Post: #476

For the interested. Looks like we're getting a tobin tax after all?

Post: #477

(03-23-2019 05:50 PM)Aurini Wrote:  

(03-22-2019 10:02 AM)Malone Wrote:  The thing is with increasing automation most people just become useless eaters/consumers. If we're not going to have some kind of cataclysm to kill off the useless 80% then something else has to be done.

I wonder if the reason we all think this is because of basic assumptions we make about what an economy is, and how money works.

I just had to do the dishes; the water is free with my rent, the soap is so cheap it might as well be free, but I still had to do the dishes. Get up, move around... if I were working at a kitchen, loading the dishwasher would be something I was paid for.

Will we ever be so post scarcity I don't have to do dishes?

Or look at it from the other end: were the Romans not so wealthy, each family owning a caste of slaves, that they could be called post scarcity?

How exactly does the world work - how does it look? When we have robot slaves doing everything for us? Will they carry me to my car, and drive me to - well, I guess not work. So what am I doing?

I think our species has been post scarcity multiple times, and we're post scarcity right now. Our problems are not automation; it's the endless bureaucracy and regulation - all of which boil down to social expectations - except they're expectations designed, not by our community, but by foreigners who hate us (I consider everybody who works in government to be a hostile, invading alien species. Prove me wrong.).

UBI only makes sense if you assume that the rules of D&D define how reality actually exists. If you think the modern 'conception' of 'work' and 'salary' have some sort of intrinsic reality - that they aren't just assumptions and constructs that we find convenient.

It sounds to me like you're identifying post-scarcity civilisations as ones where there's an abundance of resources rather than the sort of Star Trek TNG form of post-scarcity where there are practically limitless resources.

This abundance is entirely illusory. Rome, Sparta, and modern Western Civilisation all have one thing in common: they secure/d their budgets by institutionalised slavery. The trick is only achievable by having a source of shit-cheap labour for the hard and boring work, also see: the East.

Western Civilisation is only different in the name it gives to its slaves: employees. I won't do the full quote from Taleb about how essentially a Western man is made a slave by the imperative to remain employable. When you look at the protections afforded to Roman slaves (emancipation after marrying correctly, being a cop, or otherwise being tapped on the head by your master) they have an amusing thematic similarly to modern employment laws.

Rome and Sparta also had in common that right when they thought they'd achieved an 'abundance' of 'wealth', it came crashing down a few decades later. Sparta fell after it was given vast amounts of money for allying with Persia against Greece, and Rome fell after it had debased both its currency and its citizens to the point where the system could not be paid for anymore.

Western civilisation is doing the same thing. The debasement of the US dollar is the means by which it's taking place. The reason people feel 'rich' is because their working capacity is essentially at maximum and because they have a lot of dollars that aren't actually worth that much, but nobody has yet called an end to the party. Recall that feminism is a product of end-stage civilisations; the Spartan women were strumpets off the back of their low-cost labour and under the aegis of their fiercely disciplined armies, freely trading wives and behaving in a lascivious manner compared with the family-oriented Athenians. UBI, a system where All Are Free And All Are Equal, is also a product of an end stage, too. Not the end of economics as we know it, Jim, the end of the fictive dream, as suspension of disbelief becomes harder and harder.

Will robots fix it? No, because the robots can't mine for themselves, can't refine for themselves, can't exercise judgment, and can't think like humans. The parlour trick of Deep Fuckstick Six beating people at Go and international chess masters is not AI; it's little more than brute-force hacking. The real world doesn't run on that, as evidenced by the fact Black Swans escape human creativity and lateral thinking - and AI is never going to be more creative or lateral than we are, because (per Archpriest Dawkins) nothing in the universe can ever be more complex than its creator. If humans can't anticipate and stop Black Swans, computers won't either, and it's Black Swans that cause great rising tides or great ruin (and often, both).

So no, mass robot production isn't going to fix it. Not unless the robots take over entirely, in which case - as The Matrix also points out - what was our civilisation becomes their civilisation. And if that happens, labour costs are going to be the least of the human race's problems.

