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The Demoralization is just Beginning

geohot.github.io

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Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#661

Post by jcarrano »

ViktorRay wrote: post #4

Steve Jobs told Obama something similar once. The idea was to provide worker visas to engineers who did well and graduated from good American universities. Basically give those workers a visa along with their diploma. Obama thought the idea was intriguing and mentioned it multiple times to his advisors. It never went anywhere though. Brain draining the rest of the world is one of the main reasons for America’s succes…

The way they do it in Germany is very sensible. There are clear requirements: have a degree and a salary offer above a certain threshold, and if you fulfill them you are in. No lottery nonsense or employer involvement required beyond signing an offer. The salary threshold is lower for graduates from German universities.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#662

Post by Hikikomori »

Rury wrote: post #95
ryandamm wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two quick thoughts… one, because every transaction in theory happens because the purchasing party values the good or service more than the money, every transaction does — in theory — create wealth, velocity of money is sort of measuring a proxy for growth. But I agree it’s weird. Second, “GDP/watt” is absolutely an economic metric, and it captures something about energy efficiency but also the mix of an economy. Soft…

I don't buy the argument that every transaction in theory creates wealth. The only way that holds true, is by using a subjective/arbitrary meaning of wealth, which would imply, I can become wealthier/poorer by merely changing my mind. In such a case, I can be the wealthiest man in the world, and the poorest 10 minutes later, when no transaction or anything really even happened. Sure mind over matter, but I'd prefer u…

It doesn't. Inefficient system like US healthcare increases GDP and if they implemented an EU system it would go down.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#663

Post by Hikikomori »

pastage wrote: post #231
svara wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sweden and Denmark haven't been hegemons because they haven't needed to be. That's exactly right, and I used nearly exactly those words in a recent comment. Important to note: The free world - economically advanced democracies excluding the US - is the largest economy in the world, larger than the US by about 30%, with an even larger population. These countries have a historically unprecedented incentive to work mu…

That is not how it works, many of those countries will need to align with China or be conquered.

Align with China so they can protect us against the US?

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#664

Post by milutinovici »

matltc wrote: post #612
georgehotz wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike gold, the "finite supply" of BTC is socially constructed. That's my whole argument for gold. The finite supply isn't socially constructed, and getting more requires building real infrastructure.

1. The supply is nonetheless constrained and immutably fixed; what is the relevance of whether it is by contract or law of nature? 2. What do you mean by "real" infrastructure? Crypto-mining rigs are no less real than actual mines. My argument would be that gold's value is as much a social construct as that of crypto; value is just a function of supply and demand. I'm guessing you might post that there is a third inp…

Except none of the crypto "currency" is used as currency at all, and never will. It's used as a crypto asset. For speculation. Or even worse, straight up fraud. The only time I heard crypto was used as currency, is the infamous pizza a decade ago

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#665

Post by zero_shift »

dijit wrote: post #560
agentultra wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno if he’s far-right MAGA but these red flags are all far right talking points. No one who understands modern economics wants to bring back the gold standard. Seems like geohot should stick to jail breaking iPhones and mocking programmers and CTF challenges… and maybe read a few more books and attend some lectures if he wants to continue deepening his understanding of economics and political science.

I really hate this idea of "far-right talking points" and "far-left talking points". It immediately frames questions as "us vs them", if there's a talking point you hear come up frequently and it's easily dissolved: learn how to dissolve it. The fewer people walking around with incorrect ideas about things the better we all are. If people rebuff you, maybe they had a point the whole time? If they change the subject o…

We have a limited amount of attention to give and trust to offer, so we filter ideas with heuristics.

One of the heuristics is that if someone says something very left-field, does not qualify why it falls out of consensus, and it appears the same as arguments made by politically motivated actors, we trust it a lot less.

Especially when that person has no expertise in the area and is mostly famous for a completely different thing.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#666

Post by Hikikomori »

Freedom2 wrote: post #260
systemf_omega wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is already the brain drain destination #1. Nowhere else can highly skilled people generate comparable levels of income.

I agree. One other thing that the US has that no other country has is freedom of speech. My entire family was killed in my previous country for daring to speak up against the leader at the time. It has something that has shook me to my core. Now, even to this day, I cannot find another country besides the US who not only respects freedom of speech, but encourages it among its residents. I will not move to another cou…

Not under this president.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#667

Post by agentultra »

desumeku wrote: post #623
agentultra wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno if he’s far-right MAGA but these red flags are all far right talking points. No one who understands modern economics wants to bring back the gold standard. Seems like geohot should stick to jail breaking iPhones and mocking programmers and CTF challenges… and maybe read a few more books and attend some lectures if he wants to continue deepening his understanding of economics and political science.

> No one who understands modern economics wants to bring back the gold standard Except, of course, Miseans.

The Ludwig von Mises & Rockwell Miseans? They want to bring back a whole lot of other bad ideas too [0]. Hence the red flag.

[0] https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/neo-confederates...

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#668

Post by fuzzfactor »

KaiserPro wrote: post #349

Going back to a gold standard will limit the money supply. This means that there will be less capital for building $thing. A gold standard means that when the economy gets overheated it pops, then contracts and you get deflation. This makes crashes last longer and harder. It requires greater fiscal discipline to overcome. The problem with the USA "empire" is that for a trading empire to work you need a plan, and stic…

>a gold standard will limit the money supply.

I think there's some truth to this.

And if you're willing to accept it for what it is, ask yourself about your own supply of money, what it is and where it comes from.

What are the current limitations if not gold any more?

And it hasn't been gold in quite some time, not just theoretically for a while.

How has that "unlimited" money supply worked out ever since?

Is there any other bottleneck somewhere that maybe is holding back that limitless supply of money from ending up in your pocket worse than if it was gold, which we know has always been so hard to come by that most people have never had significant amounts whatsoever since the beginning of time?

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#669

Post by aisenik »

nuancebydefault wrote: post #606
bdangubic wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is EXACTLY it. the rise of social media and demise of legacy media weaponized politicians to create flamewars over issues which are great for winning elections but have no real meaning for our day-to-day lives. wokeness, transgender athletes, how many genders we have on the web forms to choose from, how many "immigrants" are we going to deport... are entirely meaningless for 99.98% of the population. instead of…

Personally I don't see a use or benefit of large gender dropdowns. Either keep any existing m/f or simply remove it if you don't need to adress them as her or him. Imo making lists increases chances for stigmatization.

"Large gender drop downs" is a canard, three is a large number for the purposes of their argument. It's not about gender dropdowns of any size other than exactly two as it's about strict enforcement of a rigid, patriarchal class hierarchy.

Accepting "the purpose of a thing is what it does" is important for these times. So is avoiding the epistemic traps of disingenuous actors.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#670

Post by thrwwy001 »

ViktorRay wrote: post #4

Steve Jobs told Obama something similar once. The idea was to provide worker visas to engineers who did well and graduated from good American universities. Basically give those workers a visa along with their diploma. Obama thought the idea was intriguing and mentioned it multiple times to his advisors. It never went anywhere though. Brain draining the rest of the world is one of the main reasons for America’s succes…

> Brain draining the rest of the world is one of the main reasons for America’s success.

Not true. America was successful regardless of immigration. For example, for much of the 20th century, the US banned immigration from most of the world. Look up the history of US immigration bans. It's quite enlightening

> It is due to America being a nation of immigrants that we can do this.

America is not and never has been a nation of immigrants. At no time in US history has immigrants represented anywhere close to the majority of the US population. America was always a nation of native born americans. Not immigrants.

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