Massassi Forums Logo

This is the static archive of the Massassi Forums. The forums are closed indefinitely. Thanks for all the memories!

You can also download Super Old Archived Message Boards from when Massassi first started.

"View" counts are as of the day the forums were archived, and will no longer increase.

☖ Forums → Discussion Forum → Inauguration Day, Inauguration Hooooooraaay!
123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051525354555657585960616263646566676869707172737475767778798081828384858687888990919293949596979899100101102103104105106107108109110111112113114115116117118119120121122123124125126127128129130131132133134135136137138139140141142143144145146147148149150151152153154155156157158159160161162163164165166167168169170171172173174175176177178179180181182183184185186187188189190191192193194195196197198199200201202203204205206207208209210211212213214215216217218219220221222223224225226227228229230231232233234235236237238239240241242243244245246247248249250251252253254255256257258259260261262263264265266267268269270271272273274275276277278279280281282283284285286287288289290291292293294295296297298299300301302303304305306307308309310311312313314315316317318319320321322323324325326327328329330331332333334335336337338339340341342343344345346347348349350351352353354355356357358359360361362363364365366367368369370371372373374375376377378379380381382383384385386387388389390391392393394395396397398399400401
Inauguration Day, Inauguration Hooooooraaay!
2017-12-11, 7:07 PM #6481
Like, China basically blocked and restricted foreign access to financial assets for a long time. That's being liberalized now, because it's starting to make a bit more sense for them. Contrast that to the Washington Consensus, which required countries to open financial markets to foreign investment.

As well, you could argue that the damage done by neoliberal too-much-liberalism-where-it-doesn't-make-sense causes reactionary socialist politics in places like Venezuela, where opposition to U.S. policy created a poor system. I've also heard (but can't find a proper research paper on the topic, so take it with the appropriate caution) that the degree of U.S. influence in a Latin America inversely corresponds with the democratic freedom and economic development.

The problem seems to be that neoliberal development policy is too generous for foreign investment (i.e., it makes Wall Street happy) rather than really emphasizing growth of the local economy.
2017-12-11, 7:14 PM #6482
You can literally sum up everything I'm saying by saying "privatization is a religion" and that centralization makes sense in some circumstances. And I believe there's good evidence for that, when you really look at the history.
2017-12-11, 10:03 PM #6483
The simplest possible argument against neoliberalism is this one:

[https://forums.massassi.net/vb3/attachment.php?attachmentid=27702&d=1511084043]

In other words, markets - whether competitive or cornered - will only ever produce the profit-maximizing quantity of any good. That profit maximizing quantity is usually greater than zero, which is where everything good you can say about capitalism happens. But the profit maximizing quantity is never high enough to provide a supply to everybody who might need or want it. Sometimes that's okay, if you're talking about a luxury good that nobody ever needs like gold watches. But sometimes it isn't okay, like for shelter, healthcare, food, water, or education.

There's a point along the production possibilities frontier where we produce enough basic needs to provide for all people, whether they can afford to pay or not. The problem is, free markets will never reach that point, because it's not only demanding an unprofitable supply level from the basic goods markets, but it's also allocating resources away from maximizing profits in other sectors. The idea of providing for all people - indeed, elevating people out of poverty - runs at right angles to neoliberalism and capitalism in general. It just can't happen. Not without radical intervention.
2017-12-11, 10:06 PM #6484
TL;DR: Free markets literally will not create enough food to feed everybody. Neoliberals consider starvation a feature.
2017-12-12, 10:37 AM #6485
maybe you ahvent heard but capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than anything ever
Epstein didn't kill himself.
2017-12-12, 1:51 PM #6486
Originally posted by Jon`C:
TL;DR: Free markets literally will not create enough food to feed everybody. Neoliberals consider starvation a feature.