God save us from people who mean well. -storm

Post: #478

(03-24-2019 06:26 AM)Paracelsus Wrote:  Will robots fix it? No, because the robots can't mine for themselves, can't refine for themselves, can't exercise judgment, and can't think like humans. The parlour trick of Deep Fuckstick Six beating people at Go and international chess masters is not AI; it's little more than brute-force hacking. The real world doesn't run on that, as evidenced by the fact Black Swans escape human creativity and lateral thinking - and AI is never going to be more creative or lateral than we are, because (per Archpriest Dawkins) nothing in the universe can ever be more complex than its creator. If humans can't anticipate and stop Black Swans, computers won't either, and it's Black Swans that cause great rising tides or great ruin (and often, both).

Not sure what you're trying to say here. What is the "it" that the robots can't fix?

Post: #479

(03-23-2019 10:52 PM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  I am, yeah. As I've said above, I see the possibility of a gigantic, horrible collapse coming for America, and if it hits I think the death toll might get up to the hundreds of millions.

At first, I thought, "Hey we can maybe avoid this if the US isn't overrun by foreign invaders."

Failed utterly. Complete disaster on every level. I couldn't even get guys HERE to agree to that idea, because it involved telling well-respected members things that would hurt them. Nobody was willing to do it, and this is on a goofy internet forum about getting second and third-world sluts to take their clothes off. If they won't agree to the idea here, the odds they'll be willing to do it in real life, where the social costs are vastly higher, are pretty much zero.

So that idea went by the wayside, and now it's on to the next idea, which is a UBI. And I think Yang's a great candidate for the idea. He's smart, eloquent, and simultaneously avoids the "You're a racist!" bullshit from the left by virtue of being Asian, and the "You just want free money!" argument from the right by virtue of having paid more in taxes than most people will earn in their lives.

Is it still a long shot? Sure, for reasons a lot of people have pointed out. But what's the alternative, really? Just give up and wait for the apocalypse?

I agree. I see the same problems in the UK and Europe. Demographics are destiny and a failure to deal with it has meant we are now 2 decades behind in terms of numbers.

It looks like you want to get something good out of it before a shit storm ensues but will America vote for an Asian guy? I just cant see him putting his hand on the wall in Israel with a Jew cap on.

Post: #480

(03-24-2019 06:26 AM)Paracelsus Wrote:  

(03-23-2019 05:50 PM)Aurini Wrote:  

(03-22-2019 10:02 AM)Malone Wrote:  The thing is with increasing automation most people just become useless eaters/consumers. If we're not going to have some kind of cataclysm to kill off the useless 80% then something else has to be done.

I wonder if the reason we all think this is because of basic assumptions we make about what an economy is, and how money works.

I just had to do the dishes; the water is free with my rent, the soap is so cheap it might as well be free, but I still had to do the dishes. Get up, move around... if I were working at a kitchen, loading the dishwasher would be something I was paid for.

Will we ever be so post scarcity I don't have to do dishes?

Or look at it from the other end: were the Romans not so wealthy, each family owning a caste of slaves, that they could be called post scarcity?

How exactly does the world work - how does it look? When we have robot slaves doing everything for us? Will they carry me to my car, and drive me to - well, I guess not work. So what am I doing?

I think our species has been post scarcity multiple times, and we're post scarcity right now. Our problems are not automation; it's the endless bureaucracy and regulation - all of which boil down to social expectations - except they're expectations designed, not by our community, but by foreigners who hate us (I consider everybody who works in government to be a hostile, invading alien species. Prove me wrong.).

UBI only makes sense if you assume that the rules of D&D define how reality actually exists. If you think the modern 'conception' of 'work' and 'salary' have some sort of intrinsic reality - that they aren't just assumptions and constructs that we find convenient.

It sounds to me like you're identifying post-scarcity civilisations as ones where there's an abundance of resources rather than the sort of Star Trek TNG form of post-scarcity where there are practically limitless resources.

This abundance is entirely illusory. Rome, Sparta, and modern Western Civilisation all have one thing in common: they secure/d their budgets by institutionalised slavery. The trick is only achievable by having a source of shit-cheap labour for the hard and boring work, also see: the East.

Western Civilisation is only different in the name it gives to its slaves: employees. I won't do the full quote from Taleb about how essentially a Western man is made a slave by the imperative to remain employable. When you look at the protections afforded to Roman slaves (emancipation after marrying correctly, being a cop, or otherwise being tapped on the head by your master) they have an amusing thematic similarly to modern employment laws.

