Want to publicly register predictions or other statements without yet revealing what they say? Do so here. The advantage of commenting here (in addition to, say, your Shortform) is that I'll record all comments here so they can't be deleted or edited later, and I may publicly shame you if you don't reveal your statement when you say you will.

So, comment with

  • the date by which (you say) you will reveal your statement, and
  • a hash or another system that will provide strong evidence that your statement is what you will say it is.

And, of course, save the statement. (If you use hashing and don't save your exact statement, you of course won't be able to prove it, so not only will your registration be useless, but also it will seem as if you post-facto decided to hide your statement.) If there are some circumstances in which you would not reveal the statement--e.g., if it could be infohazardous--strongly consider

  • explaining that in your comment, or
  • instead of sharing the hash (or whatever) of your statement, sharing the hash of a message that (1) explains why you might not share your statement and (2) includes or links to the hash of your real statement.

Otherwise, it will look bad if the date arrives and you don't reveal your statement.

To retract or edit a statement, send me a private message within 24 hours of commenting; after that, it cannot be changed in my record (although you can of course comment to say that you no longer endorse it, or to add hashes with new statements).

Fancy methods may exist if you want to provably commit to sharing your statement.

It's your responsibility not to share infohazards. This includes ensuring that any hashes you share can't be reversed, even if computing power advances more than you expect in the time before you reveal your statement, and ensuring that you don't commit to sharing something that, it might turn out, you should not share.


Edit: it seems there are multiple ways to handle verification, but for now, here's the simplest, I think: a sheet with most of the relevant information from comments. Thus information cannot be edited or deleted (without my complicity). And I guess now that there's a sheet, you can PM me rather than comment here to be added if you prefer.

New Comment
7 comments, sorted by Click to highlight new comments since: Today at 9:06 AM

A fun, simple prediction just to participate. Will reveal on the 1st of June, 2022.

Hash: SHA-512

d619553d253654c65417c79c15dd98bc9959e06fca9791bc2129fbdcd5095a3b7ad4a6ed4e1753712487df4d1c5ac504e47f14153a8bcb1047022451fe95b628

My prediction was:

There will be less than 15 messages time-locked messages in this thread by the time this prediction is revealed (80% confidence)

And seems like that typo ("messages time-locked messages") was there, but I can't fix it because it would change the hash, lol.

Even though I made a simple prediction of no consequence and said so, I still have a nagging worry that for some reason I wouldn't be able to reveal it when the time comes (I lose the message, I'm unavailable, I made a mistake while copy pasting...) and it will look bad. I thought that was interesting to note. 

I'd suggest writing the message as a plaintext file, then computing the hash of that file. That way, there's no possible issue with copy/pasting. You still have to track the file, but that's not too hard.

Yes, this seems interesting and important. Mentioning the scope of the statement can help, at least -- in this case, you won't really look bad if you fail to reveal it because you mentioned in advance that it's trivial. But making sure you'll be able to reveal it later is quite important if registering statements for nontrivial purposes. (But this seems doable without much effort.)

Will reveal by: 1 January 2030

Hash: SHA-512: e18e929b785bd66431d2cf23c16690dadbab6b0a695ad2b4fa1bf33ab89e093866a2a6f04afde0b5ca15ccc8048a043384bfe952e6769f7a85ad56d9dda23198

This statement is a policy of mine -- related to this post, in fact. I don't want to share it now, but I might later want to prove I planned it in advance, and I am essentially certain I will not mind sharing it in several years.

Posting hashes of personal policies, to be shared if it turns out they are relevant, seems like a use case of comparable value to registering predictions. In such cases, I'm not sure under what conditions it's best to add a reveal-by date -- I did so here because I'm sure I won't mind sharing in several years, but I don't want to set such a norm without more consideration.

Hashsum used: SHA-256

8b21114d4e46bf6871a1e4e9812c53e81a946f04b650e94615d6132855e247e8

To be revealed: 2024-12-31

695e9e58df6bb7e9cbdf48bf4084252cc26149667af60949817c455fdff33168

To be revealed: 2028-01-01

88f11de09bf57161f0468a931d383f829d5f0a0d353bd0982743b2dd4ed126d8

To be revealed: 2028-01-01

805a3d58bb62a94a79ac48445d2bad8ef175fd93c3839ea4d60b222952456618

To be revealed: 2028-01-01