7 ms·

The original URL for this prediction will no longer be available in 11 years (2011)

210 points by doubletwoyou 2mo ago

JoshTriplett 2mo ago
> entering the characters http://www.longbets.org/601 http://www.longbets.org/601 into the address bar of a web browser or command line tool (like curl) The part of this that's most likely to fail at some point is the "http://".
- ywain 2mo ago
  The detailed terms of the bet include this: > A 301 redirect from www.longbets.org/601 to a different URL containing that text would also fulfill those conditions. I assume this would cover the HTTP->HTTPS redirect scenario.
  - kijin 2mo ago
    I think the parent is referring to the possibility that one day, browsers might put up a blanket security warning for HTTP URLs instead of following redirects. Or they might try to be a little too clever with HTTPS upgrades. In particular, the automatic upgrade feature in modern browsers is based on several heuristics rather than explicit configuration like HSTS, so there's always a bit of room for breakage there. For example, they don't even check if the server returns a 301 redirect, which can be problematic if the server wants to redirect to HTTPS on a different host/port or make some changes to the path.
    - tredre3 2mo ago
      > Or they might try to be a little too clever with HTTPS upgrades. They're not going to get any cleverer than they are now. In October we'll finally be done with heuristics or central databses of https-first websites used by the various browsers or the half a dozen of headers that you must dance around to get the upgrade to work securely and reliably. They will just default to https first. https://blog.google/security/https-by-defau/ https://blog.google/security/https-by-defau/ Yes this is about Chrome, but all others will follow.
      - JoshTriplett 2mo ago
        Personally, if I were interpreting the bet, and that browser behavior had been changed before the day of the bet, I'd interpret that as failure, because the browser didn't show an HTML page, it showed a warning dialogue. And in any case, at some point after browsers start doing that, I will be unsurprised if some further conditions prevail that provide reason for web servers to stop listening on http at all.
  - oofbey 2mo ago
    Yeah that was a clever bit of foresight there.
- ludwik 2mo ago
  In my mind, the part that is most likely to fail is "return an HTML document that still contains the following text." Nowadays, more and more "HTML documents" do not contain any content at all, just some JavaScript that is responsible for then fetching and displaying the content.
  - bombcar 2mo ago
    I used to be someone, man, I was a dreamer, a programmer, a man! Now I'm a human slave copying text from web browsers to chat windows to get around JS rendering bullshit.
    - someguyiguess 2mo ago
      One of those things is true
    - andai 2mo ago
      The preferred term is meat proxy ;)
      - TeMPOraL 2mo ago
        That depends on which side of the JS rendering bullshit you're sitting. If you're on the serving side, yes. But I do the same as GP, just on the receiving side. That is, reaching out for help to baby eldritch entity, because that's healthier for my mind than dealing directly with the unspeakable horrors that half the websites are today. The industry has lost its collective mind in pursue of profit and control, and that was long before the thousand-mask wearing shoggoths became our daily consorts.
        andai 2mo ago
        I like your funny words, magic man.
  - TeMPOraL 2mo ago
    You two have just spelled out a very specific bet. Care to put a wager on it? :)
EGreg 2mo ago
It's all a matter of whether someone is willing to pay for the hosting. Which is not, in my opinion, how things should be hosted on the Web. Freenet had a different approach, even back in the early days (two decades ago). I interviewed Ian Clarke about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWrRqUkJpMQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWrRqUkJpMQ I wrote about it for years: https://community.intercoin.app/t/who-pays-for-storage-nfts-and-other-digital-content-in-2022/2326 https://community.intercoin.app/t/who-pays-for-storage-nfts-... And recently I built Safecloud to be different: https://safebots.github.io/Safecloud/ https://safebots.github.io/Safecloud/
- hypfer 2mo ago
  On HN, a TLDR would be helpful, because just clicking your links would potentially mean falling for shilling of ones own side-hustle. I bet there's complexity to the topic, but I am sure you could put it into a few words instead of just leaving a hook for others to click on.
  - tredre3 2mo ago
    I know nothing of Safecloud, but freenet failed for a very valid reasons: 1. Data retention isn't infinite. If the source disappears from the network, peers will prune it shortly. This is exponentially true in our multimedia-heavy world. 2. Despite 1, if you actually want to delete something you published, you can't. Absolutists will see this as a good thing. Normal people will see this as a problem. 3. Peer-to-peer doesn't work in a mobile-first world, and not enough people will host nodes as a hobby. If all website publishers/hosters have to host a node, then we're just back to the current model but with extra steps.
    - bblb 2mo ago
      Closed-garden mobile-first tech feudalism lobotimized the Internet. I remember trying out the Freenets, I2Ps, and whatnot in the 90's. Too cumbersome nerdy tools to use for anything actually worthwhile. It was born in the idealized world village of the 90's Internet. Maybe real life doesn't work like that, and the lobotimized centralized tech will eventually win.
vvoyer 2mo ago
Amazing that Disqus comments are still live for this page. More impressive even than the website itself being live.
- DonHopkins 2mo ago
  I'm grateful the comments are still there, since they reminded me to get back in touch with my old friend Craig Hubley!
- jamiek88 2mo ago
  I really liked disqus back in the day. When I was in my kinda cringey singularity phase, Kurzweil and all that. Tracking comments across similar blogs with the same people was handy.
matsemann 2mo ago
At a certain bet size it would almost be self-fulfilling, heh, as one side would be very incentivized to keep at least that url working (buying the domain + hosting it if the page were to die)
