Decius comments on Open Thread, June 2-15, 2013 - Less Wrong
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Per a discussion on IRC, I am auctioning off my immortal soul to the highest bidder over the next week. (As an atheist I have no use for it, but it has a market value and so holding onto it is a foolish endowment effect.)
The current top bid is 1btc ($120) by John Wittle.
Details:
17twxmShN3p6rsAyYC6UsERfhT5XFs9fUG(existing activity)gwern@gwern.net, comments on IRC, or replies on Google+. I will update this comment with the current top bid if/when a new top bid is received.Suggested uses for my soul include:
pickup lines & icebreakers; eg. Wittle to another person considering selling their soul:
as a speculative play on my future earnings or labor in case I reconvert to any religion with the concept of souls and wish to repurchase my soul at any cost. This would constitute a long position with almost unlimited upside and is a unique investment opportunity.
(Please note that I hold an informational advantage over most/all would-be investors and so souls likely constitute a lemon market.)
hedging against Pascal's Wager:
presumably Satan will accept my soul instead of yours since damnation does not seem to confer property rights inasmuch as the offspring of dictators continue to enjoy their ill-gotten gains and are not evicted by his agents; similarly, one can expect him to honor his bargain with you since, as an immortal he has an infinite horizon of deals he jeopardizes if he welshes on your deal.
Note that if he won't agree to a full 1:1 swap, you still benefit infinitely by bargaining him down to an agreement like torturing you every day via a process that converges on an indefinitely large but finite total sum of torture while still daily torturing you & fulfilling the requirements of being in Hell.
EDIT: Congratulations to Mr. Wittle.
Are you accepting bids in things other than currencies commonly used for exchange? I would like to offer a finely crafted narrative instead of bitcoins.
Hm, is your narrative so compelling that I would accept jam tomorrow instead of bitcoin today?
Upvoted for the multilayered pun
I offer no guarantees regarding the quality, completeness, or any other details of said narrative (save that it will be a narrative, delivered within 90 days of acceptance of terms, with payment in full due immediately on receipt), although I will accept your input, if you want me to, on length, theme, setting, genre and/or other details.
As for the relative value of narratives and btc, I can say only that I have not written for any commonly recognized currency.
Accepting this offer would subject you to a considerable amount of downside risk, as well as a considerable amount of upside risk. However, people who auction their soul are not typically averse to these types of risk.
Mm, I'm afraid that due to the hyperinflation over the past few decades of narrative and subsequent debasement (>3.2m on FanFiction.net alone), I can't accept any amount of it without guarantees of its quality. Nothing personal - it's the law.
What would you accept as sufficient evidence of quality?
A Hugo Award, I presume. </snark>
Or a Nebula, Locus, or World Fantasy Award. I'd also accept a Nobel or Man Booker (for magical realism).
Which one do you want? I can have a crack team of ninja liberate it from the current owner and deliver it to you, but that will cost significantly more than your soul.
Well then, I'm afraid we would be unable to reach a mutually beneficial agreement - I would be better off retaining my soul under such a sale.