100 years of whatever this will be • Hacker News Board

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#241

Post by jdmichal » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:28 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #229

notpachet wrote: post #49

All of the current histrionics that we hear from DeFi advocates regarding escaping the evil centralized Banks and Regulators and what not -- you know what they remind me of? They remind me of what I hear from junior developers when they're tasked with fixing an antiquated, broken software system. These developers typically lack the experience and the patience necessary to fix the system incrementally from within, so…

The difference here is that the existing codebase isn't just broken, it's structurally resistant to being fixed. Fixing your old legacy software takes time, but probably less time than starting over from scratch. Fixing the legacy financial system doesn't just take the time to fix that system; first you have to fix the system of politics and corruption that makes that system what it is. And fight all of the people wi…

Any process inscribed in the technology is part of a larger business process, and as such is also resistant to such change. You can do refactoring all you want, which by definition means not changing inputs and outputs. But you can't change the process without looping in business. And then it becomes about making a business case for spending the money and time and training and etc to make a change to the business process.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#242

Post by dcow » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:29 PM UTC

Joeri wrote: post #157

_9omd wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make a good point about software development in general, but I don't think it applies to things as fundamentally revolutionary as crypto. Sometimes system _do_ have to be completely re-thought from the ground up. I don't believe it's possible for our current financial systems to morph into an open network for storing and transmitting value (the internet of money as some call crypto).

Let’s assume (and that’s a big if) that crypto is a fundamentally better foundation to base finance on. Even if it is, we cannot presently know that it is, and we cannot predict what its unique failure scenarios will be and how to counter them. Therefore for me arguing a headlong dive into crypto is indeed like a junior developer arguing for the big rewrite. I also fail to see the fundamental difference between crypt…

Not totally disagreeing with the rest of your comment, but we haven't had a gold standard for awhile now, and that’s the problem. Lifting fiat off gold lets institutions play games with fiat to increase their fiat with the appearance of being a good steward of fiat. This is what people don’t trust.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#243

Post by goodpoint » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:29 PM UTC

pitaj wrote: post #150

js8 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That means decentralized bulk activity, hierarchical regulation. Interestingly, he also mentions that central economic planning doesn't work (although I am not so sure I completely agree with that thesis), but this sounds very similar to Cybersyn's design.

Central panning doesn't scale because of limits to economic knowledge and calculation. You can't possibly know enough about what everyone needs or wants in an economy. Even if you did, calculating resource allocation based on that is NP.

People constantly forget that large multinationals like Amazon are bigger that many countries, are purely authoritarian structures and work as 100% centralized economies.

> Central panning doesn't scale

On the contrary, it scaled pretty well in China and in Soviet Russia, leading to the two cases of the fastest economical growth on the planet. The problem is not scalability.

The problem is that dictatorships (both countries and private companies) exist to benefit those in power. When push comes to shove everybody else is expendable.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#244

Post by Aunche » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:29 PM UTC

thesuitonym wrote: post #136

>Centrally planning a whole society clearly does not work (demonstrated, bloodily, several times). I really, really hate this argument. If it's true, why does the CIA feel the need to destabilize countries with centrally planned markets? Why has China been so successful despite what is widely believed to be a failed premise? Central planning works as well as unplanned markets work: That is, sometimes they work, somet…

I wouldn't say China is any more centrally planned than the US. The economy is highly controlled in some aspects, but in others it's a lot less regulated, which is how you get plastic in baby formula.

On a government level, every one is centrally planned. That's kind of the purpose of it. Democracies just happen to elect their centrally planned government.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#245

Post by qez » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

The author seems to be confusing distributed systems with market systems. Cloud services are a market system, but it isn't distributed... it's all in central servers. The technologies that are "simply never going to be able to achieve their goals" are trying to be market systems and distributed systems.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#246

Post by pdabbadabba » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

thesuitonym wrote: post #136

>Centrally planning a whole society clearly does not work (demonstrated, bloodily, several times). I really, really hate this argument. If it's true, why does the CIA feel the need to destabilize countries with centrally planned markets? Why has China been so successful despite what is widely believed to be a failed premise? Central planning works as well as unplanned markets work: That is, sometimes they work, somet…

I partially agree with the basic point here, but China's not a great example as its economy is not, in fact, centrally planned. It is more of a hybrid of private enterprise/capitalism and strong state influence. Back when Chinese central planning was more aggressive and comprehensive, you had worse outcomes like the mass starvation of the Great Leap Forward.