- 9dev 2mo ago
  Someone should do a long bet on the continuous existence of longbets.com
mike_d 2mo ago
I'm not sure how it played out in 2011, but as of now it looks like the win condition hinges on the redirect. For the heck of it I confirmed "http://www.longbets.org/601 http://www.longbets.org/601" does in fact result in a 301 redirect to "https://longbets.org/601/ https://longbets.org/601/". I suspected they might have used a 302.
firefoxd 2mo ago
One thing I've done is include my redirect rules with the web application. So my links continue to work even when I change them and forget them. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46139686 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46139686
- latexr 2mo ago
  I was expecting some kind of system that would follow the pages automatically without you having to do extra work when changing the URL (“continue to work even when I change them and forget them”) but it looks like you still add the redirects manually? That’s more than most will do, sure, but it doesn’t seem like it saves you from a broken link if you forget to add a specific redirect or miss it during a mass format change. Am I missing something?
mg 2mo ago
It is actually pretty easy to keep alive URLs if there is a will to do so. Just have tests in place so you can't mess them up accidentally. And convert things that are not changing anymore to static html. One of my first web projects involved a music forum and I have been keeping the URLs alive for 24 years now: https://www.gnoosic.com/discussion/ https://www.gnoosic.com/discussion/ I feel like I owe it to the people who participated to keep it online forever. Also as a document of history.
- vasco 2mo ago
  It's not easy. Part of the instructions would need to contain things like "how to convince your boss to not just delete the old thing" and "what to do when the startup you worked for went bankrupt" among others. Most URLs don't disappear by mistake.
- fragmede 2mo ago
  Well, and pay registrar and hosting fees for 100 years, and then just hope the hosting company doesn't fold in the interim after your passing. The problem isn't "can you make sure it stays up while you're alive", the problem is, after you're gone, you're no longer there to keep the flame alive and there are no guarantees anyone else picks up the torch.
  - iansmith_hn 2mo ago
    Does this suggest a subscription(ish) business where you pay the hosting company for N years and then they ensure your website stays up and unchanged for N years after you die? Quality control issue? Given how many things want me to pay a subscription while I'm alive, surely somebody will start charging me when I'm dead. It is the logical conclusion of SaaS. I wanted to create an acronym for this, but death as a service didn't seem like the best choice.
    - nycdotnet 2mo ago
      There is certainly precedent for this - will executors for example. How about “SCITA? Service continues in the afterlife.
CSMastermind 2mo ago
It's worth noting that some prediction URLs, for instance: https://longbets.org/6/ https://longbets.org/6/ are offline. The original long bet was whether or not computers could pass the turing test by 2029: https://longbets.org/1/ https://longbets.org/1/ You'd think that LLMs fulfill this, but I do wonder if a clever human could still discern between them given their particularities. https://longbets.org/9/ https://longbets.org/9/ is another interesting one depending on whether you think covid leaked from a lab or not.
- sublinear 2mo ago
  > You'd think that LLMs fulfill this, but I do wonder if a clever human could still discern between them given their particularities. You don't even have to be that clever. We've all tried using it for work. They fail. In the first place, the Turing test was always a loosely defined thought experiment. I suppose it's still serving that purpose, but at least half of HN takes it way too seriously. It's absolutely not proof of <engagementbait> endorsed by Alan Turing himself.
  - frotaur 2mo ago
    I think if you trained an LLM specifically for the purpose of passing the Turing test (instead of being helpful, harmful, and so on), its likely it would pass it. You would have to train it/finetune it on a couple hundred of 'humans chatting in the context of a Turing test'.
    - sublinear 2mo ago
      I'd like to see an honest attempt at that. What's more interesting are the types of humans that might fail the Turing test. Maybe to discourage the failure of real humans, there could be consequences outside the context of the test. That is, most people accused of being a computer would crack and start pleading their humanity, but some sociopaths might not. I then wonder how many of them overlap with those so invested in abusing the premise of the Turing test. It really is a fun thought experiment when you spice it up enough.
    - 2mo ago
sucuri2 2mo ago
Anyway to find all bets expiring this year? it will be interesting to see. Could not find a way to search for it there.
cortesoft 2mo ago
This is basically a bet on if you think longbets is going to be around.
RinatNabiev 2mo ago
[dead]
RinatNabiev 2mo ago
[dead]
rowanadeyemi 2mo ago
[flagged]
phil-pickering 2mo ago
Some nice posts about his prediction on Jeremy Keith's blog: https://adactio.com/journal/tags/longbets https://adactio.com/journal/tags/longbets
- doubletwoyou 2mo ago
  Wow, that could be a post of it’s own
predictsoft 2mo ago
I like the comment on the site about blockchains replacing HTML links (from 4 years ago).
mikewarot 2mo ago
Ugh, I really hate SSL. This is a simple text page, why couldn't it live where it was? C:\Users\User>curl -i http://longbets.org/601/ HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently Date: Sun, 09 Aug 2026 16:49:33 GMT Content-Type: text/html Content-Length: 178 Connection: keep-alive Server: nginx/1.18.0 (Ubuntu) Location: https://longbets.org/601/ X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN <html> <head><title>301 Moved Permanently</title></head> <body> <center><h1>301 Moved Permanently</h1></center> <hr><center>nginx/1.18.0 (Ubuntu)</center> </body> </html> Yes, I'm an old fart, yelling at the internet clouds. You'll get here some day too, if you're lucky. I am quite impressed that the bet included above redirection as part of the terms.

