or fly ME there, I'll pretend to be James and scream WHERE'S MY MONEY, DENIALISTS??? WHERE'S MY MONEY?!!!
As a side note, I've criticized my own bets with David Evans as being over-complicated, but we did address this issue via an escalating series of bet amounts over three time periods, so there's that. And David seems honorable to me, however wrong wrong wrong, dangerously wrong, he may be on climate.
Another side note, here's a blog on climate betting: http://ohbwaa.blogspot.com/. I kind of think the moment has passed due to denialists being mostly unwilling to pony up (I've probably challenged over a dozen, and I know many others have done the same), but good for this blogger for publicizing it.
The bet - final outcome
You may be wondering what had happened with this. As you will recall, some time ago I arranged a bet with two Russian solar scientists who had predicted that the world was going to cool down. The terms of the bet were very simple, we would compare the global mean average surface temperature between 1998-2003 and 2012-17 (according to NCDC), and if the latter period was warmer, I would win $10,000 from them, and if it was cooler, they would win the same amount. See here and here for some of the news coverage at the time.
The results were in a while ago, and of course I won easily.....
So this should be the point at which I ask my blog readers for ideas as to what to spend the $10,000 on. I was hoping to do something that would be climatically and environmentally beneficial, perhaps something that might garner a bit of publicity and make a larger contribution. But they are refusing to pay. More precisely, Bashkirtsev is refusing to pay, and Mashnich is refusing to even reply to email. With impressive chutzpah, Bashkirtsev proposed we should arrange a follow-up bet which he would promise to honour. Of course I'd be happy to consider such a thing, once the first bet is settled. But it looks unlikely that this is going to happen.
Clearly, James was out-maneuvered, and that's why I prefer Bashkirtsev's position. You make a bet with someone honorable, and if he loses, he pays, while if terms come out wrong for you, then you refuse to pay and instead offer him a new chance to lose his money. Repeat as needed.
I'll take a bet that gives me a one-in-a-million chance of winning and zero chance of losing. Bashkirtsev, I salute you!
More seriously, Nature magazine covered the original bet and should cover the resolution. Better yet, they should fly James to Russia and do an ambush video of the two Russians. Or fly ME there, I'll pretend to be James and scream WHERE'S MY MONEY, DENIALISTS??? WHERE'S MY MONEY?!!!
As a side note, I've criticized my own bets with David Evans as being over-complicated, but we did address this issue via an escalating series of bet amounts over three time periods, so there's that. And David seems honorable to me, however wrong wrong wrong, dangerously wrong, he may be on climate.
Another side note, here's a blog on climate betting: http://ohbwaa.blogspot.com/. I kind of think the moment has passed due to denialists being mostly unwilling to pony up (I've probably challenged over a dozen, and I know many others have done the same), but good for this blogger for publicizing it.
