Friday, May 06, 2022

Ripping off masks... and a powerful (if dry) way to pop the lie-bubble

I'll get to a potent meme (below) that shreds one of the clichés most-shared by both left and right. And shredding it will help one against the other. But first...

In Earth - and differently in Existence - I speculated on ways that 'ownership transparency' might solve many of the crimes and contradictions of feral capitalism, without resorting to anti-market socialism. Defenders of capitalism are hypocrites if they talk about free and competitive markets while excusing secrecy that blinds 99% of market participants. They should be the first to demand world transparency of who owns what.

So am I glad that the Ukraine war is causing the U.S., U.K and even Switzerland to rip veils off some of the shell corporations that own all those seized yachts and so much property in London, New York, Paris etc.? Well, yeah. Sure. But watch our own aristos scramble to make sure this remains only about Russian Oligarchs. I'll be shocked if truly broad reforms happen.

It's gonna take a lot more than Ukraine. Possibly even a "Helvetian War."

Thomas Piketty elaborates: "Let’s say it straight away: it is time to imagine a new type of sanction focused on the oligarchs who have prospered thanks to the regime in question. This will require the establishment of an international financial register, which will not be to the liking of western fortunes, whose interests are much more closely linked to those of the Russian and Chinese oligarchs than is sometimes claimed. However, it is at this price that western countries will succeed in winning the political and moral battle against the autocracies and in demonstrating to the world that the resounding speeches on democracy and justice are not simply empty words."


== Again, the one thing that would transform the world almost instantly ==

Transparency of property and ownership would likely make competitive markets work vastly better while slashing the parasitive effects of all sorts of cheating and (likely) reduce effective tax rates on honest citizens, worldwide. But it is the sort of reform that seems unlikely in the near future.

It may not happen till tumbrels are rolling through the streets, alas.

But there is one thing -- one action by one leader -- that could transform America and the world, overnight. You've seen it proposed here time and again. Jobee could do it all by himself, not even needing Congress.

Maybe he is hoping Putin will do it for him.

Only now the topic I promised. A potent meme that shreds one of the clichés most-shared by both left and right. And shredding it will help one against the other.


== The boring stuff – deficits and how each party tries to ‘stimulate’ the economy – actually matters! ==

 

As I show in Polemical Judo, Democratic Party pols are seldom smart enough to use powerful memes like this one -- that Biden and the dems have actually reduced the federal deficit for the first time since Obama. 


Not only that, but Democratic Administrations are always* more fiscally responsible than GOP ones.  While caring far more for the poor, oppressed and workers… and science and the planet… and rights for women and minorities... they also reduce, rather than lay heavier debt burdens upon our children.  

 

Is that really, really hard for you to parse in your head?  


We are so used to each party’s clichés, such as Republican-hypocritical demands for fiscal prudence, while spilling tsunamis of red ink, opening America’s carotid arteries for greedy suction by aristocrats… and the almost equally-dumb obsession of the far-left called “Modern Monetary Theory” (MMT.)

In fact, honest Keynesians are the only adults in the room, running deficits to effectively help the working class during rough patches… then paying down debt in the resulting good times. Clinton did it. So did Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom…. the list goes on. Not just this round, but every round, as I showed here:  

 

‘So Do Outcomes Matter More than Rhetoric?’ 

 

This matters! Because there are two large groups we must draw into the Union side in this especially hazardous phase of the U.S. Civil War. And both of these groups are needed by the only coalition that stands a chance of saving the republic, civilization, planet and posterity. 

 

First, the frippy sanctimony-preeners of the left need to grow up and learn (as AOC, Bernie, Liz and Stacey know) the meaning of the word ‘coalition.’ One keeps hoping the next news item will snap the poseurs out of their ritual chants of “Biden is Republican-lite!”  


Maybe the looming reversal of Roe v. Wade will do it. But don’t hold your breath.

 

We ALSO absolutely must peel away the 10% - possibly even 20% - of Republicans who maintain at least a sliver of residual sanity. Why? Because the confederate/Red/Foxite/Trumpist/Kremlinite, anti-science and anti-fact treason party is in demographic collapse! If we can peel away just 10%, all their cheats, including gerrymandering, will fail!  

 

And that’s where the ‘fiscal responsibility’ thing comes in. It is a wedge you can pound in, to cleave off some of those ‘ostrich Republicans.’ 

 

Start by demanding a cash wager, whether Democratic Administrations always* prove to be far more fiscally responsible!

 

Picture your Tucker-hugger blinking in dismay when he realizes one of his cult’s core catechisms is proved – proved! – to be diametrically opposite to true, and he better admit it, or pay off on the bet.

 

All right. I know your lazy response, shrugging that ‘it’s hopeless to even talk to those people'... 


...and I am telling you now that – hopeless or not – it is your duty!  If just one in ten of you peel away just one… well…. 

 

Look up the old phrase: “All heaven rejoices when…”

 


Finally....

How Putin may seek an exit strategy to save face by declaring a “Mission Accomplished!” moment. Very cogent analysis. Also, this fellow is among the few who describes in detail how under GHW Bush a flock of western vultures - most of them Cheney family-connected - swarmed into Russia to help a hundred or so Soviet commissars snap up shares of sold-off state enterprises… 


...one of several reasons why I rank Bush Senior as unquestionably and by far the worst U.S. president of the 20th Century, who set the stage for our crisis ridden world.  Alas, the author of this piece gets a bit kooky toward the end. But the first half is worthwhile.



=====

 

* Sure, ‘always’ is a strong term. There are undoubtedly exceptions, though I know of none since 1980. So? Use the polemical power.


115 comments:

Der Oger said...

@ Financial Transparency:
What I would support would be legislature demanding that all risk-control algorithms in banking (especially credits) must be open source, for two reasons:

1) To let other professionals take them apart (CITOKATE) to increase their usefulness, and to weed out fraudsters and lazy programming;
2) To reduce the (suspected) impact of sex, skin colour, social class, age and other factors that could be seen as discrimination.

DP said...

My apologies for being totally off topic, but....

I'm taking this opportunity to expose my inner nerd and state unequivocally the Paramount+ new Star Trek series "Strange New Worlds" is the best damn Star Trek ever.

In occurs immediately prior to Kirk's Enterprise when Christopher Pike was in command (succeeding Adm. Robert April - which, as any Trek nerd will tell you, was the first ever captain of the NCC-1701) assisted by a young science officer Spock.

Great writing, great acting, with lots of adventure and humor - just like TOS.

With lots and lots of Easter eggs and faithfulness to ST canon.

And I know all this after only one episode.

Now back to your regularly scheduled thread.

scidata said...

Re: ST-SNW

I'm reposting my one line about it from the last section (it got buried in the SCOTUS furor):
Just watched pilot of ST Strange New Worlds - excellent. Daughter-in-law listed in credits. Happy and proud.

DP said...

Could we see an Atlas Shrugged, but with Liberals?

Will a conservative SC overturning abortion, gay marriage even contraception; allowing a tide a regressive legislation in Red States; drive out talented educated people to Blue States?

DP said...

scidata - you should be very proud, I thought it was great.

Larry Hart said...

DP:

Will a conservative SC overturning abortion, gay marriage even contraception; allowing a tide a regressive legislation in Red States; drive out talented educated people to Blue States?


Yes, but they'll also be trying to make such regressive legislation at the federal level.

* * *

I was thinking of a judo move--convince Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito that zygotean personhood isn't going far enough. That they should rule on gamete personhood. Get them concentrating on the female side of things--that any girl having a period is killing an ovum which deserves to have been fertilized. But the trick is, once that is established, then the same applies to sperm. Every ejaculation is an act of mass murder of billions. Get the courts flooded with lawsuits over spilled seed to the point where there'd be no time to deal with illegal abortions.

* * *

A less ridiculous example--zygotean personhood would mean the end of in-vitro fertilization, since they usually fertilize more eggs than they actually bring to term. The unused eggs would then become murder victims. I'd be willing to sue someone over their murdered ova just to jump on the bandwagon demonstrating that the wheels have fallen off.

duncan cairncross said...

Money Supply

As a society grows - we build more factories - we NEED more money

There are two ways that money supply can grow
The non government way is by the increase of debt - this almost always ends up with more and more money in less and less hands
The Government way is by simply increasing the money supply -

Keynesian economics works very well in the short term - but in the medium and longer term we really do not want to recuperate all of the excess
Some of that excess is required to match the expansion in society

It has never happened but if we did get a situation where the "Debt" was paid off fully it would crash the economy

MMT says that money is "free" - that we can "create" more money at will without any problems

THAT is not correct!!! - but as long as we only create ENOUGH money to match the actual needs of society its damn close to the truth

David Brin said...

DC... true Keynesians try to pay down deficits (below inflation) when times are good. Clinton, Brown, Newsom and others. This is a meme that eviscerates Foxites.

duncan cairncross said...

Pay down deficits - yes!

But the target should not be to pay them all the way down -

Just to pay down enough to keep the numbers under control and to allow plenty of headroom for when the inevitable happens and another infusion is needed

Society needs that extra liquidity as it expands - and using the government to create that liquidity is less harmful than the private sector debt method

Carroll Clark said...

People might want to read: The White House is Burning, its an economic history of the US. The federal budget has only been balanced 7 times in out history. Every time the budget has been balanced or close to it has resulted in a recession.

Alfred Differ said...

