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Last gasps of the rent seeking class?

geohot.github.io

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Re: Last gasps of the rent seeking class?

#131

Post by GTP »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #120
altairprime wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People often confuse “free” with “unregulated”, too.

My understanding of the definition of a "free" market is it would have almost no external regulation. However, a "unregulated free market" is nearly impossible--somw player will eventually drive out competition to maximize profits and some will not be troubled at harming or killing their customers in the name of immediate profit (tobacco, sugared drinks, talc powder, and round-up come to mind immediately but the list…

Indeed, the market shouldn't be, and is not, entirely free. We should strive for the right balance between freedom and regulation.

Re: Last gasps of the rent seeking class?

#132

Post by mtlynch »

JambalayaJimbo wrote: post #129
mtlynch wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a company has the capability to hire literal people to waste your time, they can deploy more AI than you to waste the time of your AI. I don't totally buy OP's argument, but I think you're dismissing it unfairly. His point is that in the pre-LLM world, if a company wants to waste your time, they can hire a call center employee overseas for US$4/hr and make you wait for an hour to talk to them for 30 minutes. If…

But the company can deploy economies of scale to make their AI chatbots defeat yours? Company A can still hire someone in India to continually change their chat bot protocol or whatever to make it difficult for you chat bot to succeed in getting support.

How is the company achieving economies of scale with AI chatbots? The dominant cost is token cost, and even if they're a $1B company, they're not getting that much better of a deal on tokens or GPUs than a regular consumer.

Also, remember that the company is still constrained by having to support real humans who don't have their own AI. They can't just decide not to offer any support at all or or force infinite wait times, or they'd be doing that today.

Re: Last gasps of the rent seeking class?

#133

Post by adi_kurian »

bigbadfeline wrote: post #127
adi_kurian wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they don't. That is the very definition.

>> People often confuse “free” with “unregulated”, too. >No they don't. That is the very definition. Using that definition amounts to classifying all real markets as non-free. Unregulated markets cannot exists in reality or in a sound theory, only in wishy-washy fairy tales.

I'm not recommending we build a frictionless plane, I'm just saying it doesn't have friction. This is the most politely I've ever been called a libertarian.

Re: Last gasps of the rent seeking class?

#134

Post by acdha »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #120
altairprime wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People often confuse “free” with “unregulated”, too.

My understanding of the definition of a "free" market is it would have almost no external regulation. However, a "unregulated free market" is nearly impossible--somw player will eventually drive out competition to maximize profits and some will not be troubled at harming or killing their customers in the name of immediate profit (tobacco, sugared drinks, talc powder, and round-up come to mind immediately but the list…

It comes down to what’s “free”: most people want that to mean freedom of choice for buyers but sellers want that to mean freedom from restrictions. Trying to balance the two depends critically on regulation because it’s too easy for larger players to reduce the choices for everyone else.

Re: Last gasps of the rent seeking class?

#135

Post by altairprime »

acdha wrote: post #134
readthenotes1 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding of the definition of a "free" market is it would have almost no external regulation. However, a "unregulated free market" is nearly impossible--somw player will eventually drive out competition to maximize profits and some will not be troubled at harming or killing their customers in the name of immediate profit (tobacco, sugared drinks, talc powder, and round-up come to mind immediately but the list…

It comes down to what’s “free”: most people want that to mean freedom of choice for buyers but sellers want that to mean freedom from restrictions. Trying to balance the two depends critically on regulation because it’s too easy for larger players to reduce the choices for everyone else.

One popular desire is common, but not universal, in both groups: the freedom to lie, cheat, swindle those party to a transaction without consequence. It may help to consider that ‘the consequences of one’s actions’, such as lying or cheating in the above case, are viewed by many as a violation of their personal freedom from persecution (e.g. “it’s not my fault you didn’t stop me from conning you”); that extends to their participation in trade as well.

I assume that the pools of either corporate entities and/or their leadership cogs have a much higher percentage of adherence to said belief than the general pool of either buyers and/or sellers excluding such, as the corporate implementation of liability shielding exists specifically to sate this need.

