Long Now’s Long Bets project is founded on the premise that we can improve our long-term thinking by holding ourselves accountable for the predictions we make about the future. By revisiting our forecasts as time goes by, we reveal the subtle mechanics of society’s evolution, and teach ourselves something about what kinds of visions might turn into reality.

Jerry Lockenour, a professor of engineering at the University of Southern California, has turned this premise into a lesson plan. Students in his Technology Development and Applications class are going back to the future: they are studying a 01988 issue of the Los Angeles Times’ Magazine, which offered a vision of the futuristic LA of 02013.

“In class we study emerging science and technology that can change the future,” he said. The magazine helps students see the relevance of the developments they are reading about in textbooks and professional journals, he said.

The 01988 feature offers a detailed description of a day in the life of a fictional family. Written in consultation with more than 30 futurists and experts, the article offers prospects for the technological innovations, environmental challenges, economic issues, and demographic shifts we might expect to deal with in 02013.

The LA Times itself recently interviewed Lockenour’s students to evaluate the quality of its 01988 predictions. “To their surprise, the students – some of whom weren’t even born when [the magazine’s] look into the future was published – found that many predictions have become reality.” Though robots have not quite become a staple in our households, we do indeed drive our cars with the aid of “electronic navigation systems,” schools have embraced the interactive learning potential of computers, and the population has indeed exploded.

To read the complete feature – and compare its vision of the unimaginable future to today’s present moment for yourself – please visit the LA Times’ website here.

In 02008, Warren Buffet placed a Long Bet that will take until 02017 to resolve. He predicted that for those ten years, “the S & P 500 will outperform a portfolio of funds of hedge funds, when performance is measured on a basis net of fees, costs and expenses.”

Below is a summary of how things went in the fifth year of this Bet, as published by Fortune Magazine:

Five years into a ten-year bet that an S&P index fund can beat hedge fund funds-of-funds, Warren Buffett is in the lead for the first time.

By Carol Loomis

FORTUNE — It’s halfway time in the 10-year stock market wager sometimes called The Million-Dollar Bet—that’s Warren Buffett backing the performance of an S&P index fund vs. a New York money manager backing five funds of hedge funds—and there’s double-barreled news.

Item One: For the first time since the bet started five years ago, Buffett has moved ahead—by an okay margin to boot. Item Two: For the first time ever as well, both sides have crawled out of the ditch (though the funds of funds barely made it) and are showing positive results.

About that history of bad results, of course, you need to keep in mind that this bet started in the gut-wrenching year of 2008, which left both contenders deep in the red. Buffett, though, was definitely a deeper shade of red: Vanguard’s Admiral shares—the S&P index fund he’d backed—lost 37% in 2008 vs. a 24% drop, on the average, for Protégé’s five funds of funds.

Reporting on that first year of the bet, Fortune quoted Buffett as just hoping he could be like the fabled tortoise that ultimately passes the hare.

So now the tortoise, after crawling four more years, indeed leads. At the five-year mark, the Vanguard index fund backed by Buffett is up by 8.69%. The five funds of funds picked by Protégé Partners to carry its flag in the race are up, on the average, only—”gulp,” says Protégé partner Ted Seides—0.13%.

By the terms of the bet, the identity of those five funds has never been made public. It has always been assumed, however, that one of them is a fund of funds run by Protégé itself.

The strength of 2012′s stock market is naturally what carried the contestants into the black. The market’s vigor is displayed in the performance of the index fund, which rose by 15.96% last year. In contrast, the five funds of funds managed a 2012 gain, on the average, of only 6.46%.

From his trailing position, and probably having heard enough about the tortoise, Protégé’s Seides imagines an alternative future for the bet by recalling the movie, City Slickers. In it, says Seides, “Billy Crystal’s character asks Jack Palance’s character, Curly, if he has killed anyone today—and Curly answers, ‘Day ain’t over yet.’”

