"Paul Harrison: succinct & to the point -- +1"
]]>Actually it really is Twenty-One TRILLION USDs. The larger point is no one -- not even someone "in charge" of the Five-Sided Castle -- seems to really know how much is really missing. There is the issue of 50+ year old COBOL & FORTRAN accounting systems resulting in "irregularities", but I'm sure the number-crunchers will get it tidied up in no time flat.
RE: Libertarians. There were always Randians, but they tended to be the youngest & newest members who let themselves be wound up by the old guys that had moved on to pragmatism (often referred to as "the sell-outs"). In the end I gave it up as being a waste of time, like any other political party, and went my own way. Easier to call bullshit and kill sacred cows when you're not tied up defending someone else's talking points.
A major component of Bitcoin that I can't understand is: what's "Plan B" in the case of a disaster (e.g. underwater cables cut, mass DDoS, or an IMF/World Bank/UN global ban)? 30 years ago, sure, everyone was trying to make a buck and "micro-payments" were going to unleash the digital natives to show the analog codgers how to do it. Meantime we've seen regional power outages and politicians seriously discussing "EMP/'Grid Down' National Response Plans", so how does a digital currency work in this situations? Battery-/solar-powered "BTC Tamagotchi's"? Steampunk "goods exchanges" with hand-cranked WiFi? Seems like an awful lot of time, money, and energy spent on yet another masturbatory get-rich-quick-without-really-trying scheme.
Though it would be a huge laugh if the conspiracy theories pan out.
As for positive &/or constructive solutions? They certainly seem obvious: unwind the dumbest bits of the current system:
I really do hope we can avoid the worst and get to better things.
History seems to hum a tune akin to "It'll Get Worse Before It Gets Better" and 00:00:01 on 2038-01-19 is coming quick.
]]>Troutwaxer: "The way to fix this problem is to consider the fact that better, cheaper reactor designs are available, but we aren't using them."
Most definitely: #1, #2, #3, #4, & #5
Adam: "We really should be reprocessing the waste to get the fuel out of it."
CharlesH: "I don't believe that there's any inherent correlation between libertarian and racist."
I too am confused by the regular connections between these two things. I've been to (American) Libertarian Party meetings and it's usually a few old guys with gripes about taxes and government over-reach. There's the usual Ayn Rand fan base, but the bulk of the ones I've met, many from a wide range of backgrounds, just don't care for the other two parties and looking for something else.
Related to that, I think "Oogie Ben Doggie"s notion of using Blockchain sans "proof of work" as a transparent ledger may help with these kinds of issues, as most folks seem to think their taxes aren't doing anything for them. Having "taxspend.dashboard.gov" can make it transparent where the leaks are and hopeful get people thinking about things like "wait, in addition to killing people out of view of my Telescreen the Pentagon can find $21 TRILLION!!? Fuck this, lets see their blockchain!" Don't like all the "others" taking something for nothing? Well maybe we should take a look at your blockchains and see just what your cut has been during the same period?
Will it be used for "evil"? Absolutely: "lifetime benefit limits" (thanks grandpa & grandma!), "suspension of benefits for outstanding fines or violation of 'social credit score'", etc. However, if it gets things rolling in a positive direction, giving fewer people something to bitch about, the hope remains they'll figure out we're all in the same damn boat.
SFreader: "Re: News control"
I had thoughts along the same lines: "AI"/"expert systems"/"intelligent agents"/ will probably start off as "fake news detectors", but weaponized on all sides. As the creation becomes more "organic", someone will just put a fresh one through a "boot camp" process using their favorite bear-bait until it ticks all the boxes. Again, used by both sides, it will require the consumer to be even more weary of everyone and everything. The days of Edward R. Murrow are long-gone.
Along the way the hope is that more people get better at doing their own legwork, which then breeds a new generation of "truth seekers". You'll still be able to create your own "reality bubble"/playlist, but you'll also be able to hone your feeds to a razor-sharp edge.
For that matter how do we know Charlie hasn't been replaced by an AI from the future, with intent to influence the past?
Is it just me or does it suddenly feel like Terrance McKenna was right and everything just feels like it's on fast-forward? Maybe it's an after-affect of aging through the times I did...
]]>Or, it's programmed to "reverse" whom is identified as "the others" at some point in its evolution...leaving lots of dead billionaire "overlords" in its wake. Which I'm sure would certainly not decay into a "worst case Mad Max" scenario...
The "Law of Unintended Consequences" gets us all, in the end.
Maybe I'll feel more happy-go-lucky tomorrow...?
]]>Charlie: “Shorter version is: there will be much dying... People will be die in large numbers, but it will happen out of sight. It'll be "soft genocide" or "malign neglect", and the victims will be the climate change refugees who are kept out of sight by virtual walls. ... You don't need to build concentration camps with barbed wire fences and guards if you can turn your entire society into a machine-mediated panopticon with automated penalties for non-compliance.”
