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The Demoralization is just Beginning

geohot.github.io

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Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#701

Post by bdangubic »

feoren wrote: post #693
nuancebydefault wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Most internet forms that ask for gender have absolutely no reason to care about that information. Basically, biological sex should matter to healthcare professionals, and gender should matter to virtually nobody. So yes, "simply remove it" should be the answer to this most of the time.

I do not work on "internet forms" but medical research :)

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#702

Post by ryandamm »

RivieraKid wrote: post #450
ryandamm wrote: post #11

I prefer my economic takes from economists, or people who actually study these things. -there is more to an economy than manufacturing. Using manufacturing metrics to rate an economy is like scoring a soccer game based on how far your players run: in some contexts correlated with “winning” but in others it’s not. -gold is not a good currency or basis for monetary policy. -these ideas only sound self consistent withou…

Krugman and Pettis are among the small group of economics / finance people I follow. Do you have any other recommendations of people to follow? Regarding Pettis, I still haven't decided whether I agree with (and understand) his worldview.

I took Krugman's advice to read DeLong at one point and don't regret it, though he's not on my regular rotation:

https://braddelong.substack.com

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#703

Post by ryandamm »

RivieraKid wrote: post #450
ryandamm wrote: post #11

I prefer my economic takes from economists, or people who actually study these things. -there is more to an economy than manufacturing. Using manufacturing metrics to rate an economy is like scoring a soccer game based on how far your players run: in some contexts correlated with “winning” but in others it’s not. -gold is not a good currency or basis for monetary policy. -these ideas only sound self consistent withou…

Krugman and Pettis are among the small group of economics / finance people I follow. Do you have any other recommendations of people to follow? Regarding Pettis, I still haven't decided whether I agree with (and understand) his worldview.

Oh, and of course I read Patrick McKenzie:

https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com

And subscribe to Bloomberg's Matt Levine's "Money Stuff" newsletter and podcast:

https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/money-stuff

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#704

Post by fuzzfactor »

Rhapso wrote: post #409
rsanek wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

rare Earths have a pretty big downside of having huge swings in the supply when there happens to be a discovery. you want a pretty stable supply for a reserve currency / backing commodity. oil is fairly difficult / expensive to transport and store, certainly at volume. more at https://www.lynalden.com/what-is-money/

With the current communication capacity, "transport" isn't horribly relevant. Free exchange of any currency backing substance would be as bad as bitcoin for fraud. So why bother moving it? Oil changes owners all the time without going anywhere.

>oil is fairly difficult / expensive to transport and store, certainly at volume.

More difficult for some technologies than others, which I tried to come to terms with long ago.

After over 40 years, I'm still here to help when it makes sense.

>Oil changes owners all the time without going anywhere.

Even more often when it is on open water already on the way somewhere else.

It just doesn't fulfill its destiny until its voyage is not only underway, but fully completed.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#705

Post by ryandamm »

lll-o-lll wrote: post #269
ryandamm wrote: post #11

I prefer my economic takes from economists, or people who actually study these things. -there is more to an economy than manufacturing. Using manufacturing metrics to rate an economy is like scoring a soccer game based on how far your players run: in some contexts correlated with “winning” but in others it’s not. -gold is not a good currency or basis for monetary policy. -these ideas only sound self consistent withou…

> I prefer my economic takes from economists, or people who actually study these things. I think the ideas are interesting and worthy of discussion. If you want an actual credentialed economist talking about similar issues — here’s one: https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2025/02/21/donald-trumps-econ... But you need to recognise that there is an “orthodoxy” and challenges to that. You aren’t going to hear the questioning…

I like Varoufakis; watched a short video interview he did just a few days ago. I doubt he'd agree with geohot's take.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#706

Post by fuzzfactor »

tony69 wrote: post #646
shash wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deflation (defined as, the value of the currency goes up with time) means that prices go down with time. This however tends to accumulate wealth and not have it move around in the economy (it being more remunerative to hold on to your currency because its value increases). This makes it harder to run an economy because eventually, with a fixed supply, all the currency gets hoarded and only a bare minimum circulates t…

You have it reversed. Currency inflation leads to unfair distribution because the value of financial assets grows faster than the real economy (it inflates). Currency deflation benefits the poorer. As technology and productivity grow, it costs less to produce goods, so their prices should decrease. The currency hoarding behavior that you describe is no different than today’s financial investment. It is trivially easy…

