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Humans Who Dream Of Companies That Won't Need Us

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Re: Humans Who Dream Of Companies That Won't Need Us

#41

Post by snowwrestler »

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #15
314 wrote: post #8

Companies are simply a tool that helps a group of people to make a profit. If you remove the group of people then what would be the point?

In some contexts we have nearly removed all the people in this equation already. 85 people own as much as about half the world's population [1]. So, capitalism in the form we have it today, which includes companies, are simply a way to concentrate wealth among the few. Some of these few use the money IMO vicely, but a more equitable system would probably work better. I say this after having lived and worked in the US…

The legal control of a certain amount of wealth says nothing about the extent to which people have been removed from anything. For example Warren Buffett controls tens of billions of dollars worth of economic value, but that value is stored in companies that employ hundreds of thousands of humans.

Re: Humans Who Dream Of Companies That Won't Need Us

#42

Post by eli_gottlieb »

Gravityloss wrote: post #3

At some point we must get rid of all the humans on earth to keep up economic growth. Not entirely joking. Since companies are legal entities and can be run by algorithms, then it's possible that such non-human companies end up with all the capital and all the power. Of course nations and legal systems will also be automatized, with maximum growth as the objective. Then the algorithms can just starve people to death i…

Of course, we could just not take capital accumulation to be the sole determining imperative for everything that happens in the universe. I mean, it sort of is a blinkered, pointless perspective, from that ultimate view.

Re: Humans Who Dream Of Companies That Won't Need Us

#43

Post by yummyfajitas »

phaemon wrote: post #40
yummyfajitas wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing the point. Let me make a mathematical example. Suppose the population distribution is $[-100000 (1M people), 100000 (1M people), 200000 (1 person)]. Then anyone with $1 in net assets has more wealth than the bottom 2/3. In particular, the top person also has more wealth than the bottom 2/3. All this fact says is that a bunch of assets minus a bunch of debts adds up to small numbers. (Also note that I…

Your point appears to be that if enough people have debt, you don't need to have much to be above them. In short, you're trying to argue that there aren't many actual poor people and that there aren't a small number of super rich people (as the report suggests). Your point is wrong. Most people are not in debt, as illustrated by the fact that you require USD 3,650 to have more wealth than 50% of people. If most peopl…

In short, you're trying to argue that there aren't many actual poor people...

I never claimed this. I merely said the specific statistic used to argue this is a poor one.

Again, let me tweak my counterexample to precisely debunk your claim, since you seem to believe $3650 is a magic number while $100k (what I used) is not: [-3650, -3650, 3650, 3650, 3651]. This is a population with median wealth of $3650. The net wealth of the bottom 4/5 is $0 Thus, you have not debunked my claim. Median(x) > $150 does not imply cumsum(x) > $150.

Re: Humans Who Dream Of Companies That Won't Need Us

#44

Post by bjelkeman-again »

oldmanjay wrote: post #19
bjelkeman-again wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some contexts we have nearly removed all the people in this equation already. 85 people own as much as about half the world's population [1]. So, capitalism in the form we have it today, which includes companies, are simply a way to concentrate wealth among the few. Some of these few use the money IMO vicely, but a more equitable system would probably work better. I say this after having lived and worked in the US…

You seem to be using a definition of equality that you haven't fully explained. Do you mean more equal in terms of ownership? If so, how is that valuable?

The way I think of it is more equal access to: schooling, healthcare, basic income, nature, and things like: equality between the sexes, less racial or other discrimination, functional democratic political system, practical equality when confronted with the law.

Re: Humans Who Dream Of Companies That Won't Need Us

#45

Post by phaemon »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #43
phaemon wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point appears to be that if enough people have debt, you don't need to have much to be above them. In short, you're trying to argue that there aren't many actual poor people and that there aren't a small number of super rich people (as the report suggests). Your point is wrong. Most people are not in debt, as illustrated by the fact that you require USD 3,650 to have more wealth than 50% of people. If most peopl…

In short, you're trying to argue that there aren't many actual poor people... I never claimed this. I merely said the specific statistic used to argue this is a poor one. Again, let me tweak my counterexample to precisely debunk your claim, since you seem to believe $3650 is a magic number while $100k (what I used) is not: [-3650, -3650, 3650, 3650, 3651]. This is a population with median wealth of $3650. The net wea…

> I merely said the specific statistic used to argue this is a poor one.

No, you claimed, "All that statistics says is a lot of people have debt."

It does not say any such thing. The fact you can choose a contrived set of figures to match the median wealth figures doesn't mean that those figures are representative in any way of the actual distribution of wealth in the world. They certainly are not.

Your claim that the value of the median is mostly due to debt is flat out wrong. Your claim that possession of $150 puts your wealth above 50% of the planet is flat out wrong.

Your claim that Median(x) > $150 does not imply cumsum(x) > $150 is correct, assuming you don't know the distribution. One out of three ain't bad, I guess.

Re: Humans Who Dream Of Companies That Won't Need Us

#46

Post by donaldmcintyre »

mike_hearn wrote: post #33
rorykoehler wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing which I think could hold projects like this back a little is the cryptocurrency component. I haven't delved into developing with Ethereum yet... would it be possible to use the non-cryptocurrency components with a FIAT payment system such as Stripe or Paypal?

Banks don't normally give bank accounts to robots.

They do and very frequently. A big chunk of intraday trading of currencies and bonds is done by bots that connect through APIs to brokers like interactive brokers.

There a some mutual fund companies that have "black box" investment managers, which are computer programs that manage whole portfolios and trade their institutional accounts at investment banks.

Program trading on the NYSE has been active since the 1980s.

Re: Humans Who Dream Of Companies That Won't Need Us

#47

Post by facepalm »

icebraining wrote: post #20
facepalm wrote: post #4

What I don't understand about the Blockchain hype (and I say that as a fan of Bitcoin): isn't the primary problem it solves the avoidance of double spending? Or in the case of Ethereum, perhaps double contracts. But still, the issue seems a bit overblown to me: to double spend (or present fake contracts, or more generally, fake data), you somehow have to isolate the victims network before injecting the fake transacti…

Legally, creating a company without humans is impossible, but in practice, well: Registering Planet Money's Delaware company took one day and three emails. The company that set it up for us asked for absolutely no documentation. I gave them my real name, but I could have been anybody from anywhere in the world. http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/27/157421340/how-t... Of course, opening a bank account to receiv…

The bank account issue at least is solved by Bitcoin.

Maybe some businesses don't need to be real businesses - especially illegal ones :-/

I wonder about the consequences of running an illegal business on the blockchain, though. Say, a marketplace for drugs on Ethereum. Worst case it would make using Ethereum illegal?

Re: Humans Who Dream Of Companies That Won't Need Us

#48

Post by mike_hearn »

donaldmcintyre wrote: post #46
mike_hearn wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banks don't normally give bank accounts to robots.

They do and very frequently. A big chunk of intraday trading of currencies and bonds is done by bots that connect through APIs to brokers like interactive brokers. There a some mutual fund companies that have "black box" investment managers, which are computer programs that manage whole portfolios and trade their institutional accounts at investment banks. Program trading on the NYSE has been active since the 1980s.

They gave the account to a company and the company delegated access to a robot. However the account is not in the name of the robot.
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