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100 years of whatever this will be

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Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#301

Post by [deleted] »

engineer_22 wrote: post #217
lisper wrote: post #103

This essay seems deep and profoundly insightful but I don't think it actually is. Its ultimate call for "better designed regulation" is the no-true-scotsman fallacy in sheep's clothing. How do you know if your regulations are "properly designed?" If they produce good outcomes. But the problem is that there is no consensus about what a good outcome is. Some people are not happy, for example, unless women are quite lit…

At first I was agreeing with you - it's hard to find consensus when asking "what is good?" It's a problem as old as politics. You hit the nail on the head! Then you started on a partisan diatribe about how the other side of politics is wrong (and stupid). What I think you've failed to realize, is that the other view is necessary . A single party state is totalitarian by definition if not by fact. There must be other…

[deleted]

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#302

Post by dirtshell »

jonstaab wrote: post #186

Great essay, but I think fundamentally wrong. There are some important distributed systems he overlooks: the ones found in nature. Gas Laws, photosynthesis, and radiant energy are pretty great, it means I always have air to breathe. No one is regulating that, and to do so would only make things much worse. The challenge is that humans suck at designing distributed systems. Nature is exquisitely designed (or, if you w…

What is a well designed system, especially in nature? What values does nature maximize for? Nature is just a bunch of distributed systems that have chaotically learned to work "together" in vicious harmony. Nature's "design" is brutal, and is not compatible with the comforts we have grown to expect in our modern lives. If nature had its way we would mostly die around 50 years old of a cold.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#303

Post by soco »

zarzavat wrote: post #232
Joeri wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The fundamental difference between cryptocurrency and gold is that cryptocurrency can be transmitted whereas gold can only be carried. Try carrying a bar of gold across a border and you'll end up in an interrogation room.

How about declaring it in the first place?

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#304

Post by _9omd »

dmitriid wrote: post #177
_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).

> as fundamentally revolutionary as crypto. This is a huge claim, and needs to have just as huge of a proof. However, all cryptos can offer is poof (as in poof, and gone) than proof.

Well of course there's no way to prove it now. Could you have proved how revolutionary the internet would be in its early days? You have to be open minded and extrapolate from the principles of the new system and its interactions with society at large to _guess_ how impactful it may be. I believe the fundamental principles of crypto (open, permissionless, decentralized, global, neutral, etc.) make it highly likely to revolutionize finance.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#305

Post by pdonis »

GavinMcG wrote: post #234
pdonis wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's just not borne out in looking at the many markets already functioning under various regulatory schemes for decades now. If markets under all the regulatory schemes we have were actually "functioning", we would not have all the economic issues we have. For example, we would not have the supply chain issues that are currently making the news. We would not have had the crash of 2008, or the Great Depression for…

No, I'm attacking the logical implication of your statement. It's a reductio ad absurdum. You said for a market to work "at all" as a market, it must have voluntary transactions, and people must be able to engage in the transactions of their choice. But nearly all markets do not have those features. Ergo, nearly all markets are not able to work at all, under your premise. Accepting that most markets do work to a subs…

> nearly all markets do not have those features.

This is not true. Many markets do have those features. They just don't make the news because there are never any newsworthy issues with them.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#306

Post by jspaetzel »

All of this is just pessimistic complaining. Flip this and be optimistic and you'll find life isn't all that bad. Think about the last hundred years...

* Rich people are still rich and poor people have access to more food, medicine, and opportunity then any time in human history.

* Families have and always should lookout for themselves first. That's the way things work and should work.

* Society is able to support more art then ever before.

* We have computers... HOW are you complaining about one super amazing piece of technology that didn't exist 5 years ago compared to another piece of incredible technology. Seriously? Be more amazed with how far this stuff has come in such a short time.

And like... We're not even in world war 3. Life is pretty good on planet earth, idk where you've been but come on back down.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#307

Post by pdonis »

pessimizer wrote: post #222
pdonis wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All useful markets are regulated by the free choices of the market participants of which transactions they will and will not engage in , yes. The idea that a free market, with the definition of "free" that I gave (all transactions are voluntary) is "unregulated" is simply wrong. In a free market, you can't force other people to do things they don't want to do; you have to get them to voluntarily trade with you. That…

So you don't even believe that externalities are possible?

> So you don't even believe that externalities are possible?

I said no such thing. I have no idea where you are getting that from.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#308

Post by abbub »

colinmhayes wrote: post #118
stdbrouw wrote: post #86

It's worth considering whether the premise actually holds. * Yeah, there's a feeling of malaise, but if you look at e.g. surveys of trust in government (Pew, OECD, etc.), it's a fairly slow decline over decades and the end point is that most people are still fairly okay with how government, education, media, the judiciary etc. are run in many democratic countries and if you look at overall happiness (Eurostat etc.) t…

Yea I find it hard to believe there has ever been a better time to be alive than now. Obviously we've got a long way to go, but things have been continuously getting better overall, not worse.

I mean...based on what? We have more stuff, that's for sure. Our healthcare (when we can afford it) and nutrition is probably better and more consistent. Are we any happier? I'm not sure.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#309

Post by padobson »

syndacks wrote: post #270
zackmorris wrote: post #218

I've been thinking a lot lately about first principles. For example, the Golden Rule is great, but the concept of reincarnation transcends it, making it self-evident. The Book of Genesis probably started "in a beginning", not "in the beginning". And so on. When I look around at the state of the world today, it just makes me so tired. Everyone's running around on autopilot and not questioning the basic assumptions. It…

You had me except for the reincarnation/another life bit. Bedsides scripture, is there any evidence of this in science? I'm asking genuinely here.

I'd ask you to check your basic assumption about science as an authority.

Science is really good at transmitting information about deterministic processes, but is really bad at transmitting information about non-deterministic processes or even processes that are so complex that they appear non-deterministic e.g. human behavior.

I don't believe in reincarnation, but it's not hard at all for me to see how it can be used as a moral tool that helps people think long term. It's not a bad idea to use tools like this, especially since all attempts so far to design a "science of morality" have been bloody, catastrophic failures.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#310

Post by amelius »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #288
robotresearcher wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like anything we could ever hope to try is already accounted for and defeated before the effort even begins. Gay marriage, the fall of communism, civil rights, universal health care (in every rich country but one), women's rights. Don't forget about the very important real progress being made.

I've never understood the reason we even have marriage defined in government at all, and thusly would include "gay" marriage (all marriage is marriage if it's undefined)... We don't have a government definition of prayer or baptism, but for some reason we have have codified that one religious practice into our government? Doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Also why do they get varyingly get tax incentives or disincen…

I think governments generally want to impress their own values onto the people. Marriage is often part of that.
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