Long Bets : Intelligent Predictions for the Future

Long Bets takes a long-term look at growth and change, whose stated goal is to "improve long-term thinking." The draw here is that people make long-term bets and back it up with cash which is later donated to charity.

The bets themselves are not your run-of-the-mill type deals. Some examples:

"In a Google search of five keywords or phrases representing the top five news stories of 2007, weblogs will rank higher than the New York Times' Web site."

"By 2020, bioterror or bioerror will lead to one million casualties in a single event."

"By 2050 no synthetic computer nor machine intelligence will have become truly self-aware (ie. will become conscious)."

Some of them come and go:

"As of March 7th, 2005, Osama bin Laden is dead."

Some of them mock the site itself:

"The Long Bets Foundation will no longer exist in 2104."

Read more at http://longbets.com.