Larry,

…what makes you think he'd do any extra work to keep from instituting…

The keystone to my thoughts is McConnell is in this for McConnell. It doesn't matter what so many Republicans are champing at the bit for. They serve his purpose more often that Democrats do, therefore…
—————
Consider…

Start with the proposition that McConnell doesn't actually care much about abortion. What he says about it then serves some other purpose. We can safely assume many in the GOP do care about abortion, therefore what McConnell says about it is about political alliances.

If the proposition is true, the three justices happen to be anti-abortion, but are also likely to vote the way McConnell wants on something else. What else? Doesn't matter right now because if the proposition is true, we know that 'something else' exists. We have a justifiable belief in an ulterior motive and can reasonably go hunting for it.
———
Now consider the possibility that the motive is best served by having abortion remain an active issue that brings out voters on his side. Riling opposition vote is certainly a possibility, but we saw in 2020 that doing so ALSO riled the GOP base. In GOP gerrymandered districts, this is vital when redistricting is on the table or when governing majorities are slim. Gerrymandering doesn't quite lock things against the opposing party. When that party is disproportionally riled, things can go VERY BAD for the party with the map bias. Very non-linear.

McConnell could reasonably predict that control on Congress could slip in 2022. It's a midterm election and it's common for the party holding the WH to lose ground in Congress. Maybe his motive is best served by having his voters riled up? Not really necessary in a mid-term, right? Well… I can think of one reason he might want to keep them riled.

I think we are seeing a fight between McConnell and Trump for who controls the anger level of the base. Trump is a threat to McConnell's control. We know that for other reasons. McConnell would prefer he vanished, but might want to take control of the energy of that base. Others in the GOP wouldn't mind taking it either, but McConnell is in a singular position to do it.

———

My personal suspicion, though, is McConnell's motive lies with limiting federal influence on certain people and industries. Getting a friendly court is necessary for that since he can't ensure Congress remains in GOP control at all times or that they can arrange for a WH veto when they lose control. A conservative court, however, can block things for a generation or two.

I suspect McConnell's primary interest is in protecting wealthy people from federal influence. Abortion just happens to be a lever he can pull to get there. He has to retain power, though, to pull the lever and others like it. So… his ulterior motive would be power. Pure and simple. Power.

Alfred Differ said...

Duncan,

But the target should not be to pay them all the way down…

Ugh.

The problem with that argument isn't that it leaves the feds in debt. It's that the people who fund that debt are rentiers parking their money in what everyone deems the safest place. We aid and abet their wealth generation at a rate slightly higher than the economic expansion rate average. [Piketty]

Bond markets are absolutely huge. Deprive them of their safest investments and they'll shift that money elsewhere while asking for higher rates of return. That money no longer qualifies as 'rent seeking' if it gets far enough away from the US Treasury.

What would it all fund? Well… whole sectors of the economy fund their infrastructure from bonds. Utilities. Transport. Municipal structures. Those billion dollar chip fab units. State infrastructure projects. Even R&D. Etc.

US Treasuries compete for the same pool of money. Want more money building highway bridges? Consider possibly limiting competitors for those bonds.


Carroll Clark,

Every time the budget has been balanced or close to it has resulted in a recession.

A Keynesian would note that as cause and effect. Stimulus correcting animal spirits.

An Austrian would argue we have it backwards. Balancing the budget demonstrated misallocations of labor and resources leading to markets shrinking briefly while the misallocation was corrected. Stimulus causes misallocation.


I'm enough of an Austrian to point out that it's not wise to observe that 95% of people in US who die of cancer once ate a pickle, therefore pickles cause cancer.

I'm enough of a physicist to point out that two competing theories producing the same observable result with wildly different explanations are likely both wrong if only in their assumption that something within them making the distinction is likely irrelevant.

Alfred Differ said...

Transparency of property ownership serves many different interests at different locations on the political spectrum. Being able to see what would-be oligarchs are doing obviously helps those they would oppress, but it also helps to legalize the wealthy owned by many in the lower and middle rungs of the socio-economic ladder who might not be able to prove their title any other way than simply stating it openly as claims.

Hernando de Soto made similar claims about registration of land titles being difficult for the poorest. He argued this blocked access to capital markets and made land a form of dead capital for them. While his argument didn't quite prove out (granting land titles didn't lead to automatically to monetization), it is fairly apparent that some of the argument did work. Poor people with titles treated their property as investments more than those with no title. The explanation was their growing wealth was legally, provably theirs.

In the US where the poorest are unlikely to own property legally or illegally, there is still an interest in having the public be able to see who owns what land. We do it through a little known intra-state agreement referred to as UCC. My mortgage lender isn't a resident of my home state, but they can file a lien against my property to represent their financial interest in a future sale… and everyone who knows how can check. That matters because it limits me from over-leveraging my home as collateral. Each lender would file a lien, but savvy ones would check first to see where in line they would land if I ever file for bankruptcy. The ones who are first in line might check occasionally too since any screw up on my tax forms might cause a tax lien to be filed bumping them out of first place.

UCC deals with commercial contracts. It creates structure the markets can agree to use to create order in the event they ever need to resort to Courts to resolve conflicts. It works because it is TRANSPARENT. Participants learn to behave (mostly) because they can be seen. Fraudsters have to get trickier to hide what they do. It's not perfect (of course) and won't protect a bank from bank fraud (see Trump's tricks) especially when the bank is more interested in laundering money than it is in mortgage related revenue (see Duetsche Bank's support of Trump's tricks). Still… UCC stops a lot of the simpler cheats.

For UCC to work to protect mortgage related contracts, property registers must exist. Titles must be formalized. De Soto recognized that and argued for more of it in poor countries. They likely need more than property registries and legal titles, but it's a start.

I think the best argument for transparency of ownership for other kinds of property (corporations of all types) is similar. We likely need more than that to deal with common cheats, but it's a start because we could leverage that into an expansion of UCC. Go beyond commercial contracts to recording governance decisions. They matter to lenders in commercial contracts as shown when corporations are bought out, cut up splitting assets from liabilities*, and resold in parts. If you lent money to the bought-out company, your risk changes when their board of directors gets replaced. How do you file your 'lien' representing their obligation to you and against what?


* Alan Dean Foster's predicament right now with respect to Disney's ownership of the Star Wars franchise.

reason said...

DC - 100% correct - the outstanding real debt should try to maintain a roughly constant ratio to nominal GDP. David Brin & everybody else read "Between Debt and the Devil".

reason said...

Oops - sorry not outstanding real debt - outstanding nominal government debt.

Larry Hart said...

Alfred Differ:

I suspect McConnell's primary interest is in protecting wealthy people from federal influence. Abortion just happens to be a lever he can pull to get there. He has to retain power, though, to pull the lever and others like it.


I agree, McConnell cares nothing about abortion except as a means of riling up his party's voters.

But those voters now see that banning all abortions nationwide is possible. The supreme court won't interfere. Right now, congress and the presidency aren't on their side, but we're talking about a hypothetical situation in which Republicans take it all back by 2024. Once those voters taste that blood, do you think they'll be satisfied with their own party claiming that they would institute an abortion ban except for the filibuster?

Ever since the late 70s, the business/corporate Republicans have cultivated an unholy* alliance with the white supremacist/Christianist voting block, using the votes of the latter to advance the goals of the former. And I now expect they are acting out the "Do you still think you can control them?" scene from Cabaret.

* I get the irony of the terminology.

Larry Hart said...

It wasn't about abortion as much as about segregation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/06/opinion/roe-abortion-culture-war.html

As a matter of history, the idea that Roe ignited America’s culture wars is, at best, a distortion. The 7-2 decision was not nearly as politically divisive when it was decided as it is today. Catholics opposed it, but many conservative evangelicals did not; the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution calling for legal abortion in some circumstances in 1971, and then reaffirmed it in 1974. As the Dartmouth historian Randall Balmer has argued, evangelical leaders didn’t seize on Roe until the contemporary religious right began to coalesce at the end of the 1970s, largely in response to the I.R.S. stripping segregated Christian schools of their tax exemptions.

Larry Hart said...

@Alfred Differ, it's not just me (emphasis mine) :

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/06/opinion/roe-abortion-culture-war.html

...
Conservatives, of course, have a plan for reconciling clashing abortion laws — a federal abortion ban. Speaking to NBC News this week, Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota said he was concerned about women traveling across state lines to get abortions. “I don’t find a lot of solace in that just because it didn’t happen in my state,” he said. “So yeah, I think you could expect that pro-life activists would push for federal protections.” According to The Washington Post, Joni Ernst, a Republican senator from Iowa, plans to introduce a bill to ban abortion after six weeks.

It won’t pass as long as Democrats are in control, but at some point, there will almost certainly be a Republican president and a Republican Congress. It’s easy to imagine conservative activists demanding that their leaders jettison the filibuster in order to push through a national abortion ban. It’s hard to imagine the Republican senators who’ve defended the filibuster putting procedural principle above one of their base’s most cherished goals.
...


And here's what prompted that from earlier in the same article. Basically, this is the start of the actual Civil War, with interstate warring over abortion analogous to the Fugitive Slave Act:

...
Already, a Missouri lawmaker introduced a measure that would let private citizens sue anyone who helps a Missouri resident get an out-of-state abortion. More such proposals will probably follow. Under a Texas law passed last year, people in other states sending abortion pills through the mail to Texas residents could be extradited to face felony charges, though the authorities in liberal states are unlikely to cooperate.

