The house rules

This is a book of wagers on what the world will look like with artificial intelligence in it. It is open to anyone, and it asks one thing in return: that what you write down is a bet, not a banner.

A bet is not a wish

Writing that something will happen is not arguing that it should. The notebook takes no side on whether any future here is a good one. People who expect very different things, and who want very different things, are meant to be able to write in the same book without it becoming an argument about who is on whose side.

The useful question here is never “is this the future I want?” It is “would I put money on it?” — and, in a few years, “was I right?”

What makes a good entry

Something that can be settled. State it so that in ten years a stranger could tell whether you were right, without having to ask what you meant.
A year to judge it by. A bet with no horizon is an opinion.
Your reasoning, and what would change your mind. The reasoning is often worth more than the claim.
Your own verdict, when the time comes. The hand that wrote a bet is the one that settles it — including when it turns out wrong. Being wrong on the page is the point of keeping the book.

Marking one interesting

Anyone may mark a bet interesting, with no account and no name — it is one click, and it says “this one is worth watching”, not “I agree with this”.

A mark with no name behind it is counted by the address it came from: one per entry, so clearing your cookies and marking again does nothing, and a house or an office with one connection has one mark between them on any given bet. Sign in and the mark is yours instead — one each, kept for good, wherever you read from — and anything you marked before signing in comes with you.

Writing one

You need not sign in first. Write the bet; the last step asks for an address and posts you a key, and the bet goes into the ledger when you open it — in your hand, under whatever pen name you pick. A bet has an author because somebody has to settle it later. If the key is never opened, the bet is never written, and nothing of it is shown to anyone.

What gets struck out

Very little, and reluctantly. The ledger is kept by hand, and a line is ruled through an entry when it is:

not a bet at all — advertising, or a slogan with a year stapled to it;
aimed at a private person, rather than at the world;
unsettleable on purpose, written so that no outcome could ever count against it;
against the law, or an attempt to use the book to reach somebody who does not want to be reached.

The notebook watches for a short list of wording — hate slogans, the numbers that stand in for them, slurs — and when an entry uses any of it, the keeper is told to go and read that entry. Nothing is struck for being on a list: a claim about a thing reads the same to a list as a wish for it, and telling those apart is a person's job, not a filter's.

A struck entry is ruled through rather than torn out, and it can be put back: a judgement made by one person at one moment is exactly the sort of thing that ought to be reversible. A bet is not struck for being unpopular, uncomfortable, or probably wrong. Most of these bets will be wrong. That is what a book of wagers looks like.

Your name and your address

You sign with a pen name, which you may change or hide at any time. Nothing here checks it against anything — if you would rather be nobody, pick a stupid one — except that a name wearing a slur is refused, because a pen name is worn on every page you write and nobody chose to read it. Your address is never shown to anyone, and is kept for one reason: to post you a key when you sign in, and the yearly letter if you asked for one.

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