tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post1395798043106204394..comments2024-03-29T00:39:31.629-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Sci Fi Futures, here and nowDavid Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger166125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-23401725385181252572018-07-29T15:02:09.607-07:002018-07-29T15:02:09.607-07:00onward
onwardonward<br /><br />onwardDavid Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-13991695859579491372018-07-29T11:56:59.866-07:002018-07-29T11:56:59.866-07:00Larry Hart,
I see trends also.
donzelion,
I bel...Larry Hart,<br /><br />I see trends also.<br /><br />donzelion,<br /><br />I believe the corporation is a another type of life-form and that to understand it you need to have a solid understanding of accounting. I have been looking into it for a good time now. I have worked in these large multinationals at various levels and my conclusion is that these beasts have all the characteristics of the most sophisticated eukaryote cells and even mimic behavior of multi-cell organisms. You may laugh but accounting is to these creatures as the Standard Model is to physics. Accounting explains how they operate and is useful in predicting how they can do new stuff. What is missing is an organized brain to pull it all tightly together. CEO's have to work through too many layers to do much. AI would be the next logical step and I am sure shareholders would be for it as long as the share price benefits. They might already be there in some ways and could be an evolutionary process. My question to you is to look at the legal aspects. Can an AI be named to head a corporation and if yes what are the legal implications?<br /><br />DeuxglassDeuxglasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03488986307291616948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-67745746064658346042018-07-29T11:09:57.136-07:002018-07-29T11:09:57.136-07:00I said:
Those are anecdotal examples, but neither...I said:<br /><i><br />Those are anecdotal examples, but neither is all that recent.<br /></i><br /><br />And I should have added...and I haven't seen any signs of improvement since.Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-38699875870906858882018-07-29T10:55:44.129-07:002018-07-29T10:55:44.129-07:00Douglas Fenton:
Do you see real evidence of that ...Douglas Fenton:<br /><i><br />Do you see real evidence of that happening now?<br /></i><br /><br />By "that", I presume you mean the Asimov thing about archaeology.<br /><br />My comment was specifically about movies, and yes, for a long time now it seems that the most popular films are all remakes or sequels or sequels of remakes. Are you old enough to remember back in 2004 when the great hope that was supposed to save the flagging movie industry was...a re-make of <i>The Stepford Wives</i>? Or in 1998 when the popularity of <i>Titanic</i> was explained as owning to the movie audience's hunger for anything with an actual human plot? Those are anecdotal examples, but neither is all that recent.<br /><br />On the broader topic of whether society in general shows signs of such decadence, I suspect that Asimov was commenting on a trend he noticed in real life even back in the 1950s. I wouldn't say scientific inquiry has completely degenerated to the point of Asimov's Lord Dorwin being the norm yet, but the trend is there. I even see signs of it in discussions of economics, where the debate seems to be between Keynes and Hayek, neither of whom (if I'm not mistaken) have been alive enough to actively participate in some time.Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-52934782510994742702018-07-29T10:42:19.904-07:002018-07-29T10:42:19.904-07:00donzelion,
Oligarchs compete is what you are sayi...donzelion,<br /><br />Oligarchs compete is what you are saying. Oligarchs also look for allies among other oligarchs but if that is not forthcoming then they will ally with other forces such as the bourgeoisie, those in the top 10% only, and if the situation is dire, with the populous leaders fully expecting that themselves will be able to control the forces thus unleashed. Every revolution had oligarch allies who were then destroyed after their utility was over. It has happened in every revolution. An oligarch faction, seeing that they are losing to stronger oligarchs, seeks support from below. Sometimes it works out and a new equilibrium is found. Other times it backfires and the old oligarchs are eliminated and new pre-oliarch factions take power. Deuxglasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03488986307291616948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-51125696115052079822018-07-29T10:19:05.648-07:002018-07-29T10:19:05.648-07:00Dr. Brin: "And the top priority of the Murdo...Dr. Brin: <i>"And the top priority of the Murdoch-Putin-Mercer-Koch oligarchy is to prevent those cousins from every recognizing what the share... a common enemy."</i><br /><br />I suspect more of a Murdoch/Adelson/Mercer/Walton/Koch oligarchy (with Trump as a junior partner now). Putin's role is complex: oligarchs tend to nuance their arrangements with unstable powerbrokers who attained a position by means unconnected with wealth, but who can dramatically alter the balance of wealth others possess. <br /><br />Most likely, they regard Putin with suspicion, much as they regard Carlos Slim, Jeff Bezos, Gates/Buffett, Bloomberg, and the other names at the top of the global billionaires list: those people are WEIRD, dangerous, disruptive, uncontrollable variables. Those folks formed GOP Inc. as their personal 'trust' to dominate political affairs in America for their benefit: they'll trade with Putin today, but they and Putin both know that they'll sell each other out tomorrow. <br /><br />Or put another way, if the Murdoch/Adelson/Mercer/Koch alliance REALLY wanted to stop Mueller...Sessions would never have recused himself from handling the investigation.