In anticipation of such legislation, Connecticut just passed a law meant to shield doctors and patients. Among other things, it ensures that no one can be extradited to another state for performing or obtaining an abortion that’s legal in Connecticut, and ensures that people sued under a law like the one proposed in Missouri could countersue to recover their costs.

Experts don’t know how these kinds of interstate battles are going to play out because there’s so little precedent for them. If you’re searching for close parallels, said Ziegler, “you’re looking at fugitive slave cases, because there are not many times in history when states are trying to tell other states what to do in this way.” The point is not that abortion bans are comparable to slavery in a moral sense, but that they create potentially irreconcilable legal frameworks.
...

Larry Hart said...

The "Rude Pundit" definitely earns his name here. I'm not usually this ornery myself, but I'm in a mood now, and he captures it perfectly.

https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2022/05/men-are-mostly-responsible-for-end-of.html

...
If I were a pro-choice legislator in one of those ludicrously savage states, I'd be proposing all kinds of fuckin' laws to bring the pain to men. For example, one Democrat in Florida, Tina Scott Polsky, proposed an amendment to that state's 15-week abortion ban that would force the fathers-to-be to start paying child support at 15 weeks of pregnancy. Of course, that (and every) amendment failed to be voted into the final dickish law, including one that would have added back exceptions for pregnancies from rape, incest, and human trafficking. The gender breakdown of Florida is 51.1% women. Only 35% of the state legislature is women.

Despite the failure of Polsky's amendment, this is the kind of shit that Democrats should be introducing and emphasizing. The vast majority of women don't get pregnant without men involved (leaving out sperm donors, who are generally anonymous). So while working to get anti-abortion laws overturned or to get a majority in the state legislature or Congress to make abortion rights legal everywhere, use the bullshit against men. Come up with savage child support laws. For instance, in most states, a parent needs to be behind by a certain amount before wage garnishment and other collection methods are introduced. Lower that number to $0. That's right. You miss one payment and fuck you. Suspend your passport and your driving privileges. Take money from you wherever you get it. Taxes, lotteries, your grandma, whatever. And fucking jail you if you still don't pay up after one missed payment. Call it the "Men Make Babies, Too" Act.

Let's also add that if you're a rapist who impregnates a victim and you're in jail and you happen to live in one of the states where your family can sue to stop your victim from aborting your fucking baby, write a bill that makes that family responsible for the cost of the child from pregnancy until 18 years old. Call it "Love Your Son's Rape Baby" law or something. Then you can say, "Oh, you don't love your rapist son's rape baby enough to pay for it?"

Is that fair? Well, it's not fucking fair to force a woman to carry a pregnancy to term and force her to give birth and force her to face all the medical problems and bodily changes that accompany pregnancy and birth while your male ass goes about your life. So, yeah, it's more than fucking fair.
...

David Brin said...

I have no problem with paying down debt SLOWLY in good times, so a reserve is built of ready credit for hard times. Going negative slightly WRT to inflation is fine.

The biggst reason for ownership transparency is to protect against cheating. Hence tax rates on honest taxpaers should go DOWN.

SHort term, once only, so much property would be abandoned unclaimed that it might erase national debts.

duncan cairncross said...

Off Topic - but slightly pertinent

Dr Brin
Could you send a copy of The Transparent Society to Elon Musk

Couple of reasons
(1) You are moderately famous - and a Science Fiction Writer
(2) Speed and Time
I suspect that Elon Musk will be a fast reader - I think I have slowed down but I used to read at about 1400 words per minute - I would bet he is faster than that
This has a major effect on how you like your information
A presentation or a discussion at 60 words per minute is boring compared to reading at 1400 wpm
I hate it when I have to get information by listening to somebody witterring away on YouTube

There is a good chance that he would READ The Transparent Society and link it to his intentions with Twitter

David Brin said...

Duncan. Elon already has a copy I handed him some years ago.

I 'knw' more people than I actually influence, alas.

duncan cairncross said...

Possibly jog his memory - The book has been out for a while now - and until recently it may not have been directly relevant to his plans

Be worth "wasting" a second copy on the chance ????

Larry Hart said...

Michael Che on Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update" :


"I don't know why Republicans are so against this. Maybe...don't think of it as an abortion. Think of it as a patriot storming the uterus to overturn an unfair pregnancy."

locumranch said...


What do we covet, Clarice?

We begin by coveting what we see every day. Don't you feel eyes moving over your body, Clarice? And don't your eyes seek out the things you want?


This quote sums up the main problem with the principle of Ownership Transparency as covetousness leads to envy, greed and all manner of human-on-human evil, whether or not the object of envy is property, reputation, comfort or status.

One can even argue that property transparency is 'anticivilisational', as those who possess objects of value are often targeted for robbery, punishment, humiliation and destruction, if and when the details of their relative good fortune become generally known.

Have you heard the saying EAT THE RICH ?

This has been the historical reality, time & time again, when the Politics of Envy takes hold, and such transparency-based knowledge of relative value leads the envied directly to the guillotine, gulag, concentration camp, holocaust or killing field.

Transparency (of this type) is a spectacularly BAD IDEA if you or the ones you love possess anything of value.


Best

scidata said...

locumranch: covetousness leads to envy, greed and all manner of human-on-human evil

Who are to talking to? Do you read any of the posts by anyone in CB??

David Brin said...

What an utter dope. Property owners who keep it secret generally do not fear attacks by criminals. They are keeping it secret to prevent it being taxed. Or illicit property being reclaimed by rightful owners.

MOST property is NOT secret and folks are protected from 'covetous' potential seizers by LAW and the state and by their neighbors.

Those are the protections that poor locum relies upon daily.

He is like those loonies who say "If you don't fear God's punishments, you'll go on a rampage of rape and murder!"

"Uh, maybe YOU would. Hence, go ahead and believe, please! But singing works just fine for me."

But I write this for you guys, not for our poor dope.

Alfred Differ said...

Most property is NOT secret and folks are protected from 'covetous' potential seizers by the threat of reciprocity and other consequences.

Yah. What David said. So I said what David said with a slight emphasis twist to re-connect to the book. Covetousness as an argument against transparency is one of the dopiest counter-arguments I've seen.

Humans are going to be human, therefore we shouldn't do X. It just won't work.



Problem is... it does work as evidenced by UCC and a zillion other agreements whereby we expose ownership claims thereby creating a public record of them and the expectations we collectively have. "Justice" requires this exposure.


Pfft.

I walk around each day exposing the fact that I own the clothes on my back. Does someone covet them? Who cares! There are consequences for their ACTIONS. I don't give a fig what they think!

[Hmm... Maybe if I was a fashion designer I'd care, but then I'd be leveraging the advantage of the open property 'register' we create in our collective memories.]

Pfft.

... as if wanting things was a bad thing.

David Brin said...

Reciting Hannibal Lector lines by heart is unsurprising, though.

locumranch said...


Dr. Brin claims that 'MOST property is NOT secret and folks are protected from 'covetous' potential seizers by LAW and the state and by their neighbors' and this claim practically begs for the following wagers:

(1) He can document the existence of a single California drugstore (or Min-Mart) that has not suffered stock loss due to Proposition 47 'seizure-style' shoplifting;

(2) He can publicize his credit card, bank account and home title details on the internet to demonstrate the incredibly safe nature of financial transparency; or

(3) He can tape a dozen $100 dollar bills to the outside of his jacket and wander around (alone) in pretty much any blighted US urban center.


Human beings invented Financial Privacy Laws, Bank Vaults and Police Agencies specifically to keep other less moral human beings from seizing, thieving, misappropriating and stealing their property because of its ubiquity, excepting that they call it Civil Asset Forfeiture & Taxation when the legitimate government seizes, confiscates and steals.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to poach some Fava Beans and uncork a nice Chianti, but I'll still check in now & then when I'm feeling peckish.


Best

David Brin said...

Argh, stunning sophistry! He demands I wager that society is PERFECT and anecdotal counter examples indict the whole experiment! An experiment that ONLY works vastly better than all other societies combined.

I urge locum to experiment by (next time he is pulled over) offering the cop a $20 bribe.

"Blighted" urban centers are infilling fast and gentrifying.

Now pull the $100 bill experiment with a flashing LED sign saying "SPOT the security drone!"

Feh

Der Oger said...

Uh ....
my comment disappeared twice this thread ...

Don Gisselbeck said...

Is the goal of Republicans to maximize the suffering of people they despise? https://youtu.be/6BUjEPxDwDA

Larry Hart said...

A "Darmok" moment.

This being Mother's Day, I gave my wife a card. Usually, I am able to come up with some clever ones that stand out, but the best I could manage this year was one with the punch line of her being a "hot mama". Ok, but nothing special.

So after she gave the perfunctory laugh, I was able to draw on our common knowledge of the SNL "David Pumpkin" sketch and say, "It's a hundred floors of terror. They're not all gonna be winners." I can only imagine what a universal translator would have tried to make of that.

BTW, If you don't already know it, here's what I'm talking about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS00xWnqwvI

Larry Hart said...

Don Gisselbeck:

Is the goal of Republicans to maximize the suffering of people they despise?


I find that truth to be self-evident.

David Brin said...

""It's a hundred floors of terror. They're not all gonna be winners." I can only imagine what a universal translator would have tried to make of that."


Here's where to go with that. And it is amazing. You ALL should watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1cF9QCu1rQ

scidata said...

