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Comment by timb07 | Hacker News Reader

If longbets.org was really serious about long-term bets, it wouldn't be restricting years to only 5 digits. Haven't they heard of the Y100K problem?

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If they had only used 4 digits, then in eight thousand years or so, longbets.org would have felt really stupid about having to hire a historical programming re-enactor to show us how our ancestors used to adjust the width of a database column.

But luckily they used 5 digits. 5 digits should be enough for anyone.

The 5-digit display year is definitely in keeping with our mission, which is to get people to think longer term. But under the hood, I represented all dates as 64-bit longs of ms since epoch. So I believe the farthest date the current code can represent is 17 Aug 292,278,994 AD. By that point the earth's day will be an hour longer [1], so whatever sucker has inherited this project will have bigger problems than just the size of the field.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future

What is the Y100K problem. More importantly, who would they pay out at that point when both parties are dead

What if you want to bet they find a cure for death?

We would totally accept that bet. The closest bet we have right now is bet 11: “At least one human alive in the year 2000 will still be alive in 2150.”

http://longbets.org/11/

The tricky part is coming up with a clear agreement about what "cure" and "death" mean here. But there's a lot of good discussion around e.g., the extropians, so I think a solid bet could be created.

Does "Brain in a Jar" count? How about a Ghost in the Shell? More likely this is a bet on if Cyrogenics finally works out.

You mean for that bet? Good question, and not one I'm likely to have to answer. But from the arguments, the spirit seems to be about traditional meat-brain-in-meat-body life.

Or do you mean for your own? This is between you and the person you bet with. If you have a firm opinion, definitely find somebody on the opposite side and see if you can put together a bet.

I'm pretty sure that's a joking reference to the Y2K problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2000_problem

Payout are to the bettor's selected charity. Or, if that's gone, the closest one we can find.

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