210 points by doubletwoyou 2mo ago

> entering the characters http://www.longbets.org/601 http://www.longbets.org/601 into the address bar of a web browser or command line tool (like curl) The part of this that's most likely to fail at some point is the "http://".

ywain 2mo ago
The detailed terms of the bet include this: > A 301 redirect from www.longbets.org/601 to a different URL containing that text would also fulfill those conditions. I assume this would cover the HTTP->HTTPS redirect scenario.
- kijin 2mo ago
  I think the parent is referring to the possibility that one day, browsers might put up a blanket security warning for HTTP URLs instead of following redirects. Or they might try to be a little too clever with HTTPS upgrades. In particular, the automatic upgrade feature in modern browsers is based on several heuristics rather than explicit configuration like HSTS, so there's always a bit of room for breakage there. For example, they don't even check if the server returns a 301 redirect, which can be problematic if the server wants to redirect to HTTPS on a different host/port or make some changes to the path.
  - tredre3 2mo ago
    > Or they might try to be a little too clever with HTTPS upgrades. They're not going to get any cleverer than they are now. In October we'll finally be done with heuristics or central databses of https-first websites used by the various browsers or the half a dozen of headers that you must dance around to get the upgrade to work securely and reliably. They will just default to https first. https://blog.google/security/https-by-defau/ https://blog.google/security/https-by-defau/ Yes this is about Chrome, but all others will follow.
    - JoshTriplett 2mo ago
      Personally, if I were interpreting the bet, and that browser behavior had been changed before the day of the bet, I'd interpret that as failure, because the browser didn't show an HTML page, it showed a warning dialogue. And in any case, at some point after browsers start doing that, I will be unsurprised if some further conditions prevail that provide reason for web servers to stop listening on http at all.
- oofbey 2mo ago
  Yeah that was a clever bit of foresight there.
ludwik 2mo ago
In my mind, the part that is most likely to fail is "return an HTML document that still contains the following text." Nowadays, more and more "HTML documents" do not contain any content at all, just some JavaScript that is responsible for then fetching and displaying the content.
- bombcar 2mo ago
  I used to be someone, man, I was a dreamer, a programmer, a man! Now I'm a human slave copying text from web browsers to chat windows to get around JS rendering bullshit.
  - someguyiguess 2mo ago
    One of those things is true
  - andai 2mo ago
    The preferred term is meat proxy ;)
    - TeMPOraL 2mo ago
      That depends on which side of the JS rendering bullshit you're sitting. If you're on the serving side, yes. But I do the same as GP, just on the receiving side. That is, reaching out for help to baby eldritch entity, because that's healthier for my mind than dealing directly with the unspeakable horrors that half the websites are today. The industry has lost its collective mind in pursue of profit and control, and that was long before the thousand-mask wearing shoggoths became our daily consorts.
      - andai 2mo ago
        I like your funny words, magic man.
- TeMPOraL 2mo ago
  You two have just spelled out a very specific bet. Care to put a wager on it? :)