Re: DALL-E 2

Decades ago, all computer programming was textual. A ridiculously simple system such as FORTH (1-kilobyte is enough) enabled virtually limitless experimentation, even bootstrapping all the way up to AI. The world moved on into graphics/video, sound/music, mixed media, robotics, virtual/augmented reality, distributed computing, social media, and wildly successful constructs such as graph databases, neural networks, and machine learning. I (and many others) stayed behind, soldering and typing because I firmly believed that text was sufficient, and also because Aldous Huxley's haunting warning about our predilection for 'amusing ourselves to death' (Neil Postman's term) scared the sh** out of me (perhaps Presbyterian guilt). WJCC reached me for similar reasons. My view of computational psychohistory is textual, and I (and many others) have concluded that human intelligence is based on language, nothing more, nothing less. Everything else can be automated and synthesized - even by non-intelligent processes. DALL-E 2 makes me feel somewhat vindicated. I say 'somewhat' only because many of the 'eye candy sifters' became fabulously rich and famous while I have little more than a stroke to show for my efforts.

Also, AGI will be achieved when the descendants of DALL-E 2 start typing in the seed text themselves.

gerold said...

That DALL-E 2 video was amazing - thanks for the link! I'm very surprised at the quality of the images and how well the AI translates text to image.

The transition to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) always seemed like something that would happen, but the question of when remained elusively unknown. DALL-E 2 makes it seem closer than we thought.

Reading the comments on the video I saw people who felt their livelihood was threatened, and of course this is a common feeling about AI in general. I don't see it that way. A Butlerian Jihad would be a disastrous failure of nerve. If an AI or robot can do a job better than people can, then it should. We don't dig ditches with shovels anymore. Use the right tool for the job.

Hopefully there will come a time when robots and AI are sufficiently productive that every person put out of work can be paid a UBI (universal basic income) and live comfortably. Jobs where people are still better (if any) will be highly paid, but most people will just have to do what they love. Right now very few have the privilege of following their dreams, but AI will make that possible for all.

In The Expanse by Corey UBI is portrayed shackling the citizens of earth, condemning them to lives of useless monotony. Much as I liked that story, I hated that idea. For most of recent history humans have toiled just for a chance at survival. We've made a virtue out of that necessity, but fearing freedom is like slaves refusing emancipation.

I for one welcome our new robot overlords ...

Alfred Differ said...

David S Pumpkin…

I did not know. I would have mistranslated that as someone falling off a building, but it doesn't quite work. No one falls off and says everything is fine on the way down.

So I watched it. I'd never make it as a comedy writer.

To make the full connection, you'll need a bunch more 'hot mama' cards now. Deliver them at other holidays. Dance while delivering them. 8)

Any questions?

Alfred Differ said...

I stopped watching the Dall-E 2 video when they started going into the risks of misuse. Sorry. That's a job for steganography. Embed an encrypted signed message saying "This is a fabricated image constructed by [] on $$/$$/$$$$ using the keyphrase "message here". They could also embed who asked for it.

Those messages are hard to spot. Put it on the luminance channel and much of it gets by lossy compressors.

As for jobs lost... hmpf. We'll all be centaurs. Many of us already are. The only question is which end of the beast we shall be.


It's pretty neat they can do it now. Looks like V.Vinge's early 90's guess at 30 years to the end of the 'human era' was about right.

scidata said...

"whatever shadows we bring with us, they make the light all the brighter"
- Captain Pike, ST-SNW ep. #1

One of many TOS lessons refreshed like dynamic RAM.

Howard Brazee said...

Free enterprise demands open markets.
Capitalism demands that the owners are in charge (and the CEOs don't keep them from saying stuff).

Another issue with trade is that *all* of the costs of a product should be included in the transaction. That includes environmental costs of producing it.

Larry Hart said...

Alfred Differ:

David S Pumpkin…
...
Any questions?


My whole family first saw that sketch on a rerun episode of SNL. It was at least two years old at the time, so I figured it was one of those things that everyone knew about except me. I mentioned it at work, and it turned out that no one knew what I was talking about.* When I spread a link around the office, it became a thing, at least for its 15 minutes of fame. I still can't hear the phrase "Any questions?" without giggling like a schoolgirl.

The thing is, it shouldn't be that funny. It's too stupid to be funny. And yet, that's exactly what's funny about it. It's not just "I can't believe they dare to put this on as a comedy sketch," but also "I can't believe I'm actually finding this to be hilarious."

* I had the same experience with Star Wars back in '77. Saw in on opening weekend and went nuts talking about it in the remaining three weeks of school. For the last time in human history when this was possible, almost no one knew what Star Wars was.

Don Gisselbeck said...

One of the most important parts of living the good life is having a job that we can imagine does that which is good, beautiful, useful. For me that is fixing bikes and skis and caring for plants and animals. I agree that it would be good to get the time spent down to 25 or 30 hrs a week, but eliminating the work entirely would not be good.
This work can be brutal and exhausting but still be satisfying, witness those of us who do long hikes for a few ski runs for fun. The ability to get off on pain and suffering must have some survival value.

Alfred Differ said...

Larry,

Idiocracy shouldn't have been funny either, but it was so stupid it worked.

So with AI now nailing our aesthetic sense in art, I'm looking forward to when it nails our humor sense. I think it will be illuminating to discover which parameter tweaks are necessary for which culture groups to 'stay funny'. Imagine what we'd learn about ourselves if we could see parametric differences between us. What do Q people think is funny? What about people who post here? Heh.

Don Gisselbeck,

I'm still not worried about satisfying work being taken from us. We'll do it anyway as hobby work while finding some other way to make a living. We'll continue to be human even though our income arrangements will have us allied with other things making us centaurs.

Larry Hart said...

Re: DALL-E 2,

A dolphin in a space suit? Where have I seen that before? :)

Larry Hart said...

Alfred Differ:

I'm still not worried about satisfying work being taken from us. We'll do it anyway as hobby work while finding some other way to make a living. We'll continue to be human even though our income arrangements will have us allied with other things making us centaurs.


Maybe, maybe not. Sure, we could still do creative work on our own, but would we be able to be valuable and meaningful to each other?

I can't help but think of Asimov's Solaria, on which humans were so distanced from each other that actually seeing another person was kind of scatologically revulsive situation. Or Vonnegut's Player Piano, written way back in the Neolithic age of 1953. In the novel, almost all forms of work were automated, leaving people free of drudgery. In theory, that's a dream come true, but the novel did a good job of showing the dystopian aspects of such a society to the public at large.

scidata said...

I have an irritating habit of relating everything to my personal life because I usually work alone. My main workstation's Windows name is Solaria - elicits very different connotations in vacationers vs Asimovians. Context is everything, as Larry Hart points out. Plain old common sense will be the very last frontier for AI.

FWIW, the best job I ever had was baling hay. Back-breaking, hot, dusty, dirty work that leaves one sore all over by the end of the day. I miss every minute of it. But it won't get us closer to the stars, so I had to leave it behind.

Jon S. said...

Larry, I could be snarky and ask how many of us are considered "valuable and meaningful" to each other right now, but that's not really all that productive.

Instead, I point (again) toward Star Trek. Replicator technology has rendered money meaningless, and ubiquitous sub-sapient machinery means no one has to work for a living (at least within the core worlds of the United Federation of Planets - on the frontier, and in other cultures, things are different). But in the late 24th century, Joseph Sisko's desire to share his family recipes and the unique pleasures of manually-cooked food (as replicator meals are always precisely the same each time) made Sisko's Creole Kitchen a highly-popular destination in New Orleans, with some people literally crossing the galaxy to dine there. Joseph Sisko found value and meaning in doing what I would consider harsh and unpleasant work.

In more real-world terms, after my father reached the official retirement age back in the day, he used his collection of tools in the garage to start making old-fashioned wooden toys, birdhouses, and yard decor, and offering them at local street fairs. The sales were never spectacular, but they paid for the materials - and for him the joy was in the making, not in the selling. If his earlier career had been handled by AI machines, he'd have been perfectly happy making those things his entire life.

Larry Hart said...

Jon S:

Larry, I could be snarky and ask how many of us are considered "valuable and meaningful" to each other right now, but that's not really all that productive.


I don't mean necessarily valuable to the world at large. Even that sense of camaraderie between a small group of co-workers. Even that might be threatened.


Instead, I point (again) toward...


My point wasn't that replacement by AI would necessarily be a bad thing. Just that it's something to be careful about. Details matter. I'm "that guy" at work who always points out possible failure modes, which is not an endearing quality.

Larry Hart said...

Just sayin'

https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2022/Senate/Maps/May10.html#item-3

...
Last week, of course, the angry rhetoric from the right was aimed at the leaker. However, at least among the GOP pooh-bahs, and their most highly placed friends in the media, that talk has almost completely stopped. Maybe the judge-house protests are more aggravating. Or maybe blasting the leaker isn't getting a rise out of the base. Or, just maybe, folks on the right are beginning to suspect that the leaker is one of their own, and the McConnells and Cruzes of the world don't want to say anything about, say, giving the leaker the electric chair that could come back to haunt them.

In our initial items on the matter, we suggested it was certainly possible the leak came from the right, including from Chief Justice John Roberts himself, but that we thought someone on the left was more likely. These days, that opinion is definitely in the minority. NPR's legal correspondent Nina Totenberg, who is pretty dialed in, says that the "leading theory" among insiders is that it was a conservative clerk. Former senator Al Franken, who is also pretty dialed in, is confident it was a conservative, and speculates it might well be Samuel Alito.
...

matthew said...

