Comments on: Quote notes (#93)

By: Kalvall

Kalvall — Thu, 03 Jul 2014 15:08:38 +0000

I have to agree with VXXC, thanks Michael for the response. It’s incredibly rare to get explanations of the most important topics explained in such an easy to grasp form – punctuation be damned!

By: vxxc2014

vxxc2014 — Thu, 03 Jul 2014 12:50:28 +0000

Of all of us Micheal is the most qualified for rule/governance. He gets it – no running no refuge. I’ve said same thing– they’re relentless, insaitable and insane. Flight only eggs them on, they’ll follow you. OTOH they’re cowards if faced.==] The bullying followed by craven cowardice is so characteristic of sociopaths that feminist advice for workplace bullying has the female being bullied getting a MAN for the picture gram solution.

Mind you Rex Michael will need a scribe unless punctuation is outlawed in his realm. I mean as a tradeoff how much do we really need it?

don’t change a thing mike, seriously.

By: fotrkd

fotrkd — Thu, 03 Jul 2014 02:14:16 +0000

@admin

Then I apologise for jumping the gun (and vulgarity) and look forward to August (no rush).

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 23:43:55 +0000

fiat currency neednt be bad it just always ends up that way.. as an economy expands expanding the money supply in relation to GDP is reasonable.Gold certainly isnt the only thing of value in the world and using it exclusively as money creates problems for instance it becomes too expensive to use as a metal. except in a crises everything is money and nothing is in other words your wealth is always in something be it stocks your house a business gold dollars swiss francs timberland or bitcoins.
Every second people are changing their minds about what each of these things is worth in another of these things fiat currency is a convenient proxy or mathematical gauge or storage medium, people trust it more than say bitcoin because its sort of backed by wealthy countries. But if a country starts spending more money that it gets in taxes which they can do in several ways . they can print more of it or add some zeros to the central banks account , they can literally borrow it at interest by selling bonds, or they can play some really shady games like borrow from themselves and use their size to push markets they have even diluted cold coins. but if the debt gets enough to worry creditors which would include anyone accepting dollars for other assets and most markets like oil and gold are priced in dollars then sellers demand more of the dollars than before to accept the greater risk [inflation] or they insist on higher interest on sovereign debt bonds.
if this starts to happen a country try to correct it in theory .inflation used to cause a wage price spiral as workers faced with higher costs demanded higher wages massive third world immigration has suppressed this reaction and so inflation acts as a massive hidden tax which not only do they not have to pass an unpopular tax hike they can get on tv and preen about how capitalists are gouging you at the pump or for healthcare etc never mentioning why capitalists suddenly want more dollars for their assets.a country is worth more than its gold supply but gold cant be created from a computer terminal or printing press supposedly bitcoin cant be forged or the supply increased.but while our debts are very high and our promised welfare liabilities ten times higher than that. another fear is the method of banking systems breifly the medici realized a profit could be made lending out all the gold they were entrusted with by writing letters of credit for interest on the basis of their good names as the bills of credit got traded in more complicated contracts fractional reserve banking was born and economies expanded rapidly again not bad in moderation but what can happen is a dollar deposited is lent out about nine times over this too expands the money supply. If akll the deposits and loans are priced soundly theres no problem if you start counting a subprime mortgage or student loan as if its solid gold then you have more funny money. the last problem is the most serious. in order to stimulate an economy or re inflate the bubble if you prefer in hopes of again collecting taxes governments give banks huge sums of cash to spread around to incite speculation. these banks however cant get many interested in borrowing to invest during a crash and since they are liable for the safe return and possibly a small interest on these trillions they play it safe and make massive bets at small returns on what they think will be really glacial moves in obscure markets like currencies baskets or interest rate differences or yes mortgage backed securities. money markets oetc so they each have tens of trillions in these bets against each other that they all duly hedge with counter bets with others to the point that no one has been able to figure out even with the super computers of world banks who even owes who what but its estimated it about 600-800 trillion none of these banks even has a trillion itself if it ever lost neither does even the USG in fact its about 100 years worth of world gdp and only one of these bets needs to go wrong to trigger a domino effect. hers an example the USG is lending money at 0% interest to stimulate a bank says ill take a trillion at 0% and buy Japanese government bonds at 1% 1% of a trillion is nice money so bank stocks rise lol thats called a carry trade. and is the easiest example then the counterparty pledges that contract against a bet that the libor wont exceed the LIBOR wont exceed the fed discount rate by .00006 % before 6/12/2017, and hedges that by a gold short against the swiss franc, and the coubnterparties to those trades ……now what if iran nukes tel aviv an earthquake wipes out LA and AIG has a trillion in claims the chinese decide to sell all their dollars because we defended taiwan, or spain and ireland riot and default on the EU debts it doesnt even need to be a black swan event all wealth is just peoples opinions about what they would trade assets for at any given moment one moment they will trade a countrey estate for a dozen tulip bulbs a day later they think its madness. now the bank of international settlements a sort of federal reserve of the world an alex jones nightmare agency conceived at bretton woods has coordinated all wester governments to pass laws that make it clear all deposits to any financial institution are no more than unsecured loans to that institution that can be substituted for stock in that institution or a “bail in” so if this happens we all lose anything in a bank or brokerage they also openly talk about exchanging all retirement funds for soc sec increases it wont matter the money would be worthless anyway and there really wont be anywhere to hide the big boys will be protected because the governments need them to run the system its impossible to predict how it will play out gold might plummet for years then rocket to 100k or not one things for sure it will be a mess and an opportunity