Ironically, housing is one of the few things the Soviets did right. People mention the "ugly" Soviet era housing, but they managed to produce affordable, competent housing to accommodate their massive growth. The rest of the economy was kind of **** but at least they really did fulfill the socialist goal there.
2017-12-12, 2:43 PM #6487
Interesting how Soviets were behind the times in terms of technology by some stage of the 20th century (good job, you figured out how to build houses), whereas they were big innovators in military and scientific endeavors. Maybe they failed to serve the consumer like the West did, which delivered things like microcomputers and blue jeans (the standard anti-soviet economy cliche), in part because a mixed economy like the mid-twentieth century American one is good at transferring technology from the public to private sector.
2017-12-12, 3:42 PM #6488
Originally posted by Jon`C:
There are a lot of industries that rely upon the weather. Big, important industries. Tourism, obviously, since nobody wants to visit an attraction while the weather is poor. Construction and agriculture are obvious, too, since many construction jobs can't be done when it's too cold or too wet, and crops are variously sensitive to the weather as well, and either can't be grown or require expensive interventions. Many kinds of entertainment depend upon the weather, too, including sports. That, in turn, affects retail, restaurants, and other kinds of entertainment: a sports game attracts people to sports bars, but if a game is delayed due to weather, those people will often go shopping, watch movies, or go to family restaurants. Severe weather, including earthquakes and hurricanes, can disrupt some businesses - like utilities and oil refineries - and stimulate others, like construction and disaster relief suppliers. The weather is arguably the single strongest macroeconomic influence.

So in order to predict macroeconomic outcomes, you need to be able to predict the weather. Likewise, to change macroeconomic outcomes, you need to change the weather. The United States is a superpower, but it can't change the weather*. And I'm not sure what stories the Republicans tell each other about George Soros, but I'm pretty sure he can't change the weather either.

Basically, your post was a non-sequitur. The question of whether or not "macroeconomics" is "useful" is not helpful, because I don't think the person asking the question understands either what macroeconomics is, or what useful should mean.

A few months ago, you suggested, for example, that government tax revenue might actually increase after a tax cut. This was, in your own words, a take on the Laffer Curve, a bit of pernicious macroeconomic reasoning that was invented by Ronald Reagan's cabinet to support his own tax cut. So it doesn't seem like you have a problem with macroeconomics, per se, or even a problem with how the government is using macroeconomics to support their political agenda. I actually have no idea what your grievance with macroeconomics is, then, since you've previously found macroeconomic arguments quite useful.

Macroeconomics is literally a study of the whole economy. Is it useful, for example, to estimate how household energy expenditures might be affected by a severe hurricane in Houston? Because that's a macroeconomic effect. Answering this question is obviously useful; this specific example is a matter of strategic significance.

Is macroeconomics useful for setting broad policies? I don't think it is. It's not normally possible to perform studies the same way as e.g. medicine does them. You can only infer results from found experiments, and try to rule out confounding variables. This is a major limitation and, in my opinion, macroeconomics is only useful for describing what has already happened, and it is not useful for policy selection. But at the same time, you don't seem to have an actual problem with using macroeconomics to set policy. Which only leaves the descriptive part of economics... like you have a problem with people looking at what's already happened, and reporting on the root cause? That would be a ridiculous complaint.

So what's this comment about? Is macroeconomics just some republican whipping boy now, or what? Where'd you hear this stuff about macroeconomics?

Edit: Updated to more accurately reflect my sincere confusion about Wookie06's complaint.

Edit 2: * Weather and climate mean different things. Don't even ****in say it bro.


I really do apologize for not getting back to this sooner. I really wanted to find the original post and its context but after several tries, I couldn't find it. Anyway, I shouldn't have use the word "useless" earlier but it wasn't meant literally and even if it was it's still a less bad summary of the post than the one Jon gave.

I remember the post and the intent because it's based on an idea I formed several years ago watching a hysterical Chris Mathews interview a climate scientist. After the scientist gave his doom and gloom opinion Mathews breathlessly asked him just how bad things were going to get over the next few years if Republican policy isn't defeated. The scientist almost chuckled and stated that even if we stopped all man produced pollution it would be a thousand years before any of the damage would reverse.

I group certain sciences into a category I call Macro Sciences. They're perfectly valid areas to study and observe but it's highly naive to believe that vast and complicated systems are understood so well that direct cause and effect correlations can be made with every action.

And, yeah, obviously weather and climate are different things. Duh.

And in the very limited time I spend in this thread that's the second erroneous reference attributed to me I've seen so I'm sure there's more. At least Jon's was just misremembered. I'm guessing it's a mashup of me saying at some point that climate change is just the excuse for massive global economic redistribution.

Remember, I'm not ignoring posts. I likely don't even see them.
"I would rather claim to be an uneducated man than be mal-educated and claim to be otherwise." - Wookie 03:16

2017-12-12, 5:29 PM #6489
Which post are you suggesting that I misremembered?

This one?

Originally posted by Wookie06:
Macro economics. Unless you're a superpower or George Soros you can't actually affect it.


or this one?