Yes, agreed (to an extent)...
Technology requires someone to invent it, maintain it, and (eventually) upgrade it. In recent years I have come around to the Rudy Rucker “squishy bio” side of things: you only need one bright bulb to come up with “Super-Duper Custom Flu, version 2.7”, which spreads like influenza, kills like ebola, but has the built-in advantage of some unique tweaks to make sure it only kills “the others.” AI-augmented panopticons take an awful lot of personnel and overhead to run. All a “bioterror-based hegemony” needs is a threat vector and an antidote (preferably one that has to be re-administered from time to time.)
Step out of line -- in thought, word, or deed -- and you simply don’t get your next booster.
There will be plenty of automation to facilitate the nightmares Charlie Brooker doesn’t write about... But as you point out, there’s no need to build walls once the population is in line with “right thinking.”
The Chinese took a pragmatic view to their insular ideology when they let a (Communist-aligned) form of Capitalism inside the gates. What they did not do was let it metastasize and take over -- a few hundred million armed & loyal soliders tends to help, admittedly -- instead examining it with a critical eye toward understanding what makes it tick and how best to leverage it against its “masters” (the Western ruling elite, as it is hoped the lower castes will see the light and turn against them.) In so doing they learned the best, and worst, of our practices: from opening up a middle class to leveraging them into obedience with the next “hot gadget”, all the way to declaring the millenia-old “Middle Kingdom” to be back in business. “One Belt, One Road” can be taken a couple of different ways...some of them very unpleasant.
Orwell + Chinese “social credit score” + constant threat of bio-plague = population well-aligned to “accepted social norms.”
Charlie: “The people who buy into the idea of eugenics and racial supremacy—the alt-right and their fellow travellers—will sooner or later have to come to terms with the inevitability of anthropogenic climate change.”
This overlooks the notion that “real progress” is always so close -- “1960: fusion energy is just 30 years away!” -- for technocrats and their ilk. As a prime example, see “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (BBC)”, especially part 2 “The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts”, where we discover the vicious circle from man wanting to conquer Nature with their brains, to wanting to understand it, to fixing it, all while applying the wrong notions of what they were observing to how they where building the models to explain it. One reason we’re at this point in history is because humans are very bad at self-analysis and loathe to revisit previous assumptions for fear of being caught out. Stubborn ignorance wins most times.
Hence, the next (bio-)logical step will be to mount the slippery slope of genetic engineering on the primary germ line. “We have this scalpel-like tool, CRISPR, and it can do amazing stuff -- but progress is never clean, nor a straight line. So, we can get rid of Type 1 diabetes, however, we’ll wipe out a few thousand base pairs that make up ‘First Nations’ groups. Look on the bright side: no more insulin shots!” From there we will leap right into “turns out ‘social malady Z’ is really just a hormone imbalance caused by this bit on gene #4...so if we just re-edit this sequence here...” and a true biological basis for human control can be established. Retire the old “bio-terror plague” and breed “better people.” At this stage the gene-tweaking cabal has yet to realize that their ”Master race” is doomed, having created their own inbred evolutionary dead-end.
As far as that goes, I don’t really see your average White Power muggins giving a toss about any of the science. They’d rather breed ‘em all natural-like. Therefore, a “right/left” political viewpoint isn’t that useful -- just as many (American Left) Liberals & Democrats will jump on a “gene-fix” bandwagon, with or without (Right) Conservatives/Republicans, as it’ll be hailed as a victory for “science!” The yokle that hates someone because of their “race” isn’t the real problem. They’ve already shown they can be manipulated into one way of thinking, so swinging them the other way isn’t that hard. The people you have to watch out for -- true believers for “racial purity” -- will always be Authoritarians/Elitists, who teach others to hate for them, usually without actually subscribing to that (or any other) philosophy themselves.
Charlie: “Who are the murderers? I'll give you a clue: they're the current ruling class and their descendants. A while ago Bruce Sterling described the 21st century as "old people, living in cities, who are afraid of the sky". I'm calling it "wealthy white people, living in cities, who are afraid of the rising seas (and the refugees they'll bring)".”
Here again, I think you’re making specific distinctions that overlook current trends: it’s not just white people getting rich or planning to outlive whatever future disaster is coming down the pike. The world is full of billionaires of all colors, religious affiliations, and purpose who have no time, or need, for “useless eaters.” Ignoring the new global nature of the problem only blinds us to who is serving what agenda. Will it last? Gods no! The first chance they get it will come down across the usual lines of futile stupidity and they will kill each other in a bloody frenzy to the last one standing. Good riddance.