Re: Last gasps of the rent seeking class?

#136

Post by yabutlivnWoods »

temp8830 wrote: post #128
yabutlivnWoods wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. This has strong self-selection bias. Egohot thinks about this stuff a lot so obviously everyone does! Most people only care about money as they have no choice. Absent a cash-first system money has become a social construct. The valuation of a dollar is entirely ephemeral now. I see that social reality becoming more realized and the existing social system around money collapsing due to generational churns attenu…

How is paper money any less of a social construct? How is a gold coin that you can't actually use in any other way than trading it to another hairless monkey?

The value of paper money was the social construct

The existence of money is now a social construct

Re: Last gasps of the rent seeking class?

#137

Post by mauzybwy »

lapetitejort wrote: post #64
strangattractor wrote: post #54

I think self driving cars are important for a couple of reasons: 1. Demographics - Aging population needs transportation. God knows we certainly don't need really old people driving themselves. We got a taste of the future in West Portal in that regard not long ago. 2. Human Capital - The US has pretty much demonstrated that there is little desire to import low skilled labor. Where do these theoretical Taxi drivers c…

Public transportation solved this before cars were commonplace. Implement ubiquitous and free public transportation in every urban center (where 80% of the American population lives [0]) and you'll save billions from not having to manufacture (and store!) cars. 0: https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/guidance/g...

If my city kneecaps bus and metro service bc Waymo swindles them into cutting the transit budget I swear I’m gonna riot. America is almost too far gone as it is, but the ubiquity of self-driving cars will almost certainly cement in all the poor decisions we’ve made

Re: Last gasps of the rent seeking class?

#138

Post by R_D_Olivaw »

kmeisthax wrote: post #117
kibwen wrote: post #83

> But for decades, the American market has not been free. The grand, boneheaded naivete to fail to understand that middlemen are an emergent and intrinsic property of free markets in practice.

Sometimes the real market failure is just that a market exists at all . Like, in some really fucked up neoliberal hellscape it might make sense to charge money for reservations separately, but that introduces all sorts of extra new inefficiencies that weren't there before. Like, now that reservations can be bought and sold, it's now legal, possibly moral, and most notably, profitable to hoard them. And since reservat…

I really liked this.

And you made me think of this current market trend where we can effectively beg for tips and donations from a small, roofed, and electrified domicile and you might even become famous, but if you do it out on the street, it's frowned upon and people are less willing to give.

Re: Last gasps of the rent seeking class?

#139

Post by mycall »

qoez wrote: post #5

I'm not sure I buy the "everyone will be AI coding to replace things that cost money with their own apps" idea. I only have so much limited time in my day (and only so many tokens on my claude account per week). It's probably going to make more sense for me to buy a tool that's been given human attention over the span of weeks over something i prompt into existence in a few hours (especially if I need 10 such tools t…

Everyone will need something customized to their lifestyle changes, like a digital factory kernel, to others wanting to trade workflow recipes. They then use to write their own AI clean-roomed edition (which of course is just glue to hosted tools you buy)

Re: Last gasps of the rent seeking class?

#140

Post by kmeisthax »

R_D_Olivaw wrote: post #138
kmeisthax wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes the real market failure is just that a market exists at all . Like, in some really fucked up neoliberal hellscape it might make sense to charge money for reservations separately, but that introduces all sorts of extra new inefficiencies that weren't there before. Like, now that reservations can be bought and sold, it's now legal, possibly moral, and most notably, profitable to hoard them. And since reservat…

I really liked this. And you made me think of this current market trend where we can effectively beg for tips and donations from a small, roofed, and electrified domicile and you might even become famous, but if you do it out on the street, it's frowned upon and people are less willing to give.

Well, in the former case, that's usually part of some kind of entertainment. Street performers do the same thing and get about the same proportion of people tipping - i.e. not much, but enough to make a living if you're lucky and savvy enough to hustle the system.
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