Originally posted by Wookie06:
I don't care about the Laffer Curve. I just think it's important to note that the relationship to revenue raised and tax rates is not linear and that tax reductions on high income earners or corporations does not necessarily mean that tax revenue will decrease. Regardless, clearly a tax reduction is not an expense that costs money.


Because those were the only two posts I referenced. Perhaps you misremembered a reference that I didn’t make?

Your “macro science” idea is misguided. We already have a word for developing theories about the behaviour of a system that is too complicated to fully understand: science. If you fully understand a system you don’t need the scientific method to make statements about it.
2017-12-12, 7:36 PM #6490
Woohoo!

Code: 
Doug Jones 	Dem. 	602,515 	49.6%
Roy Moore 	Rep. 	592,729 	48.8
Total Write-Ins — 	20,219 	         1.7


https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/alabama-senate-special-election-roy-moore-doug-jones
2017-12-12, 8:10 PM #6491
Listening to Infowars. They're calling it 'massive electoral fraud' and calling for an investigation. Specifically they are upset about a rule they are claiming was changed that would have let Alabama delete electronic records of the votes.
2017-12-12, 8:21 PM #6492
And then a guy calls in from Illinois to say that the introduction of electronic voting machines coincided with the election of Barack Obama.
2017-12-12, 8:22 PM #6493
592,729 people think tax cuts for the rich are more important than Christian values.
2017-12-12, 8:22 PM #6494
Originally posted by Reverend Jones:
And then a guy calls in from Illinois to say that the introduction of electronic voting machines coincided with the election of Barack Obama.


Weren't they introduced in 2002?
2017-12-12, 8:25 PM #6495
Sure, I'll trust your memory over a deranged Infowars caller.
2017-12-12, 8:33 PM #6496
yup I was right: Help America Vote Act, 2002

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help_America_Vote_Act

I remembered that the switch over was announced after the 2000 election, but before the 2004 election. I remember lots of paranoia around that time about the Republicans using it to rig the election, prompted in part by the fact that the Diebold CEO, whose company made most of the election machines, was an open and unabashed Republican who often spoke of how their machines would help the Republicans win in 2004. Strange times.
2017-12-12, 9:16 PM #6497
Originally posted by Wookie06:
I don't care about the Laffer Curve. I just think it's important to note that the relationship to revenue raised and tax rates is not linear and that tax reductions on high income earners or corporations does not necessarily mean that tax revenue will decrease. Regardless, clearly a tax reduction is not an expense that costs money.


This is pretty interesting, because the last sentence contradicts what you said in the first. All the Laffer curve states is that there is some tax rate which will produce maximum revenue. In some cases, yes, cutting taxes can increase revenue. When you're to the right of the maximum. If the tax rate is at the maximum or to the left, then you'll lose revenue. So a tax reduction can be an expense that costs money.
2017-12-12, 9:24 PM #6498
And, I mean, if you trust economics, then you'll note that economists basically unanimously agree that tax cuts in current America will reduce revenue.

Don't get your rocks off after seeing the bit about GDP though: the same economists agree the current tax bill will hurt GDP in the coming years.
2017-12-12, 9:29 PM #6499
Originally posted by Wookie06:
I really do apologize for not getting back to this sooner. I really wanted to find the original post and its context but after several tries, I couldn't find it. Anyway, I shouldn't have use the word "useless" earlier but it wasn't meant literally and even if it was it's still a less bad summary of the post than the one Jon gave.

I remember the post and the intent because it's based on an idea I formed several years ago watching a hysterical Chris Mathews interview a climate scientist. After the scientist gave his doom and gloom opinion Mathews breathlessly asked him just how bad things were going to get over the next few years if Republican policy isn't defeated. The scientist almost chuckled and stated that even if we stopped all man produced pollution it would be a thousand years before any of the damage would reverse.

I group certain sciences into a category I call Macro Sciences. They're perfectly valid areas to study and observe but it's highly naive to believe that vast and complicated systems are understood so well that direct cause and effect correlations can be made with every action.


I agree, science is very difficult. It takes time and money and often doesn't produce useful results. But to handwave away decades of hard work by people simply off a skepticism towards human intelligence is a pretty poor way to go about the world.

I mean, really, what are you saying other than: well, we can't figure it out, so might as well not try.

Are you really that much of a nihilist?

Originally posted by Wookie06:
And, yeah, obviously weather and climate are different things. Duh.

