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JoshTriplett
> entering the characters http://www.longbets.org/601 into the address bar of a web browser or command line tool (like curl)

The part of this that's most likely to fail at some point is the "http://".

vvoyer
Amazing that Disqus comments are still live for this page. More impressive even than the website itself being live.
matsemann
At a certain bet size it would almost be self-fulfilling, heh, as one side would be very incentivized to keep at least that url working (buying the domain + hosting it if the page were to die)
mike_d
I'm not sure how it played out in 2011, but as of now it looks like the win condition hinges on the redirect.

For the heck of it I confirmed "http://www.longbets.org/601" does in fact result in a 301 redirect to "https://longbets.org/601/". I suspected they might have used a 302.

mg
It is actually pretty easy to keep alive URLs if there is a will to do so. Just have tests in place so you can't mess them up accidentally. And convert things that are not changing anymore to static html.

One of my first web projects involved a music forum and I have been keeping the URLs alive for 24 years now:

https://www.gnoosic.com/discussion/

I feel like I owe it to the people who participated to keep it online forever. Also as a document of history.

joshspankit
*a will and the ability for that will to access what it needs
troupo
> It is actually pretty easy to keep alive URLs if there is a will to do so. Just have tests in place

"Just".

Maintaining and keeping these tests (and the oriinal link) running is also probably easy. "Just" keep maintaining them over changes in technology, hosting providers, DNS registrars...

kimos
Flattening old things down to plain HTML is underrated and important here. Old apps don’t need to be updated or upgraded or maintained or even deployed. It’s way simpler to argue to keep old stuff around if it’s essentially a domain pointing to a static bucket.
CSMastermind
It's worth noting that some prediction URLs, for instance: https://longbets.org/6/ are offline.

The original long bet was whether or not computers could pass the turing test by 2029: https://longbets.org/1/

You'd think that LLMs fulfill this, but I do wonder if a clever human could still discern between them given their particularities.

https://longbets.org/9/ is another interesting one depending on whether you think covid leaked from a lab or not.

DonaldFisk
I think that recent LLMs do pass the Turing test, but I don't think it is a good test for intelligence, for two reasons: emergent complexity and pareidolia.

Arguably, ELIZA passed the Turing test ca. 1967: https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/20... and not that long ago, ELIZA was still more convincing: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/12/real-...

The Turing Test can be gamed. This was done in some Loebner Prize entries: see https://www.behavior.org/resources/325.pdf and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Goostman

To determine whether a machine is intelligent, I think it's necessary to understand how it works internally and not just take a black-box approach. This was already understood when Alan Turing wrote his 1950 paper. Elmer and Elsie, William Grey Walter's tortoise robots built during the preceding two years, appeared to behave as if they had some degree of self-awareness. But their "brains" consisted of only two thermionic valves, so self-awareness can be ruled out.

sucuri2
Anyway to find all bets expiring this year? it will be interesting to see. Could not find a way to search for it there.
cortesoft
This is basically a bet on if you think longbets is going to be around.
predictsoft
I like the comment on the site about blockchains replacing HTML links (from 4 years ago).
mikewarot
Ugh, I really hate SSL. This is a simple text page, why couldn't it live where it was?

  C:\Users\User>curl -i http://longbets.org/601/
  HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
  Date: Sun, 09 Aug 2026 16:49:33 GMT
  Content-Type: text/html
  Content-Length: 178
  Connection: keep-alive
  Server: nginx/1.18.0 (Ubuntu)
  Location: https://longbets.org/601/
  X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN

  <html>
  <head><title>301 Moved Permanently</title></head>
  <body>
  <center><h1>301 Moved Permanently</h1></center>
  <hr><center>nginx/1.18.0 (Ubuntu)</center>
  </body>
  </html>
Yes, I'm an old fart, yelling at the internet clouds. You'll get here some day too, if you're lucky.

I am quite impressed that the bet included above redirection as part of the terms.