Rome and Sparta also had in common that right when they thought they'd achieved an 'abundance' of 'wealth', it came crashing down a few decades later. Sparta fell after it was given vast amounts of money for allying with Persia against Greece, and Rome fell after it had debased both its currency and its citizens to the point where the system could not be paid for anymore.

Western civilisation is doing the same thing. The debasement of the US dollar is the means by which it's taking place. The reason people feel 'rich' is because their working capacity is essentially at maximum and because they have a lot of dollars that aren't actually worth that much, but nobody has yet called an end to the party. Recall that feminism is a product of end-stage civilisations; the Spartan women were strumpets off the back of their low-cost labour and under the aegis of their fiercely disciplined armies, freely trading wives and behaving in a lascivious manner compared with the family-oriented Athenians. UBI, a system where All Are Free And All Are Equal, is also a product of an end stage, too. Not the end of economics as we know it, Jim, the end of the fictive dream, as suspension of disbelief becomes harder and harder.

Will robots fix it? No, because the robots can't mine for themselves, can't refine for themselves, can't exercise judgment, and can't think like humans. The parlour trick of Deep Fuckstick Six beating people at Go and international chess masters is not AI; it's little more than brute-force hacking. The real world doesn't run on that, as evidenced by the fact Black Swans escape human creativity and lateral thinking - and AI is never going to be more creative or lateral than we are, because (per Archpriest Dawkins) nothing in the universe can ever be more complex than its creator. If humans can't anticipate and stop Black Swans, computers won't either, and it's Black Swans that cause great rising tides or great ruin (and often, both).

So no, mass robot production isn't going to fix it. Not unless the robots take over entirely, in which case - as The Matrix also points out - what was our civilisation becomes their civilisation. And if that happens, labour costs are going to be the least of the human race's problems.

That's exactly my point; let me reiterate a little bit.

You brought up Sparta. I'm going to speculate a bit here (not an expert on this particular period of history, but I have high confidence in my speculations). I'll wager that military strategy was to Sparta, what Economics is to America. Their intellectuals were exploring all the ways they could 'perfect' the art of war, as a justification for their perpetual power. In the same way we perfect 'economics' to juke the numbers so that we can all be super rich - whether it's through the trickle down effect or UBI, we obsess over economic theory.

Only, our economic theory is as divorced from reality, as the Spartan's Super Happy Funtime Strategy theory was divorced from civilizational growth.

"When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." The Spartans were brilliant warriors - obsessive warriors - but they mistook excellence at war for excellence at maintaining civilization. For us, economics has become entirely focused on things like interest rates, taxes, and financial activity. It has abandoned the value of frugality; opportunity cost is no longer a major consideration; it values efficiency over integrity.

Put it like this: we've been huffing our own supply, and ignoring the realities on the ground. Look out the window, and you can spot the crumbling infrastructure, the eroding social cohesion, and the increasing incompetence of the work force. But like the Spartans ignoring the social collapse of their military men, we ignore these fundamentals of the economy, and instead of trying to fix them, we're applying for a new credit card which we'll use to buy paint to cover over the cracks.

Post: #481

What do you mean by "opportunity cost is no longer a major consideration"?

Post: #482

I don't get why only $50 billion in Tobin Tax, but it's a start. There are trillions and trillions of fake wealth, that investment banks are stealing from the tax payer, through the "loan creation"/"free fed money" scheme, that needs to go back to the people. Nothing would change at all, even if every financial transaction (stock, derivatives, bonds) were taxed 1%. It would simply weed out short sighted speculation.

Has anyone done calculations of the value of short term speculation in a day?

Post: #483

In Machiavellian Terms, I may just switch to Dem registration for the Live Free or Die Primaries and Vote for Yang to Gum up the Democommunists party works and then revert to GOP for the Main Event and vote Trump back in for 4 more years.

Sending Yang off into the world as the Dems candidate likely to explode Clinton/Obama/Bernie/Beto/Kamala/Warren/AOC supporters brains all over the USA plus the Live Free or Die state weeds out a lot of tire kickers on both sides of the aisle.

Post: #484

(03-24-2019 11:46 AM)Aurini Wrote:  Put it like this: we've been huffing our own supply, and ignoring the realities on the ground. Look out the window, and you can spot the crumbling infrastructure, the eroding social cohesion, and the increasing incompetence of the work force. But like the Spartans ignoring the social collapse of their military men, we ignore these fundamentals of the economy, and instead of trying to fix them, we're applying for a new credit card which we'll use to buy paint to cover over the cracks.