We’ll let that suspense hang and report still one more piece of news about this bet. This bulletin concerns the 10-year zero-coupon bond that the two bettors, Buffett and Protégé, bought with the collateral they put up as the bet began. Each contributed about $320,000, so a total of roughly $640,000 went into the bond. Its value was set to rise gradually to $1 million—thus the nickname for the bet—by its conclusion on December 31, 2017.

But as Fortune.com reported last year (Buffett gains ground in hedge fund bet), the zero-coupon bond proceeded to perform so splendidly in the prevailing environment of falling interest rates that by 2012 it was already worth almost $1 million.

That remarkable result suggested to Buffett and Protégé that they could revise the terms of the bet and quite possibly get more than $1 million to the charity ultimately benefitting from the bet. That will be Girls Inc. of Omaha if Buffett wins and Absolute Returns for Kids if the victor is Protégé.

So the zero-coupon bond was sold for nearly $1 million toward the close of 2012, and by agreement between Buffett and Protégé, the proceeds were put into the B stock of Buffett’s company, Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA). Berkshire’s shares have risen since, and the current value of the investment is well over $1 million.

And couldn’t the stock fall? It certainly could, but that won’t make a whit of difference to the winning charity—because Buffett has guaranteed that it will get at least $1 million at the end of the bet. On the upside, meanwhile, there’s no ceiling on what the charity can walk away with. That depends simply on what happens to Berkshire’s stock between now and the bet’s conclusion.

Fortune senior editor-at-large Carol Loomis, who wrote this article, is a longtime friend of Warren Buffett’s, a Berkshire Hathaway shareholder, and editor of his annual letter to shareholders.

Predicting the future is hard.

Long Bets is a project by The Long Now Foundation that is testing how hard it really is, and maybe making us just a little bit better at it. The site allows users to post Predictions of at least two years’ duration. Should someone disagree with the likelihood of a prediction, they are welcome to Challenge it and produce a Bet. Real money is put on the line and eventually goes to a charity nominated by the winner.

We’ve recently made judgments on several Bets and wanted to review the outcomes:

• Russian software industry fails to take global lead – Long Bet 5
• First 5-year decline in US vehicle miles traveled since WWII – Long Bet 197
• US Presidential election process largely unchanged in 02012 – Long Bet 291

We’re also starting a Facebook Page for making and discussing predictions about the future.

We’re going to try something new for a little while – we’ve created a Facebook Page called Long Predictions where we’ll post predictions from the Long Bets site, on the web or in the media.

We’re interested in fostering thoughtful, respectful discussion about the future and our culture’s hopes, fears and assumptions about it. We encourage you to share predictions you discover or overhear and to discuss those posted by others. You’re also welcome to venture your own prognostications and to consider taking them over to Long Bets to formally put them on record.

In 02007, political tensions were running high and the US was beginning to contemplate who would replace the second President Bush. Amid this polarized climate, Jason Galbraith predicted that,

Neither major U. S. political party will hold conventions or indeed primaries to select their 2012 Presidential nominees.

Unconvinced by Galbraith’s premonitions of anarchy, coups or shadowy pseudo-democracy, Sam Stigler offered a simple rejoinder:

Galbraith’s argument fails to take into account the incredible resilience of the U.S. institutions of government over the years since its inception.

Stakes were set at $500, half from each participant.

Despite great division in the political sphere and unprecedented international crises abroad, the dramatic upheavals within the US imagined by Galbraith failed to materialize. The customary primaries and conventions were held in 02012 as usual:

Winner: Sam Stigler, Challenger

The winnings of this Bet ($500 plus half the accrued interest) will go to Lewis & Clark College.

In 02005, Daniel K. Simon, believing the effects of Peak Oil to be close at hand, wrote,

The U.S Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics (www.bts.gov) will report a lower number of total highway vehicle miles traveled in 2010 than in 2005.

His Challenger, Glen Raphael, responded,

“Five years is too short to expect much change in this area – we may not even have peaked by then. But once we do peak, it won’t be much of a problem.”

The two agreed to $400 stakes for the wager; each put in $200.

