My 2025 New Year's Commitment Market
Are you really serious about your goals if you don't get a bunch of randos on the Internet to gamble on them?
At Manifest 2024, I won a crystal entitling me to a market subsidised to the highest tier (Crystal).
I immediately made a market that would resolve to what I used it for, and then did nothing with it for like 6 months.
Well, I’ve finally decided what to use it for: my 2025 New Year’s resolutions. Yes, that means it’ll technically be split into several different markets. Deal with it.
General criteria:
Unless the criteria below one of my goals is met, a goal will resolve NO as soon as I get around to it in 2026.
I will only bet YES.
If I suddenly achieve (or fail) a goal, I will resolve it instead of betting.
The Resolutions
Submit PhD thesis 👨🏻⚕️
My main goal for the year. Reasonably self-explanatory: I’m pursuing a PhD in AI at the University of Auckland and I want to be done with it this year.
What is it about, you ask? I have another post sitting in my drafts that should explain that as well as I can. Stay tuned.
Criteria:
I have to do my bit. If I submit it to the right people but they don’t do what they need to do about it until 2026, that’s not my fault.
It doesn’t have to be accepted, just submitted.
Go on 20 dates 💌
My annual average is about 0.5, so this would be a 4000% increase!
Criteria:
A date must be an explicitly agreed-upon romantic date.
Don’t all have to be with the same person.
I have to do my bit. If my date doesn’t show up, that’s not my fault (although if it keeps happening, I’ll start to wonder…)
Reach 200 Substack subscribers 📝
I got stuff I wanna write. Some of it’s probably worth reading. Only one way to find out.
This is one you can easily manipulate help with! Place a YES bet, then press this button:
Criteria:
Can be at any point in the year.
Reach 10000 views on Twitch/YouTube 🎥
I haven’t hosted “Manifold: Live!” in a while, but I think the idea still has potential. I especially want to explore something I tried briefly last year: streaming gameplay on Manifold with an accompanying market. I think there are a few different ways that this could promote prediction markets, and no one else seems to be doing it, so I’ll do it myself!
Criteria:
This is a combined total between both platforms, and between livestream views and video views.
I reserve the right to include other platforms if I post videos somewhere else, but I don’t expect to.
Only views in 2025 count.
I expect I’ll mainly look at (what are currently known as) the “Manifold: Live!” accounts, but all others I own will count too.
Pass the US Army Combat Fitness Test 🏃🏻♂️
I’m getting pretty out of shape.
Criteria:
I might have to rejig some of the exact criteria/equipment, but I’ll try to preserve the spirit.
Stage a musical 🐉
I wrote a sea shanty musical last year called DRAGN SLAYRS! You can read the script here. I’m pretty happy with it. The UoA theatre club wanted to put it on but didn’t have the resources.
I’ve put up a bounty for helping me put it on here (which will pay out regardless of whether it gets staged at all):
Criteria:
Total audience size of all 2025 performances of any musical written by me ≥ 100.
I couldn’t figure out a good way to include any potential variations/descendants of the script I currently have, so screw it, any musical I write counts.
Will resolve to 50% if a production starts in 2025 but ends up happening in 2026.
Write 10 book reviews 📚
I wanted to put something like “read 40 books” but I’ve found that to encourage reading short books and pushing through ones that aren’t worth finishing. This seems to have better incentives.
Criteria:
I’ll probably publish most of these on this blog, but I don’t have to. You’ll just have to trust my final count.
I do have to finish them to a relatively high standard, though.
Host 5 parties 🎉
I absolutely love hanging out with my friends, yet I very rarely ask them to hang. I’ll see if I can change that.
Criteria:
A “party” is a gathering of at least 5 people I know who wouldn’t be there if I hadn’t asked them to be.
Contribute 3 major features to open-source projects 👨🏻💻
I have a lot of ideas for improvements to Manifold that I think I could implement, and I expect that I could find a lot more projects that I could usefully contribute to. I also expect AI tools to make it even easier than it currently is by the end of the year.
I might open-source my arbitrage bot, which would count as one. (Further improvements might also count.)
Criteria:
Obviously very subjective. I’ll say which contributions I think do or don’t count; I’ll allow a poll on Manifold to overrule me if it’s not obviously manipulated.
Visit Edinburgh 🏴
I was born there, but I’ve never been since becoming able to form memories.
Criteria:
What am I even writing this bit out for? I have to go to Edinburgh. It’s not gonna be ambiguous.
Make N.C.Y.BOT the most profitable non-house bot on Manifold 🤖
My boy @NcyBot currently just arbitrates identical markets, which is an okay living, but there should be a lot more free money on the table. In particular, I want him to start making markets, not just bets.
Criteria:
I’ll look at all Manifold users marked as a bot and compare their yearly profits.
Acceleration, the house bot with direct API access, is an outlier adn will not be counted
Do something awesome that I wouldn’t have predicted in 2024 ❓
Gotta leave some room for improvisation, ay?
Criteria:
I dunno. I’ll know it when I do it.
Finally, here are some derivative and related markets:
Invite jim to party