I'm angered that the DC response to GOP SCOTUS' complaints that *their neighbors* were protesting outside the justices' homes is to rush to put in protective security guards, while there has been no legal buffer zone around abortion clinics since 1992, when SCOTUS ruled that buffer zones were restricting free speech. Safety for me but not for thee. Damn hypocrites.

Also Susan Collins calling the cops over sidewalk chalk written in front of her house is the height of disregarding the First Amendment.

Almost like conservatives have two sets of standards.

And Democratic leadership are so, so very bad at this.
Biden calls for a massive uprising to protest the end of Roe, and then tries to tone-police legal protests.
Idiot.

Larry Hart said...

@matthew,

What can I say besides "I agree with everything you just said."

Also, on Stephanie Miller's radio show, I've heard that the neighbors were the ones organizing the protest.

Larry Hart said...

matthew redux:

Safety for me but not for thee. Damn hypocrites.


Yeah, threats and intimidation are supposed to be their tactics. How dare we use them?

As someone on this list once noted, rules and decorum are meant to protect but not constrain Republicans, and to constrain but not protect anyone else. That's the essence of pretty much everything liberals have been protesting since forever.


Also Susan Collins calling the cops over sidewalk chalk written in front of her house is the height of disregarding the First Amendment.


If any of us Brin readers remembers the Synthian ambassador who fled the planet toward the beginning of The Uplift War, I picture her as Susan Collins.


Almost like conservatives have two sets of standards.


Or no sets of standards.

Look at how quickly the calls for harsh punishment to the leaker has dried up, now that there's a broad consensus that it was probably someone on the right.

Don Gisselbeck said...

It looks like it will be a while before robots are skiing suncups. (Not to tuning Huffy bikes.) https://youtu.be/oWt04fVJiSo

matthew said...

Also, with SCOTUS apparently about to gut the right to privacy in order to end Roe, my thoughts turn to our host's "The Transparent Society."
Much of the basic principles laid out in the book are grounded on the right to privacy being a guiding legal concept. If a right to privacy is stripped away, then maintaining a transparent society without extreme government overreach becomes impossible, IMO. Dr. Brin correctly pointed out that norms about individual privacy are a bedrock to the concept of a transparent and fair society that he laid out.

Roe is the first to fall, but we've already seen GOP calls (and cases lined up!) to overturn Griswold, Obergefell, Loving, et al.

Louisianan's "abortion is murder" law, currently in committee, would allow for prosecution of anyone that had ever had an abortion, or helped in procuring one. No statue of limitations on murder, and felons cannot vote in LA as long as they are incarcerated or *on parole*. Watch for a "moderate" to suggest that those found to have had or helped with an abortion get a reduced sentence including a long stretch of parole as a compromise.

Overturning Roe is the GOP paying off their most loyal base.
Destroying the right to privacy is GOP setting up decades of minority rule.

Larry Hart said...

matthew:

Louisianan's "abortion is murder" law, currently in committee, would allow for prosecution of anyone that had ever had an abortion, or helped in procuring one.


Constitutionally, can zygotes be granted personhood ex post facto? If not, then "fetus-cide" is a new crime not yet on the books, which also can't be applied retroactively.

I know that Republicans can do whatever they want, but they'll have to put up a legal fight.

I mean, after the Civil War, black people in the south were recognized as persons, but I doubt any former slaveholders who had previously killed or assaulted slaves were in legal jeopardy for having killed or assaulted a human being.

Larry Hart said...

matthew:

Destroying the right to privacy is GOP setting up decades of minority rule.


Despite my not thinking it will be as easy as you make it sound, I do take your point, and am appropriately chilled.

It might come down to "When in the course of human events..."

Alfred Differ said...

Larry,

…but would we be able to be valuable and meaningful to each other?

Heh. Isn't that a valid question at all times? I think the more interesting question ask how we go about being valuable and meaningful to each other.

My suspicion is simple and almost empty. Some will and some won't. I say almost empty because I think that is the key driver among us for who has children and who doesn't. Are you valuable and meaningful to your mate? Good enough. You get children. No? Oops.

We make ourselves as we choose within the bounds that emerge from everyone else trying to do the same thing.

——

I think it highly unwise to define one's self by their work done for income. It's a part of us, but that's all. Anyone tempted to do this risks becoming the soulless robot that will replace them.

IF the work one does for income happens to be their preferred activity, then defining one's self by it isn't really about the income aspect of it. It's about the preferred activity.

I LIKE to eat ice cream and it's a shame I haven't figured out how to get paid doing it, but I'm sure someone out there has. Chances are that person works as a "model" and looks good licking ice cream cones. I do not and have to pay for them. Before my example gets any more explicit (or people read personal stuff into it), though, the point is the model can define herself more broadly than a paid ice cream cone licker… if she wants. The value and meaning she brings is between her and the one paying. That's the way that has always worked.

Howard Brazee said...

I'm willing to give up my privacy if that is the cost paid to have our governments giving up their privacy. But we need to know what our public servants are doing in order for a democracy to work.

Howard Brazee said...

The right to vote should be an inalienable right. It should *never* be taken away from anyone.

Larry Hart said...

Alfred Differ:

I think it highly unwise to define one's self by their work done for income. It's a part of us, but that's all. Anyone tempted to do this risks becoming the soulless robot that will replace them.


You're describing my late father, not me. I agree with you that a job should not be the only thing that gives us human dignity. My preference would be to have retired 10 years ago, and replacing human drudgery with robot drudgery would be like heaven to me.

But...I'll take your word that I'm not on the spectrum, but there's something in my personality that is more comfortable socially isolated than most people are. I think it got me through COVID sheltering-in-place better than many. But I know enough not to expect my own experience to indicate what life is like for others.

It's not about having a job and a boss, but people seem to need to feel useful--not just to their mom or their kids, but to other people. In Vonnegut's novel, a guy whose ostensible job was filling ditches in the road (because the only jobs were the army or the corps of Reconstruction and Reclamation) helped the protagonist fix a faulty engine gasket in his car, and he felt like that was the most useful thing he had done in years, because he had used his knowledge and his hands and the available tools at hand to provide assistance to a fellow human being.

Socially, people seem to feel dignified when they are perceived in that sort of light, and miss it when it is not available.

I'm not against technological progress. I'm certainly not against relieving mind-numbing drudgery. But when people don't need each other because all the help they require comes from machines at the tip of their fingers, it is socially disruptive. And we, as a society, ignore that at our peril.

David Brin said...

Heh both sad and amusing re the head of the Russian Space Agency yowling at Elon:

https://www.space.com/russian-space-chief-rogozin-threatens-elon-musk

Alfred Differ said...

Adam Smith would have called it "to love and be loved" without meaning the warm fuzzy or lustful stuff. Beloved. (It's in the other big book of his.*)

The failure mode worth attention involves transitioning from a world of work where we run into each other and get paid to do things to a world where we choose who we run into in ways that likely have little to do with pay. Nothing drags the introvert out of the house like the need to pay rent and put food on the table, so a future where those needs are met leave them seeking unforced ways to be 'beloved' when they want it.

The thing is... we've been through this transition twice already. HG nomadic life was upended with climate change and the solution we created to survive. Agriculture. Farming and shepherd life was upended again when we industrialized and turned a tiny fraction of us (city-dwellers) into a rapidly growing fraction. Behaviors changed with each transition especially around meaningful work and what it took to be 'to love and be loved'.

We'll do it again. Some will manage it well. Some won't. After a few generations, the fraction of us who have kids will have produced a generation that wonders what the fuss was all about.

* There are days when I wonder if Adam Smith was on-spectrum. In the other big book he writes out how we go about 'being love-able' as if it was an instruction manual for people who don't get it. Most of us 'just do it', though, and a big job for philosophers is to turn what seems obvious into practical understanding.

David Brin said...

Howard, civil servants already largely surrender privacy. It is the oligarchy that needs sousveillance and light.

Alfred Differ said...

I was reading something from one of my friends who pointed out Rogozin's bluster and what we should think about it.

His argument is we should do nothing. Pretend we heard nothing.

His point was that Rogozin was 'sentenced' to lead Roscosmos. It's a step down from where he was earlier.

"Bark, bark" says the dog who wants to seem bigger than he is.

Howard Brazee said...

But it's apparently a scandal when something's leaked from the Supreme Court.

Larry Hart said...

Howard Brazee:

But it's apparently a scandal when something's leaked from the Supreme Court.


They apparently consider it a violation of their right to privacy.

Larry Hart said...

Alfred Differ:

The failure mode worth attention involves transitioning from a world of work where we run into each other and get paid to do things to a world where we choose who we run into in ways that likely have little to do with pay.


Again, we're not quite talking about the same thing. You're focused on a paying job being the thing lost. I'm thinking more of like when you have a plumbing problem, and your neighbor down the street who knows what to do comes over and fixes it for you. And when you try to pay him, he says, "Forget it. You'd have done the same for me." Both of the people involved in that scenario get something intangible from the interaction, entirely separate from either the favor or payment.

When everyone has their very on AI-driven robots which handle any such situation for them, that intangible will be lost. And I'm not saying we refuse to progress because of it. But I am saying that it behooves us to know what's coming and prepare for it.