<br /><br />Or yet another way, when two parties meet publicly, repeatedly, in the face of other priorities - they MAY do so because of deep love proclaimed for one another, but more often, it's because there's some serious problem they wish to resolve personally (and if they proclaim such a meeting was premised on their mutual love, that's actually evidence that there's a big problem they're trying to resolve quietly).donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-35978604693974875472018-07-29T10:00:03.530-07:002018-07-29T10:00:03.530-07:00LarryHart: Your original point - "Asimov took...LarryHart: Your original point - <i>"Asimov took the approach that robots are tools [that] can be constructed with constraints to make them useful but not dangerous."</i> My response - <i>"My read is that he saw them as tools that were slightly more like 'lenses'..."</i> Your rejoinder - <i>"I was describing Asimov's treatment of robots within the stories itself, while you're describing his meta-reasoning for writing stories using robots in the first place."</i><br /><br />I suppose I was describing the meta-reasoning for writing stories using <b>characters</b>, robots or not: they're all tools, in one sense -gotta shine a spotlight on someone, or it's not a very good story!<br /><br />But I hope the gist of my argument comes through: neither a sapient robot nor a corporation is a 'tool' quite like a hammer or a knife. We can look to the definition of 'hammer' and 'knife,' isolate the properties that make a thing such a tool, and refine the characteristics of those properties immensely. These are self-contained 'functional tools.'<br /><br />Yet to make a 'better' sapient robot, we'd have to BE better ourselves. A sapient robot would presumably be able to make itself 'better' - but only to the extent either we or the robot envision what 'better' means. To make a 'better' corporation-like entity, we'd first have to see ourselves more clearly, how we organize, why we organize like we do, what the alternatives are. These are interactive 'perceptual tools' - we cannot look only at the tool and isolate properties to enhance, but must also look at ourselves to understand what enhancement would even mean.<br /><br />In the mean time, I'd settle for a set of slightly 'smaller' corporations, rather than altering the fundamental structure, focusing on the precise harms I'd wish to avoid. Rules can help immensely with reducing social harms - and those can be laws, or norms. A few I wish were more widely held:<br />(1) Bigger corporations cease to benefit from economies of scale at certain points, and when they grow beyond that, they often operate more from 'political advantage.' "Too big to fail" always equals "big enough to extort." The only reason we tolerate it is because we've been told - by pseudo-libertarians fairy tales about 'positive sum' operations, efficiency, etc. - none of which was objectively true, all of which was exceptionally 'useful big lies' for oligarchs.<br />(2) Executive compensation was never about 'payment for value rendered' - it was always variation on extortion (the compensation committees, of course, prefer NOT to discuss things in that way). No single individual is as dangerous to a corporation at the CEO - yet if Facebook's CFO can cost the company $120 bn in an hour (well...not exactly), he's pretty damn close (and his worst offense? sometimes, making a statement of common sense logic...is dangerous). Shucks, if you believe Russian meddling influenced America's election in 2016, then you believe that one can buy a government for a thousandth of what the #2 at FB can do in an hour...donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-51040704264543198502018-07-29T09:43:43.452-07:002018-07-29T09:43:43.452-07:00Duncan,
I remember reading that line in 7th grade...Duncan,<br /><br />I remember reading that line in 7th grade in one of Asimov's novels. I often wondered if Asimov was making a comment on something he was seeing then in the 50's and 60's or was it just a literary construct. Heinlein also had a contempt for scholarship vs science and made it clear in his books. Did they see science degrading to mere scholarship? I wonder if it does happen today. Please do not take this as an anti-science thing. My background is in science. Deuxglasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03488986307291616948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-46063936894418192422018-07-29T09:00:27.396-07:002018-07-29T09:00:27.396-07:00Hi Douglas
I think that Larry was talking about Sc...Hi Douglas<br />I think that Larry was talking about SciFi movies - and they have always been like that!duncan cairncrosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153725128216947145noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-20916681706325177992018-07-29T07:20:34.660-07:002018-07-29T07:20:34.660-07:00Larry Hart,
Do you see real evidence of that happ...Larry Hart,<br /><br />Do you see real evidence of that happening now? Deuxglasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03488986307291616948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-20279265849085976852018-07-29T05:48:01.769-07:002018-07-29T05:48:01.769-07:00Tony Fisk:
Of course, there is the radical option...Tony Fisk:<br /><i><br />Of course, there is the radical option of leaving old stuff to the era it was created, and making up new stuff instead.<br /></i><br /><br />If only.<br /><br />But it seems we're in the declining years of Hari Seldon's empire, in which archaeological research consists of reading other archaeologists and deciding which one of them has the best theory.<br />Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-11098070875500011642018-07-29T05:45:37.494-07:002018-07-29T05:45:37.494-07:00Tony Fisk:
I have been toying recently with the ...Tony Fisk:<br /><i><br /> I have been toying recently with the idea that wealth is an asset sink, and that supply-side fails because it directs assets (ie tax cuts) straight into the sink, rather than having it do work as it trickles its way up through the social system.<br /></i><br /><br />I've been trying to make that point for years--that money doesn't "trickle down" like water, but "trickles up" like heat in your oven, and that if you inject the heat into the top of the oven instead of the bottom, it doesn't do the work of cooking the food.<br /><br />Supply-side presents the illusion that money tends to flow from the top down, and that introducing more at the top means more flow-through. In fact, money tends <b>toward</b> concentration, so introducing it at the top just bypasses the work it would usually do on the way there.<br /><br />I'm not arguing with you--just glad to hear someone else point that out.<br /><br /><br />Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-89662842535544414092018-07-29T01:15:17.346-07:002018-07-29T01:15:17.346-07:00Alfred Differ:
I agree that no one here is that co...<b>Alfred Differ</b>:<br /><i>I agree that no one here is that confused about biology and evolution. The reason I used that as an example is because they aren’t. I was hoping they could accept that part of the argument and then follow the steps backwards into the fact that I’m making the same point in economics.</i><br /><br />Maybe I didn't express myself clearly, but my point is that -- at least so far as I can see -- no one here is confused about the difference between design and evolution in complex systems <i>in general</i>, including economics.<br /><br />Maybe it would be clearer to me (and others?) if you could explain what you mean by "global redesign of the system". If I understand you correctly, you are here, also, arguing against something that no one is proposing. Rather, what people seem to be talking about are changes to various aspects of the economic system, which are themselves "design" decisions.<br /><br />The problem is that something like an economy is the result of <i>both</i> "evolution" <i>and</i> "design". Yes the economy "evolves" in various ways within its environment, but that environment itself is in part he product of design. All of the laws, rules, and so forth within which the economy functions are products of intentional human action and decision, and to at least some degree, of "design". Rules about corporate charters, contracts, and so on are not products of nature, but products of human design. To say "we can't change anything because we don't know what is globally optimal" would seem to presume that the original drafters of those rules somehow <i>could</i> know this, or at least somehow know better than we do now.<br /><br />Even if we accept as true that "[a]ttempts to achieve global optima lead to serfdom", that seems to me to be completely beside the point in this discussion. No one is claiming to know what the "global optimum" is, or attempting to achieve it. Instead, people are pointing out aspects of the economy that are manifestly <i>non</i>-optimal, and thinking about how they might be better.<br /><br />Continuing discussion about "global optima", like "global redesign", seems to me (at least) to be either irrelevant or a diversion.gregory byshenkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08565517478782844083noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-23172596215037778162018-07-28T22:33:34.288-07:002018-07-28T22:33:34.288-07:00Economic theory is not something that normally flo...Economic theory is not something that normally floats my boat but, as we are speaking of fatbergs, I have been toying recently with the idea that wealth is an asset sink, and that supply-side fails because it directs assets (ie tax cuts) straight into the sink, rather than having it do work as it trickles its way up through the social system.<br /><br />On interesting series to resurrect: what about the intrepid marionettes in Space Patrol? It had some pretty cool concepts: suspended animation, robots, non-lethal weapons, pneumatic transportation (got that, Elon?). The aliens would definitely have to be extra-solar, these days.<br /><br />Before Doctor Who, there was Professor Quatermass. He did get one reboot in the form of "Five Million Years to Earth", which was a pretty heady blend of occult, horror, and SF.<br /><br />There are still the untried delights of Poul Anderson to sample. Other than "The High Crusade"*, I can't think of any of his stuff that's made it to screen.<br /><br />Of course, there is the radical option of leaving old stuff to the era it was created, and making up new stuff instead.<br /><br /><br />* A very bad parody made with a very low budget. It would fare better as a straight remake.Tony Fiskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14578160528746657971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-63032492479833027232018-07-28T16:14:53.202-07:002018-07-28T16:14:53.202-07:00Hi Alfred