What if everybody's correct in some way and things like this are so uncertain simply because a "consumer" economy no longer bears much resmeblance to a "producer" economy.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#707

Post by keybored »

tomhoward wrote: post #355

There's an implicit assumption in the article and the comments here that "brain drain the world" is a free lunch. But does anyone think through to the end-game of that? That when you drain the most smart/productive people away from every other country, all those countries become less wealthy and more dysfunctional, leading to societal decline, poverty, resentment, radicalisation, war, etc? Aside from anything else, t…

> But does anyone think through to the end-game of that? That when you drain the most smart/productive people away from every other country, all those countries become less wealthy and more dysfunctional, leading to societal decline, poverty, resentment, radicalisation, war, etc?

My average IQ (or below) take is that this “brain drain” narrative where absolutely everything collapses—societal decline, war, resentment, aah basically the Apocalypse—because the smart people leave is just the belief here because people put 50% or more of their professional identity into believing they have a high IQ.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#708

Post by keybored »

> The Demoralization

I don’t have time for these random words that blogs invent which makes sense if you followed the author for the past thirty entries but not if you just found this one random article.

Demoralize who? Because I can’t imagine the average citizen wanting to get on board with your nakedly imperialist plan.

The thing about cheering for “your country” doing well in terms of geopolitics is that you are either a completely misguided tool since the geopolitical interests have nothing to do with the interests of the average citizen. Or you are so wealthy and powerful that they do. In which case the average citizen has no common interests with you.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#709

Post by dctoedt »

rayiner wrote: post #189
ryandamm wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think America in its best expression is an amalgamation of many different backgrounds and attitudes. Even differing opinions on the functioning of democracy, though I personally think some opinions denigrating democracy are a bit out of bounds and "unamerican" -- though that's obviously a "no true Scotsman" argument, I'm sticking to it. I guess I'm just arguing for a more expansive view of what constitutes an Ameri…

> I think America in its best expression is an amalgamation of many different backgrounds and attitudes. In my view, the best expression of America is somewhere like Iowa--a flat society with intense, local self-governance. In every multicultural society, the democratic rapport that people have with each other ends up being replaced with relationships mediated by an increasingly large and bureaucratic government that…

> In my view, the best expression of America is somewhere like Iowa--a flat society with intense, local self-governance.

You sound very Jeffersonian, but methinks you're idealizing Iowa — have you ever spent time there?

Anecdata: My dad's family is from Iowa — his people were small-holding farmers and village shopkeepers whose immigrant ancestors had come to Iowa from Germany. My dad and his siblings each left the state as soon as they reached adulthood and never once returned to live. Neither I, nor any of my siblings, nor any of our first cousins have ever lived there, nor have many of our second cousins (although we used to go back regularly to visit relatives). Feel free to conjecture why that might be.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#710

Post by t-3 »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #474
t-3 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

U.S. hegemony has also destroyed and subverted democracies and propped up very illiberal dictatorships. Protecting democracy for white countries only isn't exactly what I think of when I think "world protector of liberal democracy".

The U.S. hasn't been perfect, but I'll take it over the alternatives. And, I'd say protecting democracy for "white countries only" is a simplification. If you're talking about Europe, then we have to consider that the U.S. has also pretty famously fought against European nations and that our subsequent "protection" there was to serve as a bulwark to maintain a world order that benefited the U.S. and democracy. And, y…

Coups in Haiti, supporting gangsters and strongmen, overthrowing democratically elected presidents multiple times - supporting Democracy!

Pushing fake candidates in Venezuela - supporting Democracy!

Ousting left-leaning governments in Australia - supporting Democracy!

Overthrowing the democratically elected government of Iran, returning it to authoritarian monarchy - supporting Democracy!

Overthrowing the democratically elected government of Chile, installing a dictatorship - supporting Democracy!

Supporting the overthrow of democracy and establishment of a military dictatorship in Brazil - supporting Democracy!

And so on and so forth, with plenty of logistical and moral support for mass killings, disappearances, assassinations, and political imprisonment mixed in to boot.

We have never promoted democracy, we've only ever promoted the interests of American corporations and opposed socialism.

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