—Eugenicists were right. There is only one route to permanent prosperity and that is the reduction of the unproductive classes. The bottom is 6x more damaging than the top is productive, and in an evenly rotating economy (no major asymmetries of technology) which the world is approaching, the size of the underclasses will determine the level of poverty.—
(worth repeating)
Source date (UTC): 2018-08-06 08:52:00 UTC
Eric Danelaw wrote on a timeline.
Source date (UTC): 2018-08-06 08:50:00 UTC
—“You have no right…”—
Rights are determined by men with guns, swords, and spears. In then absence of reciprocity men have no incentive to produce rights – they have the opposite incentive.
“Might makes rights.”
That’s just a truism.
Source date (UTC): 2018-08-06 08:50:00 UTC
Eric Danelaw wrote on a timeline.
Source date (UTC): 2018-08-06 08:47:00 UTC
—“Just as a country’s wealth can be measured by how long it can survive democracy, same applies to socialism. Resource rich countries can survive longest on it, but those that focus on preserving the most important resource – high performing human types – can survive it indefinitely.”— Steve Pender
Source date (UTC): 2018-08-06 08:47:00 UTC
Eric Danelaw added a new photo to a timeline.
Source date (UTC): 2018-08-06 08:15:00 UTC
photos_and_videos/your_posts/38734161_269566863640211_2073514432738099200_n_269566860306878.jpg SUBSCRIBE TO THE PROPERTARIAN INSTITUTE
Apparently Curt has been Blocked by an automated system that uses keywords or key phrases too ‘stupid’ for it’s job. Therefore subscribe to *Eric Danelaw* and the *Propertarian Institute* for the next few weeks. What does this mean? It means we will work with even more more subtle and coded language in order to prevent offending the censors.SUBSCRIBE TO THE PROPERTARIAN INSTITUTE
Apparently Curt has been Blocked by an automated system that uses keywords or key phrases too ‘stupid’ for it’s job. Therefore subscribe to *Eric Danelaw* and the *Propertarian Institute* for the next few weeks. What does this mean? It means we will work with even more more subtle and coded language in order to prevent offending the censors.
Source date (UTC): 2018-08-06 08:15:00 UTC
wow. videos of antifa vs patriots in Portland is obviously class warfare.
Source date (UTC): 2018-08-05 21:38:00 UTC
NORWAY
—“Norway’s modern manufacturing and welfare system rely on a financial reserve produced by exploitation of natural resources, particularly North Sea oil.”—
Look. I have a non-trivial understanding of economics. Norway is the Scandinavian version of Dubai. The Dubai has 4 billion barrels and Norway has 5.5 billion barrels in reserve. Just like Dubai can operate on a resource economy, Norway can. For exactly the same reasons.
—“Forty years of oil and gas production has produced values of $1.2 trillion for Norway and the petroleum sector accounts for 22% of Norway’s GDP. The petroleum industry has enabled one of the most extensive welfare systems in the world, with free public health care and generous disability and unemployment benefits. To provide a buffer when the petroleum revenues decrease the Government Pension Fund was established in 1990 and its current value is over $500 billion. The so-called spending rule, made effective in 2001, states that only the real returns of the fund (estimated to be 4% per annum) should be spent in the national budget, thus saving oil wealth for future generations.”—
At current rates of consumption Norway has (optimistically) 24 years of oil production left. In other words, one new generation. After that it will dwindle. We can expect Norway to incrementally tighten r
Dubai is investing in becoming the arab world’s switzerland, and norway is investing in fulfilling the scandinavian utopia. While dubai’s objective is sustainable, norway’s is not.
Norway is not repeatable any more than Dubai is repeatable. And norway will change rapidly in the foreseeable future because of it.
That’s the answer.
YOU CAN’T DO SOCIALISM (FOR LONG).
In the end it destroys everything. Corruption and black markets, Incentives to produce most importantly, prices and calculation and the impossibility of organizing production, and knowledge. Just can’t be done. It can be done in a few industries. But there is no escape from market forces any more than there is from gravity.
Eugenicists were right. There is only one route to permanent prosperity and that is the reduction of the unproductive classes. The bottom is 6x more damaging than the top is productive. and in an evenly rotating economy (no major asymmetries of technology) which the world is approaching, the size of the underclasses will determine the level of poverty.
Source date (UTC): 2018-08-05 21:25:00 UTC
Why does tech have so many political problems?
by Tyler Cowen
These are originally derived from written notes, a basis for comments by somebody else, from a closed session on tech. I have added my own edits:
Most tech leaders aren’t especially personable. Instead, they’re quirky introverts. Or worse.
Most tech leaders don’t care much about the usual policy issues. They care about AI, self-driving cars, and space travel, none of which translate into positive political influence.
Tech leaders are idealistic and don’t intuitively understand the grubby workings of WDC.
People who could be “managers” in tech policy areas (for instance, they understand tech, are good at coalition building, etc.) will probably be pulled into a more lucrative area of tech. Therefore ther is an acute talent shortage in tech policy areas.
The Robespierrean social justice terror blowing through Silicon Valley occupies most of tech leaders’ “political” mental energy. It is hard to find time to focus on more concrete policy issues.
Of the policy issues that people in tech do care about—climate, gay/trans rights, abortion, Trump—they’re misaligned with Republican Party, to say the least. This same Republican party currently rules.
While accusations of deliberate bias against Republicans are overstated, the tech rank-and-file is quite anti-Republican, and increasingly so. This limits the political degrees of freedom of tech leaders. (See the responses to Elon Musk’s Republican donation.)
Several of the big tech companies are de facto monopolies or semi-monopolies. They must spend a lot of their political capital denying this or otherwise minimizing its import.
The media increasingly hates tech. (In part because tech is such a threat, in part because of a deeper C.P. Snow-style cultural mismatch.)
Not only does tech hate Trump… but Trump hates tech.
By nature, tech leaders are disagreeable iconoclasts (with individualistic and believe it or not sometimes megalomaniacal tendencies). That makes them bad at uniting as a coalition.
Major tech companies have meaningful presences in just a few states, which undermines their political influence. Of states where they have a presence — CA, WA, MA, NY — Democrats usually take them for granted, Republicans write them off. Might Austin, TX someday help here?
US tech companies are increasingly unpopular among governments around the world. For instance, Facebook/WhatsApp struggles in India. Or Google and the EU. Or Visa and Russia. This distracts the companies from focusing on US and that makes them more isolated.
The issues that are challenging for tech companies aren’t arcane questions directly in and of the tech industry (such as copyright mechanics for the music industry or procurement rules for defense). They’re broader and they also encounter very large coalitions coming from other directions: immigration laws, free speech issues on platforms, data privacy questions, and worker classification on marketplaces.
Blockchain may well make the world “crazier” in the next five years. So tech will be seen as driving even more disruption.
The industry is so successful that it’s not very popular among the rest of U.S. companies and it lacks allies. (90%+ of S&P 500 market cap appreciation this year has been driven by tech.) Many other parts of corporate America see tech as a major threat.
Maybe it is hard to find prominent examples of the great good that big tech is doing. Instagram TV. iPhone X. Amazon Echo Dot. Microsoft Surface Pro. Are you impressed? Are these companies golden geese or have they simply appropriated all the gold?
Source date (UTC): 2018-08-05 16:09:00 UTC