Before midnight Saturday August 5th pst
Mentions in a tweet, twitter "post" (ugh) or interview or something verifiable.
Counts if he mentions "superconductivity" or refers clearly to new south korean physics research.
Also counts if he replies to a post about the LK-99 reports
1,000
3.00Sorry everyone that rated me low for the judgment this morning. I'll be more patient and give you all more time to respond. In general though I wouldn't characterize this as me being bullied into resolving. I think the arguments that the original reply was indeed to a post about LK-99 are actually strong. The fact that Musk later posted something more clear is irrelevant to the discussion about how the claim would best have resolved at that time.
How would you all have liked it to proceed? I at least will wait longer & give everyone a chance to reply. I do think that in general, many interesting markets will end up requiring debate and discussion in the comments, so it'd be helpful if me listening to debate not automatically be considered something bad. Anyway, thanks for joining and hopefully we all bet right in the future!
@StrayClimb I think you did a good job of being transparent. Mostly I rated 3 stars because I personally felt it was not a clear reference to superconductors. But I'll up it to 4 now that I've thought about it more, since it was reasonable (just ultimately not what I'd have done)
@StrayClimb I profited from this market and didn't give a particularly bad rating (I've seen much worse-run markets!), but since you ask for advice:
Most resolution problems arise from phrasing: here, some parts are clear (mention of specific words) and others are unclear (referencing new Korean physics or replying to another tweet "about LK-99"). It seems natural to me that the conditions for the reply tweet should match the conditions for the original, by which standards it fails, but the interpretation "any reply to a tweet meant to reference the putative superconductor" is possible - this should have been avoided when writing.
Be clear when you are adjudicating and when you are expressing your opinion. There is nothing wrong expressing your opinion as an opinion in discussions, but should be clear where you are open to changing it and when you are ruling as the resolver. Here you clearly adjudicated (and people may have bet based on this), but then flipflopped when people kept arguing what you had signposted was a dead-end discussion.
Wait for counterarguments when resolving something contentious. You should not assume people are on this site in any given 5-hour period, and the penalty for leaving questions unresolved while arguments are happening are basically nil, particularly when the question had no need to resolve for several days (and you'd already said it wouldn't be a yes yet).
/StrayClimb/will-elon-musk-say-the-word-lk99-or
New market with very clear resolution criteria.
okay, I resolved YES. Technically the last clause did trigger. Thanks for your patience everyone.
Sorry the market wasn't totally clear - I initially was going for an explicit mention but then I thought "what if he just says 'wow' to a LK-99 tweet?" so I added the final clause. But then the thing he responded to only indirectly mentioned the issue. (although as you all have pointed out, it's pretty definite that it refers to LK-99) so this is a YES.
@StrayClimb New people to Manifold learning the power of "find weak-willed market creators prone to conflict avoidance and argue with them in the comments until they cave in".
@Mira or you could make an argument. It seems clear to me the post Musk was responding to was referring to LK-99. What do you think it was about?
@StrayClimb I would say that the top-level tweet is a reference to LK-99, but there's no mention of LK-99.
@Mira "Also counts if he replies to a post about the LK-99 reports"
I have concluded that the original post is indeed "about" the LK-99 reports since they involve floating rocks. i.e. that is the topic of the tweet which Musk replied to, therefore YES
@StrayClimb Floating rocks unequivocally refer to LK-99/supeconductivity in the Twitter meme culture. Elon's reply refers to the putative small size of the samples produced by the lab in Korea.
@StrayClimb not only what @lukres said, but this tweet was in response to a tweet unequivocally about LK-99
@AlexAmadori question is clear he needs to mention "LK-99", "superconductivity" or new south korean physics research. Basically there needs to be physics words in his tweet to resolve positive - even the tweet he replied to wouldn't qualify. "Rocks but he implicitly means LK-99" is definitely a nope.
@Ramble The question states that it is enough he refers to <<"LK-99", "superconductivity" or new south korean physics research>>, so it is not required that he explicitly mentions them.
@Ramble at the end it says "Also counts if he replies to a post about the LK-99 reports", which is the nail in the coffin imo
@StrayClimb the post he was replying to was vague too and didn't mention the lk99 reports. This is not a YES yet
@StrayClimb The simple fact that people who bet "YES" argue if the evidence is enough to resolve the market shows that it's not clear
@mdolr Meh. He replied with a meme that was made of the LK-99 story to a post with a meme about LK-99. That's how he interacts with the world. I am not sure why we now expect him to start writing in formal prose about superconductors. Certainly not how I interpreted the question when I placed my bet.
@StrayClimb Could you post a clarification as to what constitutes an lk-99 report? What would it take for a topical meme to count? I may invert my position depending on that.
@lukres my interpretation is the following:
Counts if he mentions "superconductivity" or refers clearly to new south korean physics research.
Didn't mention "superconductivity"
Doesn't refer "clearly" to south korean physics research
Also counts if he replies to a post about the LK-99 reports
The post is a meme not a LK-99 report
I see how you could argue the meme is about LK-99 and thus it's the same but I don't think it's what OP expected
@mdolro this is a very edge case.
The question repeatedly says "clearly"
The claim that the post musk was replying to is about lk99 is weak. None of the other replies nor the posters profile mentions anything about it https://twitter.com/ChrisJBakke/status/1686734220272541703
Sorry this is an unclear situation.
@DoctorHow Ok, suppose that this isn't referencing lk-99. Then, to those betting "no", what is he and the post he was replying to referring to?
There is two criterion that were met and should resolve to YES:
The initial post is about the LK-99 reports (if you are not convinced, look at all the replies mentioning liquid mercury) and Elon Musk replied to it. This is sufficient to resolve this as YES.
In addition, Elon Musk tweet clearly refers to the new South Korean physics research (like most of the replies are doing by mentioning liquid mercury). If not, what is he referring to?
@FernandoIrarrazaval I've been following this and haven't heard anything about liquid mercury. Could you link me to that?
Is this meme related? Could you link me to something showing the linkage? I'm open to evidence, I just don't see the connection yet. Where is the photo from? Is that one of the LK-99 replicators? If so that would be strong evidence for YES. I read over recent tweets by the person Elon was responding to and didn't see anything about LK-99.
I do agree that things floating is a concept related to LK-99, but is the material actually a rock? Afaik it's made of lead & copper.
@StrayClimb
- The connection is that diamagnetism is the main evidence that LK-99 is real. And diamagnetism is basically "rocks floating".
- The mercury connection is that mercury is a weakly diamagnetic substance at room temperature. So people are implying that the videos showing diamagnetism are fake / not proof of superconductivity.
@StrayClimb Here is one popular tweet where lk-99 is referred to as a floating rock: https://twitter.com/AiBreakfast/status/1686505546306801664