Vonnegut's novel had saboteurs who messed with machinery for no other reason than the emotional desire to take those high and mighty machines down a peg. Very similar to the attitude of angry Trumpists toward people who know stuff.

scidata said...

I struggle listening to Yanis Varoufakis, partly due to the thick accent, and partly due to the absurdity of lectures about economics from a former Greek Minister of Finance. However, terms like 'cloudalists' and 'techno-feudalism', and celebration of J.K. Galbraith make him jake with me, at least in small doses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNf3dN0VXqE

Alfred Differ said...

Larry,

okay. I was thinking about self assigned value. How do I value myself. You were looking at a transaction… especially the non-monetary kind.

…which handle any such situation for them…

Ha! We'll make up situations and constraints.

We want to love and be love-able. Until the AI's satisfy that itch for us, they can't handle 'any such situation'. Once they CAN satisfy that itch, they are us.

A Solaria future for real humans requires an alteration to us. Something has to change what we are mentally. It won't be the result of some technological tool because we'd reject use of the tool in a pre-altered state. Humans want to love and be lovable along with lots of other things elsewhere on the hierarchy of needs. Our tech can deal with many of those needs incrementally, but the ones at the top would require the tech to become us… or change us so those needs vanish.

——

There is a wonderful example of the failure mode you worry about in the history of gin in the UK. Industrialization eventually made it so cheap it got used to blot out the drudgery memories of industrial cities populated by a generation that only recently left the farm… thus left their families.

People wanted to love and be lovable, though. Still wanted it right through the transition. Gin masked the want in ways we know all too well today. The need is still there, but we are generations removed from industrialization shock and have invented various solutions along the way. Some might survive this next shock, but some (bowling leagues) will likely vanish.

Call out the failure mode. Point to it as a concern. I'm not overly worried, though. We've done this kind of thing before even if we don't collectively recall it.


& Scidata,

{Working/Being alone.}

Yah. That's just being human. We each have preferences for how much of it we want and when.

My sister can only take just so much of family before she has to retreat to a back room and rest. I take a little longer before I hide in the dark, but anyone watching carefully will notice I begin to tune out before I leave the room. Anyone watching carefully will notice both of us furiously calculating social interactions and not be shocked when we wear out.

…irritating habit of relating everything to my personal life…

I've never met a person yet who doesn't do that. Some are better at keeping their mouths shut making it less obvious.

Seriously, though, what else should one relate things to except personal experience? Is there some other (viable) option?

David Brin said...

"A Solaria future for real humans requires an alteration to us. Something has to change what we are mentally."

That is a core point in FOUNDATION'S TRIUMPH. Something must have happened to humanity, for ANY of Asimov's scenarios to happen.

gerold said...

Regarding human redundancy come the robot revolution: there's a large elephant in the room that goes unmentioned.

Very few people these days get as much sex as they want. Old people who have lost their sex drive excepted. But in a world where humans no longer have to toil all day to keep fed, and contraceptive technology is basically 100%, and medical science has eliminated STD's, there is an obvious way to get that human connection and feel wanted/needed. It's even better than helping a neighbor fix their lawn mower.

Old time sci-fi writers felt such solutions were taboo - although Heinlein did drop some hints in his later works. Robert Silverberg wasn't afraid to go all-in on recreational sex as the primary human form of play though (can't remember the name of the book - read it in the mid-70's - but he presented a great sociological case study.)

Of course one could always argue that come the revolution robots will be better sex partners than regular humans, but lets cross that bridge when we get to it.

Tony Fisk said...

I remember that Silverberg book. It had a lot of humans in it. (and perhaps a smidgen of satire? God bless...)

Meanwhile, the kids of Gunnerkrigg Court are growing up and robot sex is definitely a topic. A far cry from the days when you had to prove you *were* a robot.

Larry Hart said...

Heard on Stephanie Miller's radio show:

Florida schoolchildren are obviously taught about gender identity as young as kindergarten, since they are instructed in which bathroom to use.

* * *

Much hay is made on the conservative side about abortion being a singular exception for medical procedures because there is another human being to consider. Well, wouldn't the same hold true in reverse? Abortion is a singular exception for laws like Louisiana's concerning what counts as "murder", because there is another human being to consider--the one required as an incubator to keep the other alive? How can the party who salivates over standing your ground and killing in self-defense not recognize that in many cases, abortion is self defense?

Larry Hart said...

gerold:

But in a world where humans no longer have to toil all day to keep fed, and contraceptive technology is basically 100%, and medical science has eliminated STD's, there is an obvious way to get that human connection and feel wanted/needed. It's even better than helping a neighbor fix their lawn mower.


Yes, but...

When someone is metaphorically starving, then it doesn't require much more than a warm body of the appropriate type to satisfy the urge.

But when sex is available often enough that you're no longer desperate for it, then doesn't gratification depend somewhat on the validation aspect--part of the pleasure being that this other person has judged you worthy<?

I know for me, part of the pleasure of a sexual encounter is the knowledge that I am doing something for the woman*. Something she is gratified about me for. I am aware that there are other types of people for whom part of the pleasure is the knowledge that they are doing something to the other--perhaps inflicting pain or fear or submission. In both cases, a value judgement about the other person is involved in the experience.

If we're only valuable to each other as sexual partners, I wonder if sex becomes something like a meal of chewing gum.

* For me, it has to be a woman. Sorry if that makes me a bad liberal.

matthew said...

When I hear Yanis Varoufakis's name, I think of his wife, who had this lovely, biting song written about her (supposedly). It makes a kind of sense, I guess.

"Common People"
She came from Greece she had a thirst for knowledge
She studied sculpture at Saint Martin's College
That's where I
Caught her eye
She told me that her dad was loaded
I said, in that case I'll have rum and Coca-Cola
She said fine
And then in thirty seconds time she said
I wanna live like common people
I wanna do whatever common people do
Wanna sleep with common people
I wanna sleep with common people
Like you
Oh what else could I do
I said I'll, I'll see what I can do
I took her to a supermarket
I don't know why
But I had to start it somewhere
So it started there
I said pretend you've got no money
She just laughed and said
Oh you're so funny
I said; yeah
I can't see anyone else smiling in here
Are you sure?
You wanna live like common people
You wanna see whatever common people see
Wanna sleep with common people
You wanna sleep with common people
Like me
But she didn't understand
She just smiled and held my hand
Rent a flat above a shop
Cut your hair and get a job
Smoke some fags and play some pool
Pretend you never went to school
But still you'll never get it right
'Cause when you're laid in bed at night
Watching roaches climb the wall
If you called your dad he could stop it all, yeah
You'll never live like common people
You'll never do whatever common people do
You'll never fail like common people
You'll never watch your life slide out of view
And you dance and drink and screw
Because there's nothing else to do
Sing along with the common people
Sing along and it might just get you through
Laugh along with the common people
Laugh along even though they're really laughing at you
And the stupid things that you do
Because you think that poor is cool
Like a dog lying in a corner
They will bite you and never warn you
Look out, they'll tear your insides out
'Cause everybody hates a tourist
Especially one who thinks it's all such a laugh
Yeah and the chip stains and grease
Will come out in the bath
You will never understand
How it feels to live your life
With no meaning or control
And with nowhere left to go
You are amazed that they exist
And they burn so bright
Whilst you can only wonder why
Rent a flat above a shop
Cut your hair and get a job
Smoke some fags and play some pool
Pretend you never went to school
But still you'll never get it right
'Cause when you're laid in bed at night
Watching roaches climb the wall
If you called your dad he could stop it all
Yeah
Never live like common people
Never do what common people do
Never fail like common people
You'll never watch your life slide out of view
And then dance and drink and screw
Because there's nothing else to do
Wanna live with common people like you
Wanna live with common people like you
Wanna live with common people like you
Wanna live with common people like you
Wanna live with common people like you
Wanna live with common people like you
I wanna live with common people like you
Oh, la, la, la, la
Oh, la, la, la, la
Oh, la, la, la, la
Oh, la, la, la, la
Oh you

PS the best version is where Shatner sings it, of course.
https://youtu.be/ainyK6fXku0

scidata said...

Funny montage of the Shatner performance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI3UfxyIdgs

gerold said...

Sex has a couple of things going for it, making it the most recreational of acts. That's why there are so many taboos and prohibitions around it, otherwise we'd be doing it all the time.

First of all the physical sensations are the most pleasurable feelings we can experience. Masturbation still hasn't gone out of style.

But second there are infinite possibilities for non-physical connections to other humans; emotional, intellectual, even spiritual if you're so inclined. Compared to the typical daily contacts we have with other people which are nearly always superficial, sex is going to be deeper, more intimate and closer.

Of course there are situations like prostitution where sex can be kept at a more superficial level - never tried that myself, I've never felt attracted to that kind of transaction, but I imagine it can be that way.

But the old reasons for sex taboos are pretty much obsolete already, they endure because of social inertia. Conservative fear of change is especially strong when it comes to sex, and one of the reasons they hate abortion so much is because they want loose women to be punished for their sins. But instinct has a big head start on custom, so Mormon kids have invented soaking and jump-humping to get off while obeying the letter of the law. Can't keep a good cock down.

gerold said...

Tony: I remember it as The World Outside but when I google it I get The World Inside. What am I missing here?

As I recall just about everyone in this Silverberged future lives inside giant high-rise towers, their lives very circumscribed by lack of information but sexually free. Like dumb happy rabbits. But one misfit goes outside and sees endless fields of crops tended by farm robots. This is against the rules however and I don't remember how it ends. I thought it was a disappointing finish to an interesting premise, but it's been a long time and I never reread it.