And in the very limited time I spend in this thread that's the second erroneous reference attributed to me I've seen so I'm sure there's more. At least Jon's was just misremembered. I'm guessing it's a mashup of me saying at some point that climate change is just the excuse for massive global economic redistribution.


I think people don't really try to reference you in a serious way because there's nothing serious to reference.

Originally posted by Wookie06:
Remember, I'm not ignoring posts. I likely don't even see them.


Yeah, reading is hard.
2017-12-12, 9:34 PM #6500
A comment: if you really don't believe in the so-called "macro sciences", then you really oughtn't have an opinion on whether climate change scientists have power. It seems you'd rather have that money work to produce growth in other areas of the economy by cutting taxes.

Except, the framework you're using to justify this is "macro science": the same sort of mathematical modeling techniques, assumptions to reduce variables, observational studies, poor regression techniques, and "too complicated to understand", all possible criticisms of climate science, are all equally present in the sorts of macroeconomics that inform your policy beliefs. You don't get to pick and choose what to support and not to support if you're principled, you have to throw out the whole gambit. But I don't think you're actually principled here, you're just doing what the Republicans tell you to do.
2017-12-12, 9:37 PM #6501
Originally posted by Reid:
This is pretty interesting, because the last sentence contradicts what you said in the first. All the Laffer curve states is that there is some tax rate which will produce maximum revenue. In some cases, yes, cutting taxes can increase revenue. When you're to the right of the maximum. If the tax rate is at the maximum or to the left, then you'll lose revenue. So a tax reduction can be an expense that costs money.


I should add a caveat to this: just because something is true in principle, doesn't mean it will explain every effect you see. The Laffer curve might not be "visible" unless you cut taxes to 10% or raise them to 80%. Economics is massively hard to study and every situation has tons of confounding variables.

What I mean is, yes, the Laffer curve is a real thing, but basically all attempts to cite it in political debate are bull****.
2017-12-12, 9:40 PM #6502
Originally posted by Reverend Jones:
Woohoo!

Code: 
Doug Jones 	Dem. 	602,515 	49.6%
Roy Moore 	Rep. 	592,729 	48.8
Total Write-Ins — 	20,219 	         1.7


https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/alabama-senate-special-election-roy-moore-doug-jones


I was speaking with people in the department today about this.

We all agreed that it's a very good thing people decided not to elect a literal child molester to the senate.

Good job Alabama! You just redefined "the worst state" in the best possible way!
2017-12-12, 9:43 PM #6503
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alabama-senate-race-doug-jones-wins-special-election-results-2017-12-12-live-updating/

Except the guy's coming back for more hehehe

Inb4 someone "loses" a few thousand critical votes in a shredding machine.
2017-12-12, 9:45 PM #6504
[http://i.imgs.fyi/img/23ep.jpg]

This guy's a knockoff version of Trump.
2017-12-12, 10:18 PM #6505
Originally posted by Reid:
A comment: if you really don't believe in the so-called "macro sciences", then you really oughtn't have an opinion on whether climate change scientists have power. It seems you'd rather have that money work to produce growth in other areas of the economy by cutting taxes.

Except, the framework you're using to justify this is "macro science": the same sort of mathematical modeling techniques, assumptions to reduce variables, observational studies, poor regression techniques, and "too complicated to understand", all possible criticisms of climate science, are all equally present in the sorts of macroeconomics that inform your policy beliefs. You don't get to pick and choose what to support and not to support if you're principled, you have to throw out the whole gambit. But I don't think you're actually principled here, you're just doing what the Republicans tell you to do.


The universe is an incredibly complicated system, yet we've invented physics as a scientific discipline to study it and make applicable predictions about it. To a great extent we use the same tools and methods to study physics as we do for macroeconomics. The difference between physics and macroeconomics is that we actually understand macroeconomics better, because at least we know (neoliberals excepted) where our model ends and reality begins. If you define macroeconomics as a "macro science", on the basis of complicated subject matter and deficient methods, then physics absolutely needs to belong to this group.

I feel like this taxonomic exercise has less to do with what they're studying, and more to do with their conclusions.
2017-12-13, 12:10 AM #6506
Originally posted by Reid:
[http://i.imgs.fyi/img/23ep.jpg]

This guy's a knockoff version of Trump.


No, your image is a knockoff. It's photoshopped.