Adjudication of this Bet proved interesting: Vehicle Miles Traveled in the US have followed a surprising regular upward curve, for as long as they’ve been tabulated, with only a few deviations from the trend. One of those deviations began in 02008. Why? While the nature of peak oil is such that it will be hard to identify until afterwards, the timing of the recent dip in VMT seems to implicate the recent economic recession more than anything else. Regardless, the Bet is about the numbers, not causation or correlations.

VMT was 3.005 trillion miles in 02005 and it climbed to 3.049 trillion in 02007. The following year, 02008, was the first since 01980 to be lower than the one before it. The drop that one year was more than the growth of the previous two and 02009 continued the downward trend. 02010 – the decisive year for our purposes – showed signs of recovery and according to preliminary reports looked to have just barely surpassed 02005’s level. Once the final official tally was released though, it came to 2.9851 trillion miles: below 02005’s level. Despite a few dips in the 01970s, 02005-02010 was the first 5 year period with a net decrease in VMT since WWII.

Winner: Daniel K. Simon, Predictor

The winnings of this Bet ($400 plus half the accrued interest) will go to the Post Carbon Institute.

This was one of the our first Long Bets, made in 02002. Over ten years ago now, Esther Dyson predicted that,

“By 2012, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times will have referred to Russia as “the world leader in software development” or words to that effect.”

She was challenged by Bill Campbell, who argued,

“As long a there is business opportunity… and I am confident that there will be… the US will provide world leadership in software development.”

He backed up his argument by putting in stakes of $5,000, which Dyson matched.

In reviewing the Bet, we found no such remarks in either publication. American software companies like Google and Facebook remain dominant in the American press. Many countries are contributing more and more to the global IT industry, but none as much as India, according to this graph generated from IMF data.

Winner: Bill Campbell, Challenger

The winnings of this Bet ($10,000 plus half the accrued interest) will go to the Computer History Museum.

As Samuel Arbesman’s recent article on Long Data might suggest, all the data in the world on the Sun’s activities today can’t tell us what it will do tomorrow. But careful observation over the last several centuries has allowed us to develop a predictive understanding of the patterns in solar storm activity.  This collection of long data and the insights it provides won’t guarantee you only see ads that are relevant to you, but it does keep our global electrical and telecommunications infrastructure running.

Long Now intern Sandy Curth writes:

Researchers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center recently posted their solar cycle predictions for 02013. This coming fall is predicted to be the peak of the twenty-fourth 11- year sunspot cycle on record. Though that might sound scary, this peak is actually anticipated to be the lowest since 01906. While the expected solar activity and its impacts for this year aren’t likely to break many records, the source of these predictions is an exceptional example of long term thinking with data stretching back over 350 years.

Since the start of the 18th century, astronomers have been consistently noting the number of spots on the sun, with records of sunspot observation dating back to 364BCE in the star catalogue of Chinese astronomer Gan De. Belgium’s Solar Influences Data Analysis Center offer sunspot data yearly from 01700, monthly from 01750 and daily beginning in 01874. Modern solar predictions are created by analyzing trends in this data and measuring activity in the Earths magnetic field caused by the sun.

NASA solar physicist Dr. David Hathaway explains the details:

A number of techniques are used to predict the amplitude of a cycle during the time near and before sunspot minimum. Relationships have been found between the size of the next cycle maximum and the length of the previous cycle, the level of activity at sunspot minimum, and the size of the previous cycle.

Among the most reliable techniques are those that use the measurements of changes in the Earth’s magnetic field at, and before, sunspot minimum. These changes in the Earth’s magnetic field are known to be caused by solar storms but the precise connections between them and future solar activity levels is still uncertain.

Another indicator of the level of solar activity is the flux of radio emission from the Sun at a wavelength of 10.7 cm (2.8 GHz frequency). This flux has been measured daily since 1947. It is an important indicator of solar activity because it tends to follow the changes in the solar ultraviolet that influence the Earth’s upper atmosphere and ionosphere. Many models of the upper atmosphere use the 10.7 cm flux (F10.7) as input to determine atmospheric densities and satellite drag.