I'm with Dr Brin
We need to break up...Hi Alfred<br />I'm with Dr Brin<br />We need to break up the fatbergs in our sewage system <br />The anti competitive concentration of of power - in corporations and in the 0.01% <br /><br />This is NOT directing the economy - just breaking up the blockages <br />And the "optimum" is having it flowing - NOT having huge concentrations of wealth because they cause blockages<br /><br />Adding additional "water/money" where it will do the most good - for money at the bottom not the top <br /><br />And I want to do this "over the objections" of the fatbergs that I want to break upduncan cairncrosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153725128216947145noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-42173819437606933072018-07-28T15:20:46.283-07:002018-07-28T15:20:46.283-07:00Alfred, whileCentral economic planners generally d...Alfred, whileCentral economic planners generally do it badly, and we know this since the Pharaohs. But Guided Allocation of Resources - or GAR - has improved over the centuries. The Soviets used simple accounting tools and firing squads to build massive, primary infrastructure... dams & steel mills etc. But they were incompetent at the secondary economy... making a refrigerator anyone wanted. The Japanese took computerized skills and capitalist zaibatsu structures and planned their way to great success... that hit a wall in the tertiary economy. The brainy engineers in the Chinese politburo think their shiny AI models can evade any wall. They are probably wrong, but we'll see.<br /><br />Our system is based on a belief - rooted in our success over 200 years - that you cannot define optimum conditions for an economy, but you CAN create general attractor states. Example: the existence of any flat-fair-open competition at all is an attractor state that results in vastly more creativity and production… <br /><br />...but that condition is unstable and critically vulnerable to cheating. Our society achieved a semblance of flat-fair-open competition by intentionally - and with deliberate foresight - altering the boundary conditions of market forces so that that attractor state can flourish. Among those boundary conditions was vigorous rules against cheating.<br /><br />Case in point the breakup of toxic pools of economic power - like monopolies and duopolies. Anti-trust rules enacted by several generations (under several Roosevelts) were spectacularly effective and limiting cheating and opening up genuine competition. Take the auto industry. With 25+ major car-makers out there, competition is genuine and we get better cars for less money, every year. Add in further regulations to incentive emission and efficiency improvements, and the result is consumers having saved scores of billions at the pump, since the CAFE rules were enacted. <br /><br />Of course, eliminating all such regulation, especially against toxic concentration of market share, has been among the top goals of cheater-oligarchies, who seek economy-warping power. <br /><br />See how Robert Reich explains the “Monopolization of America.” And be outraged that the Boomers let slide the wisdom of their parents and grandparents (who adored Roosevelts for good reasons.)<br />http://robertreich.org/post/173655842990<br /><br />Yes, I am libertarian enough to want a light hand! I am fiercely liberal about eliminating unfairnesses, cheater conspiracies, prejudices and poverties that waste talent. Liberal interventions that enable all children to shoot for their potential aren't just moral, they are pragmatic -- any society that wastes talent to poverty or oppression isn't just evil, it is stupid.<br /><br />And clearly we need the boundary conditions to include incentives and deterrents that account for externalities like planetary health. <br /><br />On the other hand, HOW liberated and healthy-education young people then sort themselves out to work for truly competitive companies should be up to them. This is a conversation that the two cousin philosophies - liberalism and libertarianism - could be having! And the top priority of the Murdoch-Putin-Mercer-Koch oligarchy is to prevent those cousins from every recognizing what the share... a common enemy.<br /><br />====<br /><br />L: “It's what David calls a positive sum 'win-win' strategy.”<br /><br />No. It’s not. It’s what an ignorant person callsa positive sum 'win-win' strategy.<br /><br />Zepp: “Hmmm. Has anyone else noticed that we never seem to see George Will and Doctor Brin in the same room at the same time?”<br /><br />Ooh you devil.<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-67311193720594012502018-07-28T15:04:42.504-07:002018-07-28T15:04:42.504-07:00@Larry | If incorporation is a societal good in i...@Larry | <i> If incorporation is a societal good in itself, irrespective of mission statement or purpose, then why not have every individual citizen incorporate himself and grant limited liability?</i><br /><br />Ding! Try it and you’ll see why it is both a good and bad idea.<br /><br />1) On the bad side, you’ll find people have a hard time distinguishing between you (the person) and you (the corporation). There are certain transactions they won’t do with the corporation but will do with you. There are other transactions that will change depending on who is involved on your side. For example, who exactly owns the property in your possession? Who is responsible for the children? This could be worked out, but you’d find some of us unwilling to trade with the corporation for certain things. Would your wife marry you (the corporation)? Heh.