Here's the original: https://twitter.com/kaitlancollins/status/940711262413115398
2017-12-13, 12:21 AM #6507
I don't know what to believe anymore :(

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gydydm/gal-gadot-fake-ai-porn
former entrepreneur
2017-12-13, 12:30 AM #6508
tbf, people have been producing fake celebrity nude photos I'm guessing since the first version of photoshop.
2017-12-13, 12:42 AM #6509
Originally posted by Eversor:
I don't know what to believe anymore :(

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gydydm/gal-gadot-fake-ai-porn


You and I aren't going to be too inconvenienced, since we seem to possess functioning internal cognitive trust metrics.

It's the rest of the people who will be slow to react to the new paradigm who will fall prey to this mischief. This includes slow to adapt bureaucracies like the legal system, corporations, etc. Imagine somebody like James O'Keefe getting a hold of this and coming up with a way to target somebody for reputation annihilation.
2017-12-13, 2:20 AM #6510
Originally posted by Reverend Jones:
tbf, people have been producing fake celebrity nude photos I'm guessing since the first version of photoshop.


Yeah, but fake video seems like a different beast. I mean, maybe not: I suppose people have learned how to identify modified photographs and pictures (and have even become adept at it, in many cases), so it's definitely entirely feasible that we may have to begin scrutinizing video with the same intensity that we scrutinize still images. But it means that a medium that had once been reliable and capable of providing unmediated access to truth is now less reliable, and less truthful. But... actually, maybe that's a better thing.
former entrepreneur
2017-12-13, 2:25 AM #6511
It may be a good thing in the long run. But we're headed for some turbulent times so long as the present institutions still rely on recorded visages of people being trustworthy.

In fact it might precipitate new mechanisms for trust to be verified. For example, a cryptographic GPS unit which verifies with a central authority the time and place of the recording, from the moment the camera shoots it, and automatically syncs a hash of the original, tamper free recording in different resolutions with a central authentication service. So now all media will have that blue little dot next to them to verify they haven't been touched. Sort of like a reverse DRM for your face.

I smell a business opportunity for a willing supervillain to jumpstart a market for this.
2017-12-13, 2:30 AM #6512
Of course the CIA will probably put a backdoor in the cryptography module going into all the cameras, so they can doctor videos and fake the certification. At some point the backdoor will be leaked, and then you'll start to see "verified" videos that are completely doctored.
2017-12-13, 2:31 AM #6513
What stops real-time modification between the camera and the recorder?
2017-12-13, 2:34 AM #6514
Unfortunately this won't work at all.
2017-12-13, 2:34 AM #6515
Originally posted by Reverend Jones:
Unfortunately this won't work at all.


Originally posted by Jon`C:
What stops real-time modification between the camera and the recorder?


Yes I just thought about this for 30 more seconds. :downs:
2017-12-13, 2:36 AM #6516
There was a longish discussion about this on Reddit apparently.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2k11sz/if_digital_cameras_were_to_introduce/
2017-12-13, 2:45 AM #6517
I mean, you can also just take a recording of a screen....
2017-12-13, 2:49 AM #6518
Trust, authentication, and tamper-evident are separate goals. Not all of them can be achieved technologically.
2017-12-13, 2:56 AM #6519
Kelsey, Schneier, Hall "An Authenticated Camera", 1996

https://www.schneier.com/academic/archives/1996/12/an_authenticated_cam.html

2017-12-13, 3:03 AM #6520
I guess one option could be to record in ways that are presently impractical to emulate, like record LIDAR or patterned light data, record in infrared and ultraviolet or maybe in a different color space than human vision, record light polarization. Then a part of your tamper evidence would be whether or not those different filters are showing the expected data given what is pictured.

Doing this would prevent almost any analog attack other than... like, people actually dressing up and acting stuff out.
123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051525354555657585960616263646566676869707172737475767778798081828384858687888990919293949596979899100101102103104105106107108109110111112113114115116117118119120121122123124125126127128129130131132133134135136137138139140141142143144145146147148149150151152153154155156157158159160161162163164165166167168169170171172173174175176177178179180181182183184185186187188189190191192193194195196197198199200201202203204205206207208209210211212213214215216217218219220221222223224225226227228229230231232233234235236237238239240241242243244245246247248249250251252253254255256257258259260261262263264265266267268269270271272273274275276277278279280281282283284285286287288289290291292293294295296297298299300301302303304305306307308309310311312313314315316317318319320321322323324325326327328329330331332333334335336337338339340341342343344345346347348349350351352353354355356357358359360361362363364365366367368369370371372373374375376377378379380381382383384385386387388389390391392393394395396397398399400401

↑ Up to the top!