tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post5966529176712963911..comments2023-11-05T01:11:04.903-08:00Comments on Omniorthogonal: Hostile AI: You’re soaking in it!mtravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02356162954308418556noreply@blogger.comBlogger91125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-40171621647094868032020-05-06T08:23:26.183-07:002020-05-06T08:23:26.183-07:00I had not heard of that documentary, thanks for th...I had not heard of that documentary, thanks for the pointer!<br /><br />I don't have any claim to the phrase "You're Soaking In It", which is a reference to an old commercial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bEkq7JCbikmtravenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02356162954308418556noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-50262658526767310002020-05-06T03:30:32.032-07:002020-05-06T03:30:32.032-07:00Did you know "You're Soaking In It" ...Did you know "You're Soaking In It" is now a documentary movie based on ideas that flow right out of this essay? I was going to send you a note, and stumbled onto the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=steAzhqSn2o<br /><br />Originally what I meant to write is that the AI parable about being buried in paper clips flows directly from the unspoken adage of modernity: "If in doubt, optimize something" (I came up with the words, but the adage has always been there in some form).Hal Morrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08662079870429206811noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-59608130911559203982014-03-21T19:58:32.025-07:002014-03-21T19:58:32.025-07:00Your take on business and AI reminds me of Charles...Your take on business and AI reminds me of Charles Stross' "Invaders from Mars" essay: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/12/invaders-from-mars.htmlAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-52410917906300880992014-03-21T13:35:17.609-07:002014-03-21T13:35:17.609-07:00Anybody against "shooting the C.E.O. of Exxo...Anybody against "shooting the C.E.O. of Exxon" ?<br /><br />Hello...anybody?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-77955155052078139212013-05-01T12:06:35.670-07:002013-05-01T12:06:35.670-07:00Persons who subscribe to what Tom Sowell has calle...Persons who subscribe to what Tom Sowell has called "the vision of the anointed' often act as you are doing when confronted with disagreement. They cannot argue their side of an issue cogently, so they pretend their interlocutor is not worthy of serious response, and dismiss him with flippancy or sarcasm. Such snottiness and superciliousness as yours is still no substitute for reasoned argument.fsascottnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-12859488921993986352013-04-27T12:28:13.222-07:002013-04-27T12:28:13.222-07:00Did you read How to Win Friends and Influence Peop...Did you read How to Win Friends and Influence People too? You're a winner and a champion!hoyhoyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04053951858615655859noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-38626461166782165592013-04-27T12:27:23.604-07:002013-04-27T12:27:23.604-07:00You're the good person, a winner and a champio...You're the good person, a winner and a champion. Other people are the bad people and losers.hoyhoyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04053951858615655859noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-42632477836266964842013-04-25T19:56:34.471-07:002013-04-25T19:56:34.471-07:00How do you know how successful I am or am not? It ...How do you know how successful I am or am not? It may be - indeed, I suspect that it is - the case that, after forty years in my own business, I have far greater prosperity, far better social entrée, much more aesthetic satisfaction, and greater spiritual contentment in my life, than you now enjoy or ever will do. <br /><br />Learn not to be quite so smug and morally vain. People will think the better of you. fsascottnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-84975053947361158752013-04-25T10:37:58.146-07:002013-04-25T10:37:58.146-07:00fsascott, I wish I could live in your simplistic w...fsascott, I wish I could live in your simplistic world of good and evil. You're a cartoon of an actual person. What's amazing to me is that you think pretending to believe this nonsense is going to make you successful.hoyhoyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04053951858615655859noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-32844887024973038612013-04-04T19:26:25.922-07:002013-04-04T19:26:25.922-07:00Except that's not what I'm saying. I don&#...Except that's not what I'm saying. I don't want to "increase industrial production for the State." That sounds like some sort of Stakhanovite dream of the old Soviet Union.<br /><br />In a free society, industrial, agricultural, extractive, and any other kind of production exist at whatever level they do because of market demand, not because of some quota set by the State. Market demand is merely the sum of individual demands, and is a very bottom-up kind of phenomenon - people voting with their dollars, so to speak.<br /><br />You seem to like to use language that imputes to persons or institutions a character that they really don't have. Let's take, for example, your reference to "the powerless" in one of your comments above. To say that something is powerless is to imply that it is without any ability to affect anything.