<br /><br />There is also an issue analogous to research done by Ronald Coase exploring the maximum effective size of a corporation. He looked at transaction costs and argued that corporations exist because they minimize those costs. After they reach a certain size, though, their own internal costs balance the savings to be made. The tend to fracture after that size. The maximum is a Coasian Ceiling. The flip side of this is the Coasian Floor. Below a certain size, transaction costs are larger because more and smaller groups trading are coping with the overhead. Those costs multiply.<br /><br />The biggest bad, though, is present law is rigged against this. Society is too. We find it hard enough to trust strangers as fully liable entities. However, we’ve already invented SOME mechanisms that limit liability, so it wouldn’t be impossible. Most market transactions involving people negotiating in good faith are well covered without the need of a corporate charter.<br /><br />2) On the good side, you’d be able to print money/bonds/equity and isolate certain transactions from impacting the financial soundness of other assets. You’d learn an awful lot about how things actually work. Do it right and you’d see why employment is just a step away from serfdom, but avoidance of that relies upon a deep understanding that the value of your efforts has nothing to do with the magnitude of the efforts.<br />____________________<br /><br />Rather than incorporate individually, I’d recommend something on the scale of a family. History would back this up as analogous to familial partnerships. In the US, it probably makes more sense to use LLC’s than C-corps, though. There is still a lot of LLC case law to establish compared to precedents for C-corps, but we are well along in doing it. Last I checked, the States were at work establishing extensions to structures like UCC that would enable them to bypass the feds, but that was a while ago. I’m sure a lot has happened since.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-60366948771088325362018-07-28T14:10:49.546-07:002018-07-28T14:10:49.546-07:00@Greg | I agree that no one here is that confused ...@Greg | I agree that no one here is that confused about biology and evolution. The reason I used that as an example is because they aren’t. I was hoping they could accept that part of the argument and then follow the steps backwards into the fact that I’m making the same point in economics. If you trace the intellectual history of Darwin’s theory, you’ll find he got it from economics, but few people realize that.<br /><br /><i>but we have also modified those systems, by design after their origination</i><br /><br />That doesn’t change the point. In economics, we ARE the system. We aren’t blind genes replicating and winning a larger share of the population if we prove to be fit. We are more complicated and capable of design. However, we are NOT so complicated that we can attempt global design of the system and have it prove fit relative to a system composed of semi-uncoordinated local designers. No matter how smart we think we are, we aren’t THAT smart.<br /><br />Your example involving roads is a good one for local design. We know how to build them better now than before, but we don’t go so far as to predict in any real detail who will use them and when. We usually DISCOVER users and use patterns and adapt to what we learn. We have a sense that good roads contribute to global happiness because everyone seems to clamor for them, but that is more about discovery than prediction. In a Bayesian sense it becomes both, but conclusions are always vulnerable to discovery.<br /><br /><i> It is true that we probably cannot effectively design something as large and complex as an entire national economy, but it is also true that many aspects of a modern economy are the products of design.</i><br /><br />Local design only. Attempts to achieve global optima lead to serfdom. Always.<br /><br />Also, I’d argue you don’t need ‘probably’ in the first part of the sentence. We cannot effectively design a national economy without becoming serfs again. Push hard enough and we won’t even be human.<br /><br /><i> we really have no idea at all how a human brain works </i><br /><br />We know quite a bit, but that’s a different issue. What I was trying to get Duncan to think about was this. Pursuit of an optima implies we know the purpose of a system. That means pondering the optimal design of a brain means we have to know the purpose of a brain. Do we know that? If we ask what a heart, kidney, or pituitary gland is for, there are some pretty straight forward answers. What is a brain for?<br /><br />What I was striving for was the analogous question. What is an economy for? What is the purpose of a national economy? Global economy? Community economy? Family economy? Do we know the answers?<br /><br /><i>I would add that if you really believe that disagreement about ends or optimal behaviour is a knock-down argument, then I submit that it proves too much. By that same argument, we could never write a constitution.</i><br /><br />I’ll disagree. We can agree to act toward local improvements. We can increment our way toward a better world without the belief that we can know what that better world might look like. We can locally envision it, but reality might prove very, very different.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-38102742694958040922018-07-28T13:46:23.182-07:002018-07-28T13:46:23.182-07:00@Duncan | Two issues.