By: admin

admin — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 22:57:51 +0000

“… capital is autonomous …” — not autonomous, but autonomizing (individuating as a complex system). The Santa Fe Institute is the key research hub for this kind of stuff, but the (long) Spontaneous Order essay in my Resources roll should be the first step on the road to understanding. As to more specific, concrete behaviors of the emergent capitalist entity — they’re complicated, ideologically obscured, and camouflaged. Anyone telling you a simple story about them has some snake-oil to unload.

By: admin

admin — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 22:49:37 +0000

“Sounds too good to be possible.” — Yes, but we all probably need that sometimes.

By: Postnietzschean

Postnietzschean — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 21:34:54 +0000

Boredom is good. Boredom takes us away from endlessly exploring the same shit and leads us to genuine novelty.

Has anyone here looked into the effective altruists? They’re basically a mix of LW-rationalists and Peter Singer fans who are into hardcore consequentialist utilitarianism. They got a lot of PR for arguing that the moral thing to do was (if you were capable) become an investment banker or hedge fund trader and donate most of your income to the maximum suffering-reducing causes (currently sending mosquito nets to Tanzania, or promoting veganism if you like animals).

I mention them as they are a good model for a rationalist splinter group with strong capability for action. Utilitarianism is a simple philosophy that makes it a good Schelling point (in Moldbuggian terms, effective altruists are a natural army).

Unfortunately, despite their interests in space colonisation and the singularity as long-term causes, the movement suffers massively from Conquest’s Second Law. The libertarian/transhumanist-leaning types are too focused on optimising their careers, while the identitarian leftists are able to focus on shifting the group towards their own values.

But seriously, if NRx had hubs (EAs have Berkely and Oxford), and office space, and high-profile intellectual and financial sponsors, and a small army of volunteer elite college interns – we could get some worthwhile stuff done, like, for example, developing some seriously credible analyses of power.

On a related note, I am quitting my job soon to launch a startup. I would have liked to have spent a chunk of time doing some serious writing and maybe helping organise some proper NRx projects, but I may not have the time. On the other hand, quitting has given me a serious boost in *energy*, so I will probably start getting more done on that front.

By: Kalvall

Kalvall — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 18:22:58 +0000

I’d like a clarification about Admins claim that capital is autonomous and what capital means to others on here.

Since the 08 crash there has been constant predictions of imminent collapse, hyper inflation, blah blah blah. All of it has turned out to be crap. This idea that fiat currency is invalid because its not backed by anything? I don’t understand. What is the qualification of “real wealth”? I don’t buy the doomerism because it doesn’t pan out IRL, the date of this collapse goes forward a year each time its falsified by reality. I don’t believe some liberal regime is going to ramp up inflation to a dangerous point. However, I’ve been convinced of the sanity of the UKs austerity regime since it seems to be working reasonably well and forcing the likes of Lagarde to apologise for originally having claimed it would be a disaster. (Incidentally, another positive from the UK – the government is introducing both programming and finance onto the curriculum for all students.)

I’m reminded of Baudrillards ruminations on the debt clock, he claimed it would go on forever and the debt would never be repaid. Makes some sort of sense to me. Then on the post marxist left you have Bifo who wrote “Poetry and Finance” and claimed Baudrillard was wrong, but all he does is whinge about the need to develop some new sort of therapy or balm to soothe the pain. Obviously, none of the romantic anti capitalist boredom coming from any of the left figures selling it is of much interest. However, I need to be convinced that what’s said about capitalism around these parts is backed up by something other than politicised rhetoric. Simplistic stuff about paying off the debt – ok, then what? It’s hard to imagine some moment when it’s suddenly demanded that we pay it all back. Are 1st world nations really facing the threat of collapse?

I freely admit that my understanding of economics is dire to non existent. I’ll stop here before this becomes an even more blatant display of ignorance.

Perhaps I’m not the only one having such trouble cognizing capital, can clearer definitions be provided?

By: scientism

scientism — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 15:41:12 +0000

“Authoritarian capitalism” just means the Singapore model, I forget who coined the term. It’s just government that’s non-democratic, stern and stingy.

By: NRx_N00B

NRx_N00B — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 05:03:02 +0000

5.5 Probably a good time to talk about composite carrying capacity or the principle of “scope enlargement”—this depends entirely on maintaining healthy trade; points 1 to 5 would trigger “scope reduction” [causing local resource shortages/scarcity] which will put the world into a tailspin. I think the only thing that can stave off collapse and buy time is to do whatever it takes to maintain some semblance of economic growth [trade, trade, trade w/ as little friction as possible]—because once the slide into grinding poverty begins and the feed-backs kick into high gear, most of us will be begging for the world of yesterday.