<br /><br />Do you really believe that the bottom quintile of society, the deadbeats, the slothful, the vicious, those with two-digit IQs, are without any ability to affect anything? That's rather like saying that drag lacks the power to affect the flight of an aircraft, or that excess ballast lacks the power to affect the way a ship sails. <br /><br />Here's an interesting article about the nature and composition of mortgage defaulters:<br /><br />http://isteve.blogspot.com/2013/04/foreclosures-on-2005-vintage-mortgages.html<br /><br />Evil rich people did not force these people to default on their bills - any more than they forced the same segment of society to bear more children in bastardy than in wedlock, to commit most of the violent crime, to consume most of the illegal drugs, or generally to flourish in all types of social pathology. And to say that these behaviors are without effect - that the people who engage in them are powerless - is an obvious falsehood. They have exerted a great and malignant power over the American economy and body politic.fsascottnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-7936291990920822222013-04-04T13:17:36.073-07:002013-04-04T13:17:36.073-07:00Oh, totally. That's what I'm saying. The...Oh, totally. That's what I'm saying. The US needs more competition! We need a war of all against all to increase industrial production for the State. I'm agreeing with you and Lord Reagan on this one.hoyhoyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04053951858615655859noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-35044768254078934812013-04-04T12:47:22.282-07:002013-04-04T12:47:22.282-07:00You don't have that quite right. The USSR fail...You don't have that quite right. The USSR failed because collectivism always does, sooner or later. The Chinese, a bit smarter, abandoned Marxism in practice while retaining the Communist party simply as an instrument of authoritarian government. The Chinese have prospered as they have moved away from collectivism.<br /><br />The EU and the USA are experiencing failure to the degree that they have embraced collectivism. Instead of expanding their collectivism, they ought to be backing away from it, as the Chinese have done. It would be easier to begin doing this now, while it can still be done gradually, rather than waiting until social democracy collapses under the burden of its unsustainable costs.fsascottnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-39845315835227299072013-04-04T11:43:00.327-07:002013-04-04T11:43:00.327-07:00Dude, you won. I'm convinced now. the USA fa...Dude, you won. I'm convinced now. the USA failed because it wasn't capitalist the same way the USSR failed because it wasn't communist enough. You're so right that it hurts.hoyhoyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04053951858615655859noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-35768714065247753052013-04-04T07:48:45.588-07:002013-04-04T07:48:45.588-07:00HoyHoy (should it be heu heu?) - If you have nothi...HoyHoy (should it be heu heu?) - If you have nothing of interest to contribute to the conversation, then why continue to post? Your remarks are not making any sort of case for your position, and the attitude of superiority and sarcasm you affect seems quite unwarranted by its merits. fsascottnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-37817743085948194472013-04-04T00:59:19.210-07:002013-04-04T00:59:19.210-07:00I'm totally convinced now. That article reall...I'm totally convinced now. That article really made me change my mind. It really is the fault of big government and the powerless. Fsascott, The ghosts of Lord Reagan, Milton Friedman, Margaret Thatcher and Ayn Rand are all smiling down on you now. Who's a good boy? Fsascott is a good boy!hoyhoyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04053951858615655859noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-23702427002759268292013-04-03T16:14:46.550-07:002013-04-03T16:14:46.550-07:00I'll just leave you with this, from yesterday&...I'll just leave you with this, from yesterday's Washington Post:<br /><br />"The Obama administration is engaged in a broad push to make more home loans available to people with weaker credit, an effort that officials say will help power the economic recovery but that skeptics say could open the door to the risky lending that caused the housing crash in the first place. ...<br /><br />"In response, administration officials say they are working to get banks to lend to a wider range of borrowers by taking advantage of taxpayer-backed programs — including those offered by the Federal Housing Administration — that insure home loans against default. <br /><br />"Housing officials are urging the Justice Department to provide assurances to banks, which have become increasingly cautious, that they will not face legal or financial recriminations if they make loans to riskier borrowers who meet government standards but later default. <br /><br />"Officials are also encouraging lenders to use more subjective judgment in determining whether to offer a loan and are seeking to make it easier for people who owe more than their properties are worth to refinance at today’s low interest rates, among other steps. ..."<br /><br />http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/obama-administration-pushes-banks-to-make-home-loans-to-people-with-weaker-credit/2013/04/02/a8b4370c-9aef-11e2-a941-a19bce7af755_story.html?hpid=z1<br /><br />Look who is leading the gullible down the primrose path once again.