I commented on Gurri’s thread I was discussing earlier to chide Morgan Warstler. In case you don’t know him, he’s a libertarian-leaning Republican (though a detractor of neoreactionary tendencies) who frequently comments at blogs like The Money Illusion and bangs on about some hobby-horses. I’m often irritated by his confident proclamations which don’t seem to have any strong basis in subject familiarity, much less domain expertise (this unwarranted confidence also irritates me in neoreactionaries). Inspired by Bryan Caplan, a while back I made a 10:1 bet (in his favor) that Rick Perry would not get the nomination. For years afterward I would mock him at every opportunity about that bet and whether he was going to pay up, assuming he slunk away because he didn’t want to admit he got things wrong (although he started off his own blog doing just that). But it appears I did not give him enough credit. So credit where it’s due: plenty of internet blowhards will never agree to bet at all. And afterwards they may try to weasel out or minimize the results (even Bob Murphy seems guilty of the latter that to some extent, which I suppose shouldn’t be surprising given the Austrian attitude toward empiricism). But not Morgan. I’ll probably still be annoyed by some of his confident pronouncements, but a man willing to put some money where his mouth is and admit when he’s wrong should feel free to annoy me.
February 11, 2014
April 19, 2014 at 10:46 am
I had three Internet bets. First I lost and promptly paid with $50 in Amazon purchase, in second I won $500 but the guy refused to pay and was never heard from again, and a third one I won for $20 and was immediately paid in Amazon gift card. However, the latter guy never lived up to his promise to announce the result of the bet on his blog. Oh, and the former guy could not be bothered yo say “thank you” upon receiving my payment. All in all, an unsatisfying experience :-)
April 21, 2014 at 9:03 pm
Bryan Caplan received prompt payments from everyone, but I guess he has a bigger platform to name-and-shame.