Charlie: “Think in terms of old age homes where robots curate the isolated elderlies (no low-paid immigrant workers needed) and fail to identify their terminal medical conditions until they're too advanced to treat. People fed by vertical farms where solar/battery powered robots attend to the individual plants (thank you, Elon Musk's younger brother), food delivered by self-driving vehicles from lights-out warehouses, an end to high street shopping and restaurants and a phasing out of cash money. ... Prisons where extensively drug-resistant TB runs rife as a discipline on the community service peons (as in: if you receive the sanction of an actual prison sentence, they won't need to execute you: 50% will be dead within 6 months).”
This is a sample of the tools, but doesn’t go far enough with the affect: * The robots won’t “fail” to identify terminal conditions, they will simply not notify the person they are terminal -- and in most cases that they’re condition was caused by undisclosed tests they were subjected to during their “stay” at the facility. “They’re going to die anyway, they might as well serve the Common Good as much as they are able.” * Food production will be one of the few jobs not fully automated so as to keep the remaining “herd” busy doing something “socially useful.” “You want to eat? You work. Don’t work, you don’t eat. Oh, and your social score suffers mightly.” * Whatever economic system remains will allow for the occasional frivolity, but only to those cleared at a certain level by the “social credit score”, and even they will be using a “deficit” type credit system that is a life-long debt that can never be fully paid off. “Cradle to grave, you’re in Our hands.” * Work farms (going with food production above), away from the population centers, where the “hardcore dissidents” wind up to be worked unto death. “You’re already dead, John Smith, the rest of your time in this place is to pay off enough debt so that we don’t bring your wife and kids up here after you die to take your place.”
(And if anyone missed the “Soylent Green” overtones...)
Charlie: “We're getting a glimpse of the way this future is shaped, thanks to Trump and Brexit and, to a lesser extent, China today. Trump has discovered that in times of insecurity, the spectacle of cruelty provides a shared common focus for his supporters. This is nothing new: the Romans were there millennia ago with their festivities at the Coliseum.”
I realize Trump is everyone's favorite punching bag, but this well-and-truly started a very long time ago and he’s just the Nero we happened to stick on stage, hand a fiddle, and ask him to play us a tune. The 20th Century was full of fuck-ups, crooks, and “morons-and-chiefs”, all of whom contributed gladly to the end results. Sadly, the 21st Century didn’t improve our luck any...
As a country, America could have butted out of a laundry list of things over the past 100 years, thus putting a lot less fuel on a whole lot of fires. We should have been better at keeping our promises and doing straight deals (if you have not read the book or seen the documentary, READ or WATCH “Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World” by Margaret MacMillan). In general, we would have been better to have backed our own stated beliefs with positive actions. That’s on us.
As a species, we definitely could have done a better job looking after one another and working to go against our base instincts. I’m not sure how realistic that truly is, but it certainly seems like something we could have at least tried now and again.
At times there does come a feeling, as if someone is trying to call a certain tune, in order to get a particular response, for an as-yet unknown outcome...
Billionaire survivalist eugenics nutbars?
Left-wing misanthropic death cult vegans?
Libertarian Bitcoin miners with a hentai fetish?
Our Lord and Savior, Great Cthulhu?
Hard to say...the sound is quite distant and my hearing ain’t what it used to be.
]]>
At this point we're either back to the Internet collapsing under the weight of a trillion "Hitler fuckin' yo Momma" GIFs or a nuclear near-miss caused by a series of photo-realistic, audio-synced "fake news" reports about terrorist attacks in global capitols.
Odds are good we never figure out that the videos were made by "simple AIs"...
(a) The amateur/free content becomes more professional, or at least the quality improves overall ("Statistical analysis recommends adding a 5% gamma correction to these 120 frames to improve overall viewing", "Corrections to images for Io's actual surface have been applied from NASA archives", etc.)
(b) Visual improvements level the playing field for amateurs and pros ("Surface mapping has removed all skin abnormalities", "Your selection of a 1970s era "Porn 'stash" has been applied", etc.); however one can easily imagine the obvious downsides of "overly exaggerated body parts."
The usual comparison to "VHS vs. Betamax re: Porn" debate goes here somewhere (myth or not? shrug Not sure it matters anymore...), but maybe this bootstraps us into quicker A/VR adoption.
Sadly, all of this will lead, inevitably, to the only real winners: lawyers.
Once someone's "publicity rights" are violated, anyone in any way connected with the offending content will get slapped hard. Especially in America ("Land of the Free[-ish], Home of the Litigious")...
]]>It will be the height of black humor should human language degrade in a few short decades to "no, YOU'RE Hilter!"
The "audio sync" issue seems to have already been bypassed -- witness the continuing obsession people have with GIF loops of their favorite movie quotes. History shows that as the tech improves we might actually get useful "agents" scraping someone's public voice samples, normalizing them against a word list, drop in some canned "oooohhhs" and "aaahhhs", and Robert is your father's brother.
Your fear of a "basilisk hack" would seem valid given the above.