<br /><br />As Jacob Burckhardt observed,<br /><br />“the state incurs debts for politics, war, and other higher causes and ‘progress’. . . . The assumption is that the future will honor this relationship in perpetuity. The state has learned from the merchants and industrialists how to exploit credit; it defies the nation ever to let it go into bankruptcy. Alongside all swindlers the state now stands there as swindler-in-chief.”fsascottnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-7660203024466235712013-04-03T10:41:46.671-07:002013-04-03T10:41:46.671-07:00YOU WIN! YOU'RE A WINNER AND A CHAMPION! AND...YOU WIN! YOU'RE A WINNER AND A CHAMPION! AND CREDITWORTHY!hoyhoyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04053951858615655859noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-11119314375179476122013-04-03T09:51:00.412-07:002013-04-03T09:51:00.412-07:00"Also, if you don't enjoy money and trans..."Also, if you don't enjoy money and transactionalizing human existence, then you're a Maoist Communist Stalinist and have to be sent to the capitalist gulag."<br /><br />You have things entirely upside down. It is the Marxists who are insistently, dogmatically, pure materialists. If you don't want to take my word for it, go back and read Marx.<br /><br />We reactionaries, while we venerate Tradition, Family, and Property, have never held that the first two are <br />mere offshoots of the latter, as Marx did when he railed against "the claptrap of the bourgeois family," or as Engels asserted at length in "The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State." Tradition and family are independent concepts. Tradition expresses the lessons learnt by the cumulative experience of millennia of human existence; the family antedates all systems of economics and is the fundamental unit of all societies. The moral and metaphysical elements of these concepts cannot be reduced to the material, as Marxists hold that they can.<br /><br />"Because Communism = Socialism = Command-and-<br />Control economy presided over by a dictatorship"<br /><br />Of course not all collectivisms are equal in all things. There are differences of degree, as there are between similar varieties of disease. If Soviet communism was the H1N1 flu, British socialism was the stomach flu. Hpwever, each is debilitating in its own way. The turmoil in the European Union largely reflects the collapsing condition of social democracy in states that can no longer afford its costs. The banking crisis in Cyprus is a direct consequence of the overinvestment by Cypriot banks in bad sovereign debt, mainly that of Greece. As Sheila Bair (head of the FDIC) pointed out in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, banks overinvest in sovereign debt because by regulation it is risk-weighted at zero, a highly dubious assumption. And who made that regulation? Governments, the issuers of sovereign debt.<br /><br />" (in accordance with the ancient prophecy bespoke"<br /><br />Do you mean it was made to order, like a Savile Row suit? That is what "bespoke" means.<br /><br />" by George Washington,"<br /><br />I have to admit a liking for old George. It was he who observed that government, like fire, was a dangerous servant and a fearful master - words we would do well to heed.<br /><br />" Jesus,"<br /><br />Jesus said thar his kingdom was not of this world. Christianity is a path to spiritual redemption, not a blueprint for social organization.<br /><br />" Ayn Rand"<br /><br />A bad writer and a half-baked philosopher, whose one trick was to turn Marx's materialism on its head - mainly valuable for her ability to horrify leftists.<br /><br />" and Milton Friedman"<br /><br />I'll bet you have never read any of Friedman's scholarly works on economics, and that your sole exposure to him consists of having seen an episode or two of "Free to Choose." You deride what you do not comprehend.fsascottnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-63024371836398324342013-04-03T07:58:59.443-07:002013-04-03T07:58:59.443-07:00"No, I'm agreeing with you. You're a ..."No, I'm agreeing with you. You're a Randian hero and creditworthy. I'm not a hero nor creditworthy."<br /><br />Your creditworthiness has to do with how promptly you pay your bills. Your thinking is very confused, but I do not know whether a similar confusion is also present in your checkbook.<br /> <br />"Therefore, I should be homeless."<br /><br />People who cannot afford a mortgage can rent. Not being eligible for mortgage credit does not imply homelessness.<br /><br />" You're absolutely correct. Only Lloyd Blankfein should get to enjoy money."<br /><br />Do you think I, who have criticised the Riegle-Neal Act, am a fan of Lloyd Blankfein? Incidentally, did you know that Goldman Sachs was the largest single source of contributions to the Obama campaign in 2008? <br /><br /> "Everyone else lost in the free market." <br /><br />The problem is that it ISN'T a free market, but rather one that is distorted by perverse regulatory and tax incentives. It is these market constraints, rather than the free market, that have influenced and continue to influence the course of the financial markets in an adverse faahion.<br /><br />"After all, every human interaction has to be a game to <br />be won or lost."