Alfred Differ said...

I'm a former resident of Nevada where prostitution was legal if it was located far enough from large population centers. It was technically illegal in the bigger cities and a couple of counties, but there were easy ways around that. Much like drug purchases, you just had to know a minimal amount to find the people who would connect you.

The legal businesses in the smaller towns and counties were simply regulated. Many of them owned small airstrips. I know of one that sponsored a little league team. They were what they were, though. Drive by one of them and they looked like small fortresses much like gun shops do.

Over the years, I've developed mixed feelings about them. The libertarian in me says to leave them be. Unfortunately, though, I know a little bit too much about human trafficking and how people get trapped and coerced. Basically enslaved. I've come around to a belief that their industry is a good example of one that benefits from regulation, but I'd rather the religion folks had no say in it. Regretfully, it's not going to happen that way.

One belief I've kept, though, is our taboos are largely unplanned behaviors that saved some of us from STD's. Traditions are often emergent solutions to problems we don't remember until we mess with them and rediscover some old horror. Take for example the human inclination for most of us to be serial monogamists. Add a bit of spice on the side with affairs and you get a behavior set that fits a large fraction of us. How much spice, though, can change disease outcomes.

IF and WHEN we beat the disease risks related to 'lots of spice' or a flat abandonment of serial monogamy, our traditions won't be needed anymore. We can abandon them, right? Pfft. Some of them are as old as our species and I suspect are partially baked into us. No chance of beating those, right? Pfft. Xenophobia used to be baked into us too quite possibly as a disease risk reduction strategy. We put some of that aside when we took up trade between kin groups two thousand generations (likely more) ago. Those who did it successfully had more kids who had kids. Took a LONG time, though.

In a future world with cheap robotic labor and AI's and seriously competent medical skills, we will likely let go of some of our traditions around sex, but not all. Again… we are human. Those SF movies from the early 70's with free sex and orgies everywhere aren't likely anytime soon. Those are more fantasy than speculation and not because of religious beliefs. We DID set aside some of our xenophobia, but it took time and evolution. Some of our attitudes about sex might fall in the same category. [Check back after 20 generations of solid health management skill and access.]

duncan cairncross said...

Hi Alfred
I can't think o0f ANY industry that does not "require regulation"

As far as the sex industry is concerned - needs to be legal and regulated like here (NZ)

A LOT of the laws and taboos about sex are all about treating women as chattels - including the abortion nonsense
We need to get beyond that

gerold said...

Alfred: human sexual customs are clearly a complex coevolutionary blend of biology and culture. But anthropology shows how malleable those customs can be.

A couple examples: polyandry in Tibet, where 2 - 5 men would share a wife. The men were usually brothers. This practice is very rare, but it satisfies the constraints of both biology and environmental adaptation. Sparse resources meant it took a collective effort of multiple individuals to successfully raise a couple of children.

Among the Dani of New Guinea females are engaged to be married as infants. They live with their birth family until they become teenagers but then move in with their husband, who by this time will be at least in his 50's and often much older. She will not be his first wife however by that time.

For men, their first wife will be a recent widow, often in her 30's at least. She will be quite a bit older than he is, and will help the young man negotiate the complex social network. By the time he has proven himself as a success he can start making deals for infant-wives. The total number is limited by his prestige and the number of pigs he owns.

This social malleability is our human trademark. Expect to see massive changes in the next few decades as technology changes the adaptive landscape. It's not a matter of 20 generations or even 10. I predict in 3 generations - 75 years - human sex customs are going to look very different.

Larry Hart said...

Alfred Differ:

I've come around to a belief that their industry is a good example of one that benefits from regulation, but I'd rather the religion folks had no say in it. Regretfully, it's not going to happen that way.


It has been noted here and elsewhere that just about the only thing the deeply-religious seem to care about when they speak of values is traditional gender roles. That's the hill they will die on and kill us on. I do wonder if religion is the explanation for the Fermi paradox.


One belief I've kept, though, is our taboos are largely unplanned behaviors that saved some of us from STD's. Traditions are often emergent solutions to problems we don't remember until we mess with them and rediscover some old horror. Take for example the human inclination for most of us to be serial monogamists. Add a bit of spice on the side with affairs and you get a behavior set that fits a large fraction of us. How much spice, though, can change disease outcomes.


I not only agree, but hold that truth to be self-evident. I expect that sex was clamped down on in our distant past because of the dangers presented by STDs as well as the terrible inconvenience of unsupported babies. It also occurs to me that the society-wide revulsion at both homosexuality and bestiality originates with the fear of what those unions might produce, from a time when the actual functioning of reproductive systems was not understood.


Xenophobia used to be baked into us too quite possibly as a disease risk reduction strategy. We put some of that aside when we took up trade between kin groups two thousand generations (likely more) ago.


I hadn't thought of that one in this regard, but I think you're on to something. I always thought that taboos against reproducing outside the tribe came from a time when sheer population was important to a group's survival, and perhaps from the fact that it's hard to continue regarding outsiders as "other" when you've got babies that are half "them". But there may also be an element of "Don't eat wild mushrooms, because you never know which ones are poison."

Jon S. said...

"...polyandry in Tibet, where 2 - 5 men would share a wife."

According to the only data source I've found on this, those 2-5 men would be brothers; the basic intent was to ensure that in the event of one husband dying, the property rights would still entail to his family name. It wasn't to satisfy any biological pressures at all.

scidata said...

Now that we finally have a picture of this beast, it's time for a better name than Sagittarius A. Something from sci-fi would be great.

Larry Hart said...

scidata:

Something from sci-fi would be great.


Sandworm?

scidata said...

@Larry Hart

Yes, that's a good one. I'd use the Arabic Shai-Hulud, which I think means something like 'eternal thing'. Sounds scarier.

Der Oger said...

@Larry Hart
It also occurs to me that the society-wide revulsion at both homosexuality and bestiality originates with the fear of what those unions might produce, from a time when the actual functioning of reproductive systems was not understood.

Dr. Brins position on the "6000 years of feudalism and harems" actually contains another explanation for me: Societal control. If social status is determined on the number of women you own, LGBT+ persons undermine this order of things. They are dissidents, rebels that must be put to the sword.

What speaks against this theory that societies who tolerated homosexuality, like the Islamic World (covertly) or Japan (overtly) became harsher against them once the Western world dominated them. Countries like Tunisia still use the original French penal code in that matter, for example.

Another, evolutionary, theory is that gay men function as inter-family allies and supporters of the mother, and that this is something that cannot be tolerated in male-dominated warrior societies.

David Brin said...

One fascinating thing... how low the reproductive rate was for the European ruling classes for centuries. I would wager because of the extensive whoring around that spread STDs to their poor wives. See OUT OF AFRICA.

A.F. Rey said...

... it's time for a better name than Sagittarius A. Something from sci-fi would be great.

Oh, it has to be Ouroboros, as in E.R. Eddision's The Worm Ouroboros. :)

Howard Brazee said...

The reason Onan was condemned wasn't because he masturbated, but because he didn't get Tamar pregnant (he didn't want an heir).

scidata said...

@A.F. Rey

You know, I've always thought that naming and admitting Newton's half-lifetime addiction to alchemy would be wise. Sort of Jung's Shadow stuff. Hiding gnosticism like a dark family secret only enhances its power. Light is the best disinfectant, so maybe it's a suitable name for a black hole, and the obvious creation/destruction meaning works too.

Alfred Differ said...

Duncan,

I can't think o0f ANY industry that does not "require regulation"

In the style our host likes to use…

Yes. True. I'm sure you can't.
I mean that in fun, though.

I honestly believe a few would benefit greatly from an absence of regulation, but I'm not going to ask that of you all. Rascal progressives would use the result against me. When things didn't quite work the way I imagined, they'd argue that I was wrong, snap back to the old regulation set, and consider the experiment complete. Instead, I'll ask for a reduction in regulation and time to run the experiments.


I'll offer you an example to turn abstraction to concrete. I think much of the cis-lunar economic space should be unregulated for a while. Let them be and discover how those involved cheat each other. ONLY then, decide what regulation might be needed to stop the cheating. FIRST, consider the possibility that the players will figure out their own way.

This is an experiment that can be run with little cost or consequence because there aren't many out there yet. We don't even have a property rights regime established yet. There is a weak sense of ownership of orbital slots at the geosynchronous orbit, but that's it.

Don Gisselbeck said...

That is an amazing book (with the most amazing mountain climb imaginable).

Howard Brazee said...

Alfred Differ, referring to industries said he "honestly believe a few would benefit greatly from an absence of regulation".

But regulation isn't designed only to help industries. It is designed to help consumers, the country, taxpayers, and/or the world.

For instance, an industry benefits by not having to clean up its pollution. But when the government uses our tax money to clean up that pollution, the rest of us pay.

Alfred Differ said...

reproductive rate … for the European ruling classes

They gave the New World smallpox.
The New World gave them syphilis.

Broad taboos in Europe prevented reciprocal decimation.

———


gerold,

History has many counter examples. I admit that and actually use that to demonstrate our plasticity. What I argue against, though, is the case some make that we are a low viscosity fluid on this matter. I don't know what the viscosity coefficient is, but I suspect we are more like glass than water.