1) I don’t advocate doing n...@Duncan | Two issues.<br /><br />1) I don’t advocate doing nothing. Far from it. I advocate doing something local (I don’t mean geographically local) because we can and history shows it works… though slowly. Doing something local means doing what YOU can do to improve your lot and those who voluntarily agree to coordinate their actions with you.<br /><br />2) It’s quite possible you and I would agree on much of what makes up a ‘good solution’, but I’d argue the problem isn’t well formed enough to call it a solution. Many of the inputs to the problem are not knowable, hence the matrix in the resource problem can’t be defined, hence it can’t be inverted to describe the solution. Besides the fact that the dimension of the matrix is roughly ten thousand-million-million, large swathes of it can’t be quantified even as bounds. Parts of it can be reduced by a factor of a thousand or so, but that doesn’t help know what can’t be known until long after the universe is cold and dead.<br /><br />I’m for making it better.<br /><br />I’m against the hubris people display when they argue that their way of making it better is better AND SHOULD BE IMPOSED over the objections of others. This happens when we take our opinions and get legislators to back them and declare opponents as criminals of some sort.<br /><br />The root of the hubris is a belief that is demonstrably false.<br /><br />Economic global optima are not knowable. They are only believable.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-89742228233064688852018-07-28T13:44:46.962-07:002018-07-28T13:44:46.962-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-44953125607386092212018-07-28T13:13:22.603-07:002018-07-28T13:13:22.603-07:00I'm presuming that adham's Arabic posts ar...I'm presuming that <i>adham's</i> Arabic posts are adequately refuting locumranch's rants on Abrahamic religion.<br />Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-41906392813183267322018-07-28T13:11:38.180-07:002018-07-28T13:11:38.180-07:00donzelion:
I know you're speaking in good fai...donzelion:<br /><i><br />I know you're speaking in good faith here. My response is critical, but supportive of your overall goal.<br /></i><br /><br />And I take your criticism in the spirit intended. I realize I often speak from "Mike's summer daydream" perspective, but then as Batman (actually Bruce Wayne) once put it, "But, what is a dream if not a blueprint for courageous action?"<br /><br /><i><br />"Asimov took the approach that robots are tools, and just as knives have handles, robots can be constructed with constraints to make them useful but not dangerous."<br />My read is that he saw them as tools that were slightly more like 'lenses' - able to tell us interesting things about human beings, to alter our perception of what certain rules might mean to us.<br /></i><br /><br />Here, we're talking about two different things. I was describing Asimov's treatment of robots within the stories itself, while you're describing his meta-reasoning for writing stories using robots in the first place.<br /><br />I'm reminded of a discussion I had here a long while back about H.G. Wells, during which I mentioned that Wells's scientific hypotheses--invisibility, Martian invasions, time travel--have so far been pure fantasy, as opposed to Jules Verne's submarines and moon rockets which have actually come to pass. Someone here, I forget who, suggested I was wrong because the future posited in <i>The Time Machine</i> was an extrapolation of certain socio-economic trends of the Victorian age. To me, that was an interesting comment, but beside the point. The sci-fi premise I was saying remained un-realized was not the vision of a possible future society, but mechanical time-travel itself.Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-694459153961472262018-07-28T12:47:04.934-07:002018-07-28T12:47:04.934-07:00Locum: "Larry_H, Asimov & the Abrahamic p...Locum: <i>"Larry_H, Asimov & the Abrahamic position was that corporations, robots & human persons are tools that can be constructed with constraints to make them useful but not dangerous."</i><br /><br />I suspect that thinking of these 'tools' as 'lenses' reshapes the question: either a lens helps us see something better, or we tend to discard it: very few of us want opaque lenses (save maybe in a handful of contexts, e.g., blinders on horses). God might worry somewhat about how humans see God - but if God does worry about that, God isn't very godly. For all the rest of us, we're both 'users' and 'tools' - or to borrow from existentialism, we're all both 'subjects' and 'objects.'