Aurini, do you have any data to back up the claim of increasing workforce incompetence? I certainly have noticed a lot of incompetence in the service sector in recent years. That is just anecdotal evidence.

If this is true, I think this is an aspect of an increasingly complex society that will cause problems for everyone even without automation. Some of the mechanics of various organizational or logistical tasks are too complex for the average service worker to fully keep track of, so they overlook details and end up offering subpar service.

The only non empirical evidence I've seen are articles about employers complaining of talent shortage.

If anything, this is as critical of a conversation about the job market today as the one about automation.

Post: #485

He was in Chicago today:

Post: #486

Yang still polling at 0 in Iowa and nationwide.

https://emersonpolling.reportablenews.co...ble-digits

Post: #487

(03-25-2019 08:16 PM)Curunír Wrote:  Yang still polling at 0 in Iowa and nationwide.

https://emersonpolling.reportablenews.co...ble-digits

The only way to go is up!

Post: #488

With a good showing at the debates, he will improve. He will have to get some sort of grass roots fundraising and commercials to really campaign and peel off some of the Bernie voters and undecideds.

Honestly I’ll be happy if he gets his message out and if he doesn’t win then other candidates steal his ideas for 2020 and 2024.

Post: #489

(03-25-2019 08:16 PM)Curunír Wrote:  Yang still polling at 0 in Iowa and nationwide.

https://emersonpolling.reportablenews.co...ble-digits

Cue The Black Knight to make a compelling case for zero.

Post: #490

(03-25-2019 08:45 AM)glugger Wrote:  What do you mean by "opportunity cost is no longer a major consideration"?

If 50 is the new 20, who cares about pissing away most of your youth on a useless degree? We no longer acknowledge ourselves as finite beings, that only get to specialize in one thing - we want to be everything, that's what the TV Advertising Man told us! Ergo, we refuse to make trade-offs, and try and have everything.

Kind of reminds me of video games with 100% completion.

Quote:Aurini, do you have any data to back up the claim of increasing workforce incompetence? I certainly have noticed a lot of incompetence in the service sector in recent years. That is just anecdotal evidence.

Not my specialty in Data Analysis. However, I'll toss something at you: flat earth people. You can literally calculate the circumference of the earth with a couple of cell phones, a couple of meter sticks, and a buddy who's willing to drive three hours away from the equator.

Tell me that we made this thing look so stupid just to please a bunch of lizard people:



(Every 24 miles the grid squares adjust to compensate for the curvature of the Earth.)

Fast food workers were sharp as a tack 20 years ago. Now? Ergh...

Post: #491

(03-24-2019 06:20 AM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  

For the interested. Looks like we're getting a tobin tax after all?

What I am reading here is taxes, taxes, taxes and more huge new taxes - hope the 2020 Dems run with this platform it is a real Winner NOT.

Post: #492

(03-25-2019 09:16 PM)Kid Twist Wrote:  

(03-25-2019 08:16 PM)Curunír Wrote:  Yang still polling at 0 in Iowa and nationwide.

https://emersonpolling.reportablenews.co...ble-digits

Cue The Black Knight to make a compelling case for zero.

And yet, Fox News, which has a larger sample (and smaller margin of error) has both Pete and Andrew at 1%.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fox-new...-3-24-2019

Meanwhile, while we're handpicking metrics...

Edit: Just for perspective:
Tulsi today:

Andrew today:

Post: #493

At this point I think the polls mostly predict name recognition.
Yang's path to victory is to gain legitimacy through the debates (and through raising awareness in the twitter-obsessed journalism class through the use of memes).
Until we see if this happens or not, the polls are mostly useless as a barometer for his candidacy.

The dem field is weak, except for Joe Biden. There's plenty of room for an upstart. Hell, how much attention is going to Beto O' Rourke, a guy whose claim to fame is LOSING a senate run to Ted "Zodiac Killer" Cruz?

(03-25-2019 10:09 PM)Deepdiver Wrote:  What I am reading here is taxes, taxes, taxes and more huge new taxes - hope the 2020 Dems run with this platform it is a real Winner NOT.

