Identical market for sub-$250 purchases here.
I don't want to provide any details about myself here because ideally I'd like this market to be broadly applicable to others. So, in the spirit of the market, please try to avoid researching and/or doxxing me to guess about how I will resolve things. Obviously I can't control this, but I think this market will be of greater public utility if you just regard me as a "median manifold user across all domains."
In 2026, I'll plan to return to this market and resolve the 10 answers which most significantly improved my subjective quality of life as "YES." This is true whether they are things I already did before creating this market, or they are new things that I added to my life (hopefully) as a result of this market. That being said, I will plan to make a concerted effort to experiment with as many doable and cheap answers here that I can (especially if they make sense to me, seem interesting, echo previous advice I've heard, are highly valued by traders, etc.)
Additionally, for every answer I resolve "YES" that I first tried as the direct consequence of it being suggested in this market, I will award a significant (≥2000 mana) bounty to the creator of that answer.
If I have tried something but it doesn't make the "top 10" cut, I'll resolve to "NO." If I didn't even try the answer, I'll resolve to N/A.
I will not personally trade on this market.
There's some things that are important to quality of life but aren't exactly actionable decisions — for example "having a close group of friends." If people submit something like this as an answer, I'll resolve it N/A. However, if it's framed as an actionable decision (e.g. "going to meetup.com events to make new friends" or "scheduling recurring monthly calls with long-distance friends") then it will count according to the normal resolution rules above.
For top-10 decisions (e.g. getting into rowing) that could count under multiple answers on the market (e.g. "cardio exercise" and "outdoor rowing"), I'll resolve the most-specific applicable answer as "YES" and the others as "N/A." Please don't try to game this by arbitrarily over-specifying answers (e.g. "joining a rowing team that goes outdoors every morning between 4 and 8 am") — if I suspect that's being done, I'll resolve the overly-specific answers as "N/A."
Please don't add item purchases to this market. Things that technically cost money but aren't specific items, like vacations or therapy, can be added here. Specific items belong in the corresponding item market.
This market is a bit of an experiment so I reserve the right to add some more clarifications here as answers come in.
Credit to Saul Munn's bounty market for giving me the idea to do this (I'm hoping this version will add some "wisdom of the crowd" in terms of evaluating the relative value of each answer). Feel free to add suggestions from his market as answers here. https://manifold.markets/saulmunn/how-can-improve-my-life
1,000
3.00What I mean by this is to sort of gently say a bit more to strangers you run into than normal. Completely inanely, with no direction or pressure, and respecting if they don't want to talk.
This kind of started happening to me naturally and I really like it. Before I'd never talk to the convenience story guy, uber drivers etc. But now at least I say like "Are you busy today?" or something like that. If they don't want to talk, I just leave it, but if they reply similarly, I sometimes keep it going. You can ask about local issues, new buildings going up, how they like that car - basically issues related to public affairs in your town. (it doesn't have to just be about the weather).
The effect has been to make me feel a lot more grounded in where I am. That I'm not rushing to work or home to continue optimizing some kind of long term plan, but instead that I'm just here now, investing in the area and specific locations and people around me. There isn't actually that much of a rush to be to my next destination 30 seconds earlier. At its best, you find unexpected depth or are surprised at a new way someone has found to express themself. Overall it increased my connection to my surroundings a bunch and I don't feel as much like just a passer-through. More deeply I think of it as showing my internal psyche that I'm willing to slightly be influenced by, and influence, people around me. I'm not in lockdown mode against other people around, and that it's safe to engage. Optimization wise, it also feels like doing this over 5-10 years would have a better cumulative result than now. It also seems to put me into a "small-town" mindset rather than "big-city", so you go around thinking that you are a vital part of where you live, and are going to be there a long time, and that there is enough time and energy for everyone to not just interact as strangers but to get to a more connected and maybe more compassionate way to live.
@redcat Ah yeah, good point. I guess it's both an item and a habit. Maybe something like "take a general multivitamin" belongs in the item market, but "eat healthy" or "get blood test and supplement nutritional deficiencies" belongs here. I resolved this one N/A!
If you don't try an option (like this one), will you resolve it with N/A or with NO?
Could you also specify in the resolution criteria exactly how you will participate in this market so that we can be sure that you are not manipulating the outcome for profit?
@redcat [EDIT: NO LONGER TRUE, SEE BELOW] Resolution will be "NO" if I don't try something at all. Although I'm not super experienced with creating markets — does that make sense to you, or would N/A be better for weird incentive reasons?
@TylerJohnston N/A would be better because then the market is both about you will do change your habits and if the habits make you happier
@TylerJohnston It depends. Do you want people to bet exclusively on the increase in the quality of life of the individual measures, or should it also be about whether you try something at all? Personally, I think it's cleaner to bet only on the effectiveness, because that seems to be the core of your experiment. But both options are possible.
However, it would be important to know how you are participating yourself. For example, if you were to bet on NO on the dog option, shortly before market close, because you knew that you hadn't adopted a dog, that would be unfair to other traders who didn't have this background knowledge. This is generally permitted here, but many market creators define from the outset how they want to participate: either no restrictions, no participation at all or only betting on YES and not selling shares early...
@redcat I see! I'll switch the criteria to "NO if tried and didn't make the cut, N/A if never tried." Hopefully that's not too unfair to the ~9 people who have traded already (if so msg me and I will reimburse you!).
Also, I will not trade on this market! Thanks for the suggestion.