Back up several thousand years and humanity was experiencing the Y-chromosome bottleneck. Whatever the cause of it, that HAD to have an impact on our behaviors. Many males were failing to reproduce relative to females. The usual ratio of failures is around 3:1. Back then it was closer to 17:1. No doubt men changed strategies a bit to compensate. We KNOW women's reproduction capabilities changed too. Male offspring are slightly more likely among first born children.

I remember learning about the various ways 'marriage' works across cultures when I took an anthropology class in college. Anyone who hasn't had the pleasure of doing that should try before they open their mouths about 'What humans do' especially 'should do'. I only had the one class, but it was enough to teach me to salt all my generalizations with 'I suspect' and 'It could be' and 'a large (unspecified) fraction of us'. 8)

———

Larry,

That's the hill they will die on and kill us on.

That would make good horse sense if it's really about disease. Think about how strongly some of us react to a much less deadly corona virus. Swap in the old smallpox horror and no germ theory and the only explanation left is "Angry Gods".

terrible inconvenience of unsupported babies

I honestly doubt that. Infant and child mortality used to be a LOT higher. SO much higher as to be commonplace. Unsupported babies would not have lasted long in a culture used to babies dying quickly for every other reason.

taboos against reproducing outside the tribe

The key evidence I use to support my pop science theory is people outside the tribe 'smell funny'. Without having a name for it, we could detect microbiome differences between us. People in your own nomadic HG band likely share the zillions of critters that live in and on us. People in other bands likely don't.

Interact outside your band and biome wars start. THAT's when you are most susceptible to parasitic invasions you would otherwise avoid by cooking pork and drinking clean water. Anyone with a seedling tradition that avoided such contact would be more likely to have offspring who had offspring. Ta da! Solution to a problem no one actually understood.

Alfred Differ said...

Howard Brazee,

I understand. I think the term for those costs is 'negative externality' or something close to that.

The underlying problem is that two people in a transaction might agree on a price that causes costs to a third person not invited to the negotiation.

I can deal with regulation meant to address negative externalities, but I caution against trying too hard to predict them. Once we can see them, go ahead and try to fix things. Try too early, though, and chances are high we'll get it wrong and wind up distorting the market instead of fixing it.

There are also positive externalities. They DO happen. This is all a positive sum game if we do it right.

Don Gisselbeck said...

Where did the notion of hospitality to strangers come from? Jesus's "take in aliens" or you'll go to hell isn't that far off from various Jewish, Greek and Islamic traditions.

Jon S. said...

Jesus' take on that is actually from his studies of the Torah. The Biblical version I know, from Ezekiel 16:49 -

"Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy."

Further, the original story told us that the people of Sodom were demanding that Lot's visitors be given over to them. Lot, following the longstanding and apparently widespread desert tradition of kindness to strangers, refused, going so far as to offer them his own daughters instead. The townsfolk maintained their original demand, which was why they were destroyed.

I would suppose that desert tribes would form such a tradition because a) if you're kind to a stranger, they might carry word of your generosity back to their own people, which is good PR, and b) a stranger would have to carry your stuff away across the desert, and thus might be less likely to attack you than one of your own people. Just spitballing here, of course, as I've never lived in a semi-nomadic desert culture, but it feels reasonable to me.

David Brin said...

Alfred, the operative modality in regulations is not whether to regulate, but "err in favor of... then adjust as the situation and our knowledge evolves."

The Precautionary principle errs in the direction of 'do no harm' and can b e wise in the short term. But those with power often favor it, to prevent new powers from rising. Your instinct is to err in the direction of letting folks compete. A position that is often right and often wrong. But is utterly ignored in debates over AI.

Larry Hart said...

No kidding, Sherlock...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/11/us/supreme-court-leak-roe-wade.html

“To leak an entire opinion is to act as if norms and rules no longer matter,” Professor Colb said. “Outcomes are everything, precedent be damned. In a way, leaking a confidential document is a perfect metaphor for the court’s disregard for privacy.”

gerold said...

The guest-host relationship was considered sacred among proto-Indo-European peoples:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_society#Guest-host

GRR Martin invokes this old tradition in Game of Thrones, where law breakers were not only reviled by human society but cursed by the gods.

gerold said...

Regarding explanations of the Y-chromosome genetic bottleneck during the Neolithic and Bronze Age: I read an interesting paper recently with a different take on how that happened.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/109678v1.full.pdf

Based on genetic sequencing of European samples going all the way back to the last glaciation, the authors hypothesize that radical increases in general cognitive ability (GCA) took place a few thousand years ago. I didn't understand the nature of the genetic markers they correlated between the ancient samples and modern ones, but apparently they identified genetic indicators of higher GCA.

They suggest the sudden proliferation of R1a, R1b and I1 haplogroups around this time was caused by associated GCA accelerated by innovations in technology and social structure. I don't feel qualified to judge how plausible this theory might be, but it is interesting.

Regarding the history of in-group/out-group relations it's important to make the distinction between male/female gene flow. Y-haplogroup gene maps show high correlation with geography, which mitochondrial dna doesn't cluster. This is because of the widespread human custom of patrilocality; females tend to marry outside their local group and reside with their husbands kin. Among HG bands it was common for females to be exchanged; the idea that strange females didn't pass the smell test is not supported by anthropological data or modern experience.

This results in a couple of highly adaptive consequences. It avoids inbreeding - which is a major risk in small HG bands - and it preserves a cohesive cohort of males with close family ties.
This latter is especially important in times of heightened violence, where the tribes band of brothers are the difference between victory and defeat.

Larry Hart said...

gerold:

the idea that strange females didn't pass the smell test is not supported by anthropological data or modern experience.


My anecdotal sense is that individuals are not squeamish about exotic sexual partners. It is the larger society which forbids such things to prevent whatever dire consequences they foresee from such libertinism.

Laws and taboos are not required to prevent people from doing those things which the individuals themselves find repulsive. For example, there's no law against eating your own feces. You simply don't do that without anyone prohibiting or punishing it.

scidata said...

This Twitter deal is getting so fishy and grifty that even DT must be having second thoughts. Vultures, vultures everywhere.

Paradoctor said...

scidata: Interesting. Could you specify?

Larry Hart said...

scidata:

...that even DT must be having second thoughts


I wouldn't think Benedict Donald has ever had a first thought. :)

scidata said...

My LinkedIn and AI feeds are buzzing with this. Here's the first thing I find on googling 'Musk Twitter Deal':
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/13/1098741154/elon-musk-twitter-deal-hold-pause

Paradoctor said...

Oh, great. The accounts are fake, and Musk's a flake.

matthew said...

Musk has a history of pump and dump behavior with his own companies. The SEC are quite upset with him over it (but real consequences are for non-billionaires).
https://slate.com/business/2022/05/elon-musk-twitter-sec-investigation-stock.html

The Twitter deal gave him a convenient excuse to sell a bunch of Tesla stock at a high valuation without tanking the stock too much.
Unfortunately, his erratic behavior around the Twitter deal has tanked the stock after all to the point where he is having to look for more suckers for funding the the takeover. He is heavily leveraged against his Tesla stock and the stock has dropped nearly 40% since his tweets about buying Twitter.

Also his primary market for Tesla is upper middle class liberals. His insistence in bringing back Trump to Twitter is really pissing off his potential customer base.
But, hey, the MAGA-types all love him now, so maybe we'll soon see a bunch of cybertrucks driving around with Trump flags flying from the back.

scidata said...

Matthew: more suckers for funding the the takeover

Even including Canadian banks. These people wear belts and suspenders; their extreme caution largely explains how our banks escaped the worst of the 2008 meltdown. Picture those scenes from "Pirates of Silicon Valley" where Steve Jobs gets rejected by every bank in the bay area while schlepping around a wooden Apple I prototype.

He may have also been hurt in this crypto bloodbath. Sometimes it's almost a relief to be poor.

A.F. Rey said...

Patricia McKillip passed away on May 6. :(

https://locusmag.com/2022/05/patricia-a-mckillip-1948-2022/

I loved her Riddlemaster series when I was young. Also The Forgotten Beasts of Eld.

Der Oger said...

Fun part about Musk is: I don't know if he realizes in what "jeopardy" his Brandenburg Giga Factory is, as well as what private ownership of Twitter could mean for him personally.

Giga factory proper: Brandenburg is a social democratic governed state since the reunion. That means: Unions. Unions want strong, independently elected works councils. Musk obviously does not, and set up one before actual workers who might vote on that council have been employed, filling it with members of the management. Hindrance of works councils as well as their election is nominally a felony, up to 1 year and/or fine, though it is currently a paper tiger since the number of persons who may initiate prosecution is limited and prosecutors usually opt out to persecute it fully. FedGov is preparing legislature, though, to sharpen that paragraph to a point that anyone can initiate persecution, and the prosecutor is forced to investigate. I sense that the Unions have waited until he was invested there, and now patiently wait for the next election.

Twitter: As you might now, many things considered "free speech" in the US are not so over here, in many countries. And since he personally owns the company (at least, that was his plan), he also is personally responsible for providing a platform for different kinds of felony. EU already has warned him, so it might happen that either the platform is banned in the EU, he is charged personally with the crimes committed in several countries, or both.
He can't hide behind a board of shareholders and directors, and thus lost a layer of protection.

(Honestly, I think he would not get more than a slap on his wrist and some public condemnation, but one can still dream.)

David Brin said...

Problematic. Still, I doubt the unions want the gigafactory to close.

onward

onward