A new tech that amoral folks can use to whatever purposes they're paid to apply it to. Add some cyclical history of abusing such things, and, ta-da! Futurama's "Hypno-toad" made real and used to convince you that our new Cybernetic Overlords are just fine and dandy...or your a right berk for not using Old Mother brand toilet paper.
]]>I may have been too optimistic with my timelines...
]]>While widely-read and familiar with many socio-political & economic theories, I find myself at a crossroads: constantly bewildered by the tidal wave of stupidity and raw lack of common sense of late. Not to mention the appalling lack of humanity and simple compassion. Any suggestions for books, movies, filmstrips, audio cassettes with the "cue tone" beeps, Atlantean stone tablets, etc. which might point to some new clues or even glimmers of hope?
Scandanavia, Tierra del Fuego (apparently I missed an earlier discussion over the Falklands that I don't know enough about, so seems safer to avoid the topic and the islands), or the Orkneies are all starting to look good. Maybe I'll volunteer to man the front lines in Antarctica, just waiting for Sedmelluq & Groth-Golka to surface...
]]>So $1K jump in 4 hours...I'm saying BTC tops $63k by 12/25 and crashes under $100 by 1/5. Of course that all assumes we haven't blown up the planet in some kind of nuclear religio-political hub-bub.
Great Cthulhu, come home, all is forgiven.
]]>It would explain a lot about Disney the past 30+ years: Walt leaves instructions for handling things, gets a "head-cicle", Disney Inc. buys up everything not nailed down, 100 years later Walt's freshly cloned body gets an introduction to the world as "the long-lost great-great-great-grandson" of a multi-trillion dollar global media empire.
Sort of writes itself...
A "Black Mirror" episode (a la "White Christmas"): woman with hazy memories of her life before a horrible accident discovers that she's lost everything -- unless she can remember the code to unlock her "E-Coin" account to buy some upgrades during her recovery. 3rd act twist: it's all a VR sim to trick her so an unscrupulous relative can steal the huge fortune.
Or just wait for a breakthrough in quantum computing.
]]>Ever.
Of note:
We don't know the identity of "Satoshi Nakamoto", but we do know that "they" have an estimated 1 MILLION BTC -- worth $11,679,900,000 as of this writing, meaning the Winklevoss Twins are NOT the world's first BTC billionaires and no one knows who owns this "lost fortune". In addition, we now have upwards of 4M BTC which are lost forever and that is only the start should someone decide to manipulate the price with, say, a "tactical EMP".
The whole thing came about as an effort to appeal to "privacy advocates", "financial schemers", and other assorted folks, many with long histories of anti-tax/-government leanings. Seeds planted into fertile soil of techno-fetishism, watered with a healthy dose of mystery, and left in a well-lit area promising to "quinto-sexa-septuple your investment!" (My personal Venn diagram crosses some bits of these various groups -- I remember the Clipper Chip & Zimmerman's Dilemma -- but leaning anti-social/misanthropic means avoiding such gatherings.)
"No 'there' there", as some above have noted, means it has the illusion of "decentralization", yet the blockchain is an "unforgeable record of ownership". Hence the US Revenuers have begun tracking down the shifty at home...but if you think they will stop there, you don't know the IRS. (see "Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act" [FACTA].) (Note here that I agree, the blockchain tech is the most interesting/useful part, not the "coin". How many people could have fought back against predatory banking/lending scammers if they had been able to show with solidly crypto-signed docs that they had indeed paid off their mortgage?)
All of this, and a completely self-contained online existence, leads me to belive that the whole thing is a very well-crafted swindle disguised as a math problem.
So what's the end game? As always, to get rich. Long before we get to the magic 21M BTC maximum (around 2140), all kinds of "fake news events" drive the price to eye-watering heights, "tulip fever" drives things to a cresendo, when suddenly: "Satoshi" decloaks, bathes in some publicity long enough to cash in (while revealing "they" own a lot more than 1/21st of the total pool), and disappears into history.
So "scenario #1": global Chinese-style crackdowns -- except folks willing to deal in government-approved "digital currency", for weapons sales, benefits payments, etc. "Scenario #2": a rapid global meltdown that brings human civilization to the brink of extinction. All because of a game we play with ourselves, keeping score when there are never any "winners".
Actually I find Ethereum much more worrying: the notion of "smart contracts" appears to be the next-level bullshit that will drag in the skeptical, but serious-minded sorts that sat out BTC. They will see it as much more business-oriented while ignoring the obvious pitfalls and early start screwups. BTC with a more polished sheen and ready-made for "machine learning" hucksters.
I keep thinking "this'll be the year Neal Stephenson does a sequel to Cryptonomicon, afterall, how much weirder can it get?" ...hey, wait a minute! You don't think...? Uhmmm, think I need to price a flight to Seattle...
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