EGreg 2mo ago

It's all a matter of whether someone is willing to pay for the hosting. Which is not, in my opinion, how things should be hosted on the Web. Freenet had a different approach, even back in the early days (two decades ago). I interviewed Ian Clarke about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWrRqUkJpMQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWrRqUkJpMQ I wrote about it for years: https://community.intercoin.app/t/who-pays-for-storage-nfts-and-other-digital-content-in-2022/2326 https://community.intercoin.app/t/who-pays-for-storage-nfts-... And recently I built Safecloud to be different: https://safebots.github.io/Safecloud/ https://safebots.github.io/Safecloud/

hypfer 2mo ago
On HN, a TLDR would be helpful, because just clicking your links would potentially mean falling for shilling of ones own side-hustle. I bet there's complexity to the topic, but I am sure you could put it into a few words instead of just leaving a hook for others to click on.
- tredre3 2mo ago
  I know nothing of Safecloud, but freenet failed for a very valid reasons: 1. Data retention isn't infinite. If the source disappears from the network, peers will prune it shortly. This is exponentially true in our multimedia-heavy world. 2. Despite 1, if you actually want to delete something you published, you can't. Absolutists will see this as a good thing. Normal people will see this as a problem. 3. Peer-to-peer doesn't work in a mobile-first world, and not enough people will host nodes as a hobby. If all website publishers/hosters have to host a node, then we're just back to the current model but with extra steps.
  - bblb 2mo ago
    Closed-garden mobile-first tech feudalism lobotimized the Internet. I remember trying out the Freenets, I2Ps, and whatnot in the 90's. Too cumbersome nerdy tools to use for anything actually worthwhile. It was born in the idealized world village of the 90's Internet. Maybe real life doesn't work like that, and the lobotimized centralized tech will eventually win.

vvoyer 2mo ago

Amazing that Disqus comments are still live for this page. More impressive even than the website itself being live.

DonHopkins 2mo ago
I'm grateful the comments are still there, since they reminded me to get back in touch with my old friend Craig Hubley!
jamiek88 2mo ago
I really liked disqus back in the day. When I was in my kinda cringey singularity phase, Kurzweil and all that. Tracking comments across similar blogs with the same people was handy.

matsemann 2mo ago

At a certain bet size it would almost be self-fulfilling, heh, as one side would be very incentivized to keep at least that url working (buying the domain + hosting it if the page were to die)

9dev 2mo ago
Someone should do a long bet on the continuous existence of longbets.com

mike_d 2mo ago

I'm not sure how it played out in 2011, but as of now it looks like the win condition hinges on the redirect. For the heck of it I confirmed "http://www.longbets.org/601 http://www.longbets.org/601" does in fact result in a 301 redirect to "https://longbets.org/601/ https://longbets.org/601/". I suspected they might have used a 302.

firefoxd 2mo ago

One thing I've done is include my redirect rules with the web application. So my links continue to work even when I change them and forget them. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46139686 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46139686

latexr 2mo ago
I was expecting some kind of system that would follow the pages automatically without you having to do extra work when changing the URL (“continue to work even when I change them and forget them”) but it looks like you still add the redirects manually? That’s more than most will do, sure, but it doesn’t seem like it saves you from a broken link if you forget to add a specific redirect or miss it during a mass format change. Am I missing something?