Predicting the behavior of a sunspot cycle is fairly reliable once the cycle is well underway (about 3 years after the minimum in sunspot number occurs [see Hathaway, Wilson, and Reichmann Solar Physics; 151, 177 (1994)]). Prior to that time the predictions are less reliable but nonetheless equally as important. Planning for satellite orbits and space missions often require knowledge of solar activity levels years in advance.

Even though many of the Sun’s systems are still a mystery, scientists are able to predict its activity well enough to keep our communication satellites on track and give us time to prepare for powerful geomagnetic storms that can black out whole cities.

The first solar storm recorded was in September of 01859 and reportedly caused major failures in the world’s developing telegraph system and auroras as far south as the Caribbean. More recently, a less severe storm in 01989 left six million Canadians without power for nine hours. Predicting the next major solar event is becoming as important to maintaining our infrastructure as predicting the next hurricane.

Taking the past seriously is a clear route to a good prediction, but having the presence of mind to collect seemingly useless data to make predictions easier for future thinkers is worth contemplating. Astronomers centuries ago did not have tangible applications for the data they recorded on the sun. Luckily, though, they took the time to carefully collect and compile what they could see so that today, as scientists realize the potentially devastating impact of a severe solar storm, their data becomes priceless.

Former SALT speaker Philip Tetlock spoke with Edge recently about his research into forecasting. In 02005, he published Expert Political Judgement: How Good is it? How Can We Know?, for which he spent over a decade recording and assessing the predictions made by public policy experts. He found them to be not much better than coin-flipping, but was also able to specify that “Hedgehogs” (those holding a single grand theory and fitting events into its framework) did much worse than “Foxes” (skeptical, flexible thinkers).

In his conversation with Edge, he expands on what makes Foxes better predictors, using Nate Silver as a jumping off point, and offers an update on his work since Expert Political Judgement:

Perhaps the most important consequence of publishing the book is that it encouraged some people within the US intelligence community to start thinking seriously about the challenge of creating accuracy metrics and for monitoring how accurate analysts are–which has led to the major project that we’re involved in now, sponsored by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activities (IARPA). It extends from 2011 to 2015, and involves thousands of forecasters making predictions on hundreds of questions over time and tracking in accuracy.

Exercises like this are really important for a democracy. The Nate Silver episode illustrates in a small way what I hope will happen over and over again over the next several decades, which is, there are ways of benchmarking the accuracy of pundits. If pundits feel that their accuracy is benchmarked they will be more careful about what they say, they’ll be more thoughtful about what they say, and it will elevate the quality of public debate.

By the way, the forecasting contest he mentions is accepting submissions.

A major concern of the digital dark age is link rot – the eventual failure of URLs to point to the intended files. As website maintenance falters for any number of reasons the pages can cease to be accessible, even though their addresses may be listed on many other sites.

The notion that Long Bets will be around to assess wagers many years (in some cases, over a hundred) into the future struck web developer Jeremy Keith as a bit far-fetched. In the spirit of the site, therefore, he made a Prediction that the URL pointing to the Prediction he was making wouldn’t last 11 years.

He gave a talk at Webstock earlier this year called Of Time and the Network exploring our changing perception of time as a result of our changing level of interconnectedness. At 31:30 he discusses his thoughts on long-term challenges to the accessibility of URLs and dares someone to take him up on the Bet. You can read a transcription of the talk and a blog post he wrote about the Bet itself.

Another presenter at Webstock, Matt Haughey, was game. He gave a talk later in the conference about long-term thinking in the context of the web and, while consistent URLs weren’t the main focus, he touched on the problem and actually officially challenged Keith in his presentation – check it out in the video at 18:50. He was also kind enough to transcribe his talk for those who’d like to read it.

We’re very excited to have this Bet on record and it’s being closely watched by our systems administrator, designer and web developer Benjamin Keating.

Keith and Haughey have each offered stakes of $500, with the winnings going to either the Bletchly Park Trust or the Internet Archive. You can read and comment on their arguments and the detailed terms we’ll use to adjudicate the Bet at Long Bets.