Well, this is a grown-up board for grown-ups to talk, and grown-ups don't usually end their sentences with NOT in all caps like a totally rad 90s teenager. So maybe dial that stuff back a bit.
That said, we have no idea how the larger public will react to the idea of higher taxes in exchange for a UBI. A lot of it comes down to how skillfully Yang can present it. He's a much better advocate for the idea than say, Bernie.

Is it too soon for a UBI? Do we need to wait until self-driving cars start taking jobs before there's enough groundswell for it? Maybe so. But it's great that the idea is getting out there, and I'm happy that it has a great spokesman like Andrew Yang.

Post: #494

(03-25-2019 11:22 PM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  At this point I think the polls mostly predict name recognition.
Yang's path to victory is to gain legitimacy through the debates (and through raising awareness in the twitter-obsessed journalism class through the use of memes).
Until we see if this happens or not, the polls are mostly useless as a barometer for his candidacy.

The dem field is weak, except for Joe Biden. There's plenty of room for an upstart. Hell, how much attention is going to Beto O' Rourke, a guy whose claim to fame is LOSING a senate run to Ted "Zodiac Killer" Cruz?

(03-25-2019 10:09 PM)Deepdiver Wrote:  What I am reading here is taxes, taxes, taxes and more huge new taxes - hope the 2020 Dems run with this platform it is a real Winner NOT.

Well, this is a grown-up board for grown-ups to talk, and grown-ups don't usually end their sentences with NOT in all caps like a totally rad 90s teenager. So maybe dial that stuff back a bit.
That said, we have no idea how the larger public will react to the idea of higher taxes in exchange for a UBI. A lot of it comes down to how skillfully Yang can present it. He's a much better advocate for the idea than say, Bernie.

Is it too soon for a UBI? Do we need to wait until self-driving cars start taking jobs before there's enough groundswell for it? Maybe so. But it's great that the idea is getting out there, and I'm happy that it has a great spokesman like Andrew Yang.

Clearly you need to get laid because you have lost your sense of humor.

Post: #495

Is that where we are now? "You need to get laid?"

Come on, man. I don't wanna be like some other people and be like, "You are ruining the value of the Andrew Yang thread!" but seriously?

Post: #496

(03-25-2019 05:14 PM)Deepdiver Wrote:  In Machiavellian Terms, I may just switch to Dem registration for the Live Free or Die Primaries and Vote for Yang to Gum up the Democommunists party works and then revert to GOP for the Main Event and vote Trump back in for 4 more years.

Sending Yang off into the world as the Dems candidate likely to explode Clinton/Obama/Bernie/Beto/Kamala/Warren/AOC supporters brains all over the USA plus the Live Free or Die state weeds out a lot of tire kickers on both sides of the aisle.

Don't forget to register anyone you know who's died in the last 10 years.

When in Rome...

Post: #497

(03-25-2019 09:39 PM)Aurini Wrote:  ...
Tell me that we made this thing look so stupid just to please a bunch of lizard people:



(Every 24 miles the grid squares adjust to compensate for the curvature of the Earth.)

Fast food workers were sharp as a tack 20 years ago. Now? Ergh...

This is stupid. They should just change the distance an easterly/westerly mile equals relative to its proximity to the equator.

Post: #498

(03-25-2019 10:09 PM)Deepdiver Wrote:  What I am reading here is taxes, taxes, taxes and more huge new taxes - hope the 2020 Dems run with this platform it is a real Winner NOT.

So you think any other democrat is NOT going to raise taxes through the roof anyway? And we won't get our UBI with them, just endless wars for israel or other bullshit.

The point here is to control who gets nominated for the democrat party on the small chance Trump loses in the general. Yang is the devil-you-know who also gives out $1000 a month.

Post: #499

The UBI is a double edged sword, it can be used to destroy the Fed's monopoly just by having the Treasury issue debt free the monthly ~$250 billion to all American adult citizens. This would automatically neuter the Fed's grip on the monetary system! UBI is therefore a very powerful trojan horse against the fractional reserve private Fed system, potentially.

If Yang could replace the carbon tax and reduce the VAT through a 0.1% net worth tax and a bigger Tobin tax, it would be an amazing plan.

Post: #500

Why does this random, pussy-looking Asian dude seem to have more balls than Trump?