mg 2mo ago

It is actually pretty easy to keep alive URLs if there is a will to do so. Just have tests in place so you can't mess them up accidentally. And convert things that are not changing anymore to static html. One of my first web projects involved a music forum and I have been keeping the URLs alive for 24 years now: https://www.gnoosic.com/discussion/ https://www.gnoosic.com/discussion/ I feel like I owe it to the people who participated to keep it online forever. Also as a document of history.

vasco 2mo ago
It's not easy. Part of the instructions would need to contain things like "how to convince your boss to not just delete the old thing" and "what to do when the startup you worked for went bankrupt" among others. Most URLs don't disappear by mistake.
fragmede 2mo ago
Well, and pay registrar and hosting fees for 100 years, and then just hope the hosting company doesn't fold in the interim after your passing. The problem isn't "can you make sure it stays up while you're alive", the problem is, after you're gone, you're no longer there to keep the flame alive and there are no guarantees anyone else picks up the torch.
- iansmith_hn 2mo ago
  Does this suggest a subscription(ish) business where you pay the hosting company for N years and then they ensure your website stays up and unchanged for N years after you die? Quality control issue? Given how many things want me to pay a subscription while I'm alive, surely somebody will start charging me when I'm dead. It is the logical conclusion of SaaS. I wanted to create an acronym for this, but death as a service didn't seem like the best choice.
  - nycdotnet 2mo ago
    There is certainly precedent for this - will executors for example. How about “SCITA? Service continues in the afterlife.

CSMastermind 2mo ago

It's worth noting that some prediction URLs, for instance: https://longbets.org/6/ https://longbets.org/6/ are offline. The original long bet was whether or not computers could pass the turing test by 2029: https://longbets.org/1/ https://longbets.org/1/ You'd think that LLMs fulfill this, but I do wonder if a clever human could still discern between them given their particularities. https://longbets.org/9/ https://longbets.org/9/ is another interesting one depending on whether you think covid leaked from a lab or not.

sublinear 2mo ago
> You'd think that LLMs fulfill this, but I do wonder if a clever human could still discern between them given their particularities. You don't even have to be that clever. We've all tried using it for work. They fail. In the first place, the Turing test was always a loosely defined thought experiment. I suppose it's still serving that purpose, but at least half of HN takes it way too seriously. It's absolutely not proof of <engagementbait> endorsed by Alan Turing himself.
- frotaur 2mo ago
  I think if you trained an LLM specifically for the purpose of passing the Turing test (instead of being helpful, harmful, and so on), its likely it would pass it. You would have to train it/finetune it on a couple hundred of 'humans chatting in the context of a Turing test'.
  - sublinear 2mo ago
    I'd like to see an honest attempt at that. What's more interesting are the types of humans that might fail the Turing test. Maybe to discourage the failure of real humans, there could be consequences outside the context of the test. That is, most people accused of being a computer would crack and start pleading their humanity, but some sociopaths might not. I then wonder how many of them overlap with those so invested in abusing the premise of the Turing test. It really is a fun thought experiment when you spice it up enough.
  - 2mo ago

sucuri2 2mo ago

Anyway to find all bets expiring this year? it will be interesting to see. Could not find a way to search for it there.

cortesoft 2mo ago

This is basically a bet on if you think longbets is going to be around.

RinatNabiev 2mo ago

[dead]

RinatNabiev 2mo ago

[dead]

rowanadeyemi 2mo ago

[flagged]

phil-pickering 2mo ago

Some nice posts about his prediction on Jeremy Keith's blog: https://adactio.com/journal/tags/longbets https://adactio.com/journal/tags/longbets

doubletwoyou 2mo ago
Wow, that could be a post of it’s own

predictsoft 2mo ago

I like the comment on the site about blockchains replacing HTML links (from 4 years ago).

mikewarot 2mo ago

Ugh, I really hate SSL. This is a simple text page, why couldn't it live where it was? C:\Users\User>curl -i http://longbets.org/601/ HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently Date: Sun, 09 Aug 2026 16:49:33 GMT Content-Type: text/html Content-Length: 178 Connection: keep-alive Server: nginx/1.18.0 (Ubuntu) Location: https://longbets.org/601/ X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN <html> <head><title>301 Moved Permanently</title></head> <body> <center><h1>301 Moved Permanently</h1></center> <hr><center>nginx/1.18.0 (Ubuntu)</center> </body> </html> Yes, I'm an old fart, yelling at the internet clouds. You'll get here some day too, if you're lucky. I am quite impressed that the bet included above redirection as part of the terms.