The obvious issue is that centrally planning an economy to achieve our desired outcomes is very difficult--perhaps beyond our capabilities. Of course, an easy way of addressing this is to do what China has done and effectively concede that you can't centrally plan everything, but you can find an equilibrium where the necessary parts are controlled and the rest left to market forces, with a system of regulations to address distortions created where the two meet.

Of course, you might also say that it's not exactly trivial to create a market-oriented system that achieves the outcomes we want. I think history demonstrates that societies have had greater success with market-oriented economies than with centrally planned ones. But you may be right that we shouldn't be so quick to completely rule out the possibility of a centrally planned economy based on a small number of examples, each of which was actively sabotaged by other major powers--much less should we rule out the viability of hybrid systems. (In fact, basically all modern economies are some sort of hybrid between planned and unplanned systems, including that of the U.S.)

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#247

Post by visarga » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

sam0x17 wrote: post #60

voakbasda wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anti-regulation != anti-government. I am okay with regulation and being regulated, but I absolutely am not okay with any of our existing governments having any part of that process. Revolution does not require anarchy as an outcome; indeed, my preference simply would be to install better governance. Turning the law into a set of constantly shift sands would make it impossible to do business, because that could end up…

Right, but society has accelerated. 50 and 100 year precedents used to make sense. Now it seems like they need to be updated at least every 10 years, because that's how long it takes for society to fundamentally change at the current rate of progress. Regarding government, if you don't like your current government, then if you think hard about it, what you really want is either 1) additional regulations or restructur…

Voting is a blunt tool. It destroys too much nuance and freedom of choice.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#248

Post by sfink » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

Robotbeat wrote: post #168

pitaj wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Central panning doesn't scale because of limits to economic knowledge and calculation. You can't possibly know enough about what everyone needs or wants in an economy. Even if you did, calculating resource allocation based on that is NP.

We definitely do broad-strokes central planning in the US and every other developed country with tax system design, social support systems, and industrial policy. The Soviet Union sucked, but it lasted an extremely long time. The moral of the story is central planning kinda does work, just not very well if you do too much of it.

I think it's more that you need layers. A centrally planned layer of regulation and safety nets that provide a base level to keep things running (and people alive), but without the cost and inefficiency of trying to control everything, and then a more efficient, free market–like layer on top that relies on the lower layer to provide the "free" in "free market".

I believe it would be more productive to argue about where the layer boundaries should be, rather than endlessly arguing about whether one or the other layer should even exist. (Because they'll both always exist. People will help each other out even in a free-for-all; and black markets will always come into existence in rigid, fully-planned economies.)

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#249

Post by leetcrew » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #229

notpachet wrote: post #49

All of the current histrionics that we hear from DeFi advocates regarding escaping the evil centralized Banks and Regulators and what not -- you know what they remind me of? They remind me of what I hear from junior developers when they're tasked with fixing an antiquated, broken software system. These developers typically lack the experience and the patience necessary to fix the system incrementally from within, so…

The difference here is that the existing codebase isn't just broken, it's structurally resistant to being fixed. Fixing your old legacy software takes time, but probably less time than starting over from scratch. Fixing the legacy financial system doesn't just take the time to fix that system; first you have to fix the system of politics and corruption that makes that system what it is. And fight all of the people wi…

a legacy codebase can be structurally resistant to being fixed.

you're afraid to change things because there's no test coverage. okay let's add some automated tests. oops can't do that either because the whole thing is a tightly-coupled pile of spaghetti with no interface boundaries. so you start by refactoring. but because there are no tests, you don't realize you are breaking a bunch of important business functionality and now people are yelling at you to stop whatever you are doing and fix these bugs.

no matter what you do, it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. but hey, people are actually getting stuff done with your product/service in the meantime. as painful as it is, it's still probably better to fix what you have than to start over.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#250

Post by gaze » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

notpachet wrote: post #49

All of the current histrionics that we hear from DeFi advocates regarding escaping the evil centralized Banks and Regulators and what not -- you know what they remind me of? They remind me of what I hear from junior developers when they're tasked with fixing an antiquated, broken software system. These developers typically lack the experience and the patience necessary to fix the system incrementally from within, so…

I half agree. Yes I do think you have a bunch of technologists self-indulgently trying to apply the next shiny thing where bettering the world is second priority. However, I think changing the system from inside is largely a fool’s errand. There are indeed proven methods for political change. Unions, protest, organizing, these things. They’re unsexy and boring and tedious, much like you’ve described, but these do work.