<br /><br />When did I say that? We, or at least I, am attempting to discuss a few facets of human behavior as they pertain to money and banking and economic life. I have not ventured to comment about "every human interaction," only about these. That leaves a wide variety of human interactions relative to the nuclear and the extended family, voluntary associations, cultural, spiritual, and aesthetic values, and the higher life of the mind largely unexplored.fsascottnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-86790234093907434892013-04-02T22:47:29.657-07:002013-04-02T22:47:29.657-07:00Also, if you don't enjoy money and transaction...Also, if you don't enjoy money and transactionalizing human existence, then you're a Maoist Communist Stalinist and have to be sent to the capitalist gulag. I'm agreeing with that too. Because Communism = Socialism = Command-and-Control economy presided over by a dictatorship (in accordance with the ancient prophecy bespoke by George Washington, Jesus, Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman).hoyhoyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04053951858615655859noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-81400745278057402512013-04-02T22:43:22.338-07:002013-04-02T22:43:22.338-07:00No, I'm agreeing with you. You're a Randia...No, I'm agreeing with you. You're a Randian hero and creditworthy. I'm not a hero nor creditworthy. Therefore, I should be homeless. You're absolutely correct. Only Lloyd Blankfein should get to enjoy money. Everyone else lost in the free market. After all, every human interaction has to be a game to be won or lost. I'm not being flippant. You won!hoyhoyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04053951858615655859noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-88120366024274100212013-04-02T22:41:32.381-07:002013-04-02T22:41:32.381-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.hoyhoyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04053951858615655859noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-10501424128032700272013-04-02T21:53:01.915-07:002013-04-02T21:53:01.915-07:00You, on the other hand, have not advanced one fact...You, on the other hand, have not advanced one fact-based argument or used any logical reasoning. Your flippant, irrelevant, and abusive remarks illustrate the old legal maxim:<br /><br />"When you have the facts on your side, argue the facts. When you have the law on your side, argue the law. When you have neither, abuse opposing counsel."<br /><br />Of course it isn't the case that if it weren't for Bernanke, etc., etc., none of this would had happened and "everyone would have been rich." The mortgage collapse of 2008 and its aftermath are products of steps taken years ago, some of which I have previously mentioned, e.g., the Riegle-Neal Interstate Branch Banking Act of 1994, which is the principal regulatory change under which certain banks became "too big to fail"; the Congressional mandates given to the GSEs to hold increasing amounts of paper from borrowers with submedian and sub-60%-of-median incomes; and the passage of measures like the CRA and HMDA which run directly counter to bank soundness and safety. You have apparently taken no note of these points. <br /><br />Finally, it is impossible that "everyone would have been rich," because there will always be rich and poor. The human race is a very unequal lot, varying widely in individual capacities and characters. These differences invariably manifest themselves at any level of civilisation more advanced than the most primitive band of hunter-gatherers, and that is is why every human society worthy of the description has ordered itself hierarchically, in every time and at every place throughout recorded history. Those brief paroxysms during which particular societies have tried to deny inequality have always ended in bloodbaths (e.g., the French reign of terror, the Stalinist Holodomor, the Maoist Cultural Revolution, the Cambodian killing fields) and when stability returned to the stricken peoples, hierarchy has always reasserted itself in some form or another. <br /><br />Your attempted parody of what you imagine to be the views of a person on the right reflect an overweening moral vanity and intellectual condescension. The former appears unwarranted based on your apparent principles, while the latter does based on your deficient knowledge about how the financial system actually works. Moreover your economic views appear to be based mainly in an envy of rich people. Envy is one of <br />the baser human instincts, and among them is perhaps the least satisfying. Why don't you try one of the others for a change? Gluttony and lust can at least yield some crude physical pleasure, which is more than can be said for envy.fsascottnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-43642860289794736292013-04-02T14:10:51.045-07:002013-04-02T14:10:51.045-07:00If it wasn't for Ben Bernanke, poor people, il...If it wasn't for Ben Bernanke, poor people, illegal immigrants and Obama none of this would have happened. Then, and only then would we have had a "free market" and everyone would have been rich. Also, you're forgetting that back 400,000 years ago when cavemen traded pretty stones back-and-forth, this all happened before. One caveman ended up with all of the stones. He was the "winner" (as predicted by God, Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman) If you know history, you can relate that caveman with the all of the stones to our current situation where insolvent banks trade nonsensical securities representing non-paying mortgages back-and-forth. It's actually inevitable that all of this should happen. George Washington and Jesus founded this country knowing that these exact circumstances would occur in 2013. Thank you for your prescient analysis of why we should have one person in the entire world who has all of the notional money in the world. YOU ARE A GENIUS! If only we would have listened to you earlier.hoyhoyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04053951858615655859noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-73278360024733349082013-04-02T14:08:51.698-07:002013-04-02T14:08:51.698-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.hoyhoyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04053951858615655859noreply@blogger.com