Comment by Ilkka_Kokkarinen on Futuristic Predictions as Consumable Goods · 2007-04-10T13:43:06.000Z · LW · GW

I think that every futurist paper should include a section where it lists, clearly, exactly what counts as a failure for this prediction. In fact, that would be the most important piece of the paper to read, and those with the most stringent (and short term) criteria for failure should be rewarded.

Not only that, but that section should also include a monetary deposit that the author forfeits if his predictions turn out to be false. This would allow the readers to see how much belief the author himself has in his theories.

There could even be some centralized service that keeps track of these predictions and deposits and their payments, perhaps allowing people to browse this list ranked and sorted on various criteria.