<br /><br />That said, you do sometimes appear to prefer blinders, esp. when it comes to certain 'tools' (like our President). ;-)<br /><br /><i>"The corporation exists to generate profit or income for the owner & stockholder. That is its first reason for being."</i><br />The corporation exists because we permit it to do so. It's not that we look at its purpose and say, "ah, well and good, our faithful creation! do thy purpose!" It's that it changes US, and how we interact in ways that make us better. When we operate in a 'corporate' universe, rather than a 'feudal' one, we are less likely to screw one another precisely the way we would in the simpler, older world.<br /><br />That is the first reason for being - others come later. As with legal persons, so with natural persons - we make each other 'better' than we could be on our own.donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-77376483707623260142018-07-28T12:33:59.078-07:002018-07-28T12:33:59.078-07:00LarryHart: "My thinking behind the Laws of C...LarryHart: <i>"My thinking behind the Laws of Corporatics was to mimic Asimov's thinking on robots."</i><br /><br />Understood. I <i>know</i> you're speaking in good faith here. My response is critical, but supportive of your overall goal.<br /><br /><i>"Prior to Asimov, robots in sci-fi had always been presented as Frankenstein's monsters ..."</i><br />Asimov set rules for how to treat autonomy as a literary device: Shelley had already written her story, and rehashing that with new monsters gets tedious. By focusing on the workings of autonomy, the treatment of robots as characters could shift from cliched tropes and ask instead, 'who are we, humans?' What do these rules mean to us? What if a being existed that could never violate those rules? Asimov modified the 'tool' of robots to serve as a 'lens' for reconsidering ourselves.<br /><br />Corporations are 'tools' more like 'lenses' than 'hammers.' If they 'efficiently allocate productive capital,' one part of that is limited liability (see my exchange with Douglas - it's important!), but another, subtler part is altering our own perception of 'proper operations' - limiting the negative/zero sum tactics by crowding out that sort of player with others generally adhering to positive sum tactics. <br /><br />It is relatively easy to make a better hammer - certain physical properties, cost, etc. can be tweaked. A little harder to make a 'better lens' - because 'better' is relative to the desired perception of an actual percipient being - does for a particular PERSON, will this particular lens enable better sight at a distance? reading? scrutinizing stars? microbes? The lens effect of corporations is limiting zero/negative sum thinking, and fostering positive sum thinking. They don't always work (no lens is perfect). They do help. And this function could be lost if we forced the lens to show us certain things...<br /><br /><i>"Asimov took the approach that robots are tools, and just as knives have handles, robots can be constructed with constraints to make them useful but not dangerous."</i><br />My read is that he saw them as tools that were slightly more like 'lenses' - able to tell us interesting things about human beings, to alter our perception of what certain rules might mean to us.<br /><br /><i>"beginning with the oft-stated Campbellian belief that corporations inevitably slip from control and become bulls in china shops."</i><br />Our host is right on the money (hehe) when he criticizes corporate myopia on quarterly projections - but if you start with the assumption that rather than 'bulls in the china shop' these are lenses, you'll quickly get back to the same point: we really ought to 'see' better. <br /><br />FB lost @20% of its value in @ an hour - $120 bn vanished into ether - based on a few sentences about quarterly growth patterns! In some ways, our tools (corporate trading bots) are looking at other tools (corporate social platforms) and acting upon one another. This is...unprecedented and amazing. It is not really 'intelligent,' but certainly some element of 'autonomy' is afoot.donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-36573690613154243492018-07-28T12:08:48.567-07:002018-07-28T12:08:48.567-07:00Larry_H's thinking behind the Laws of Corporat...<br />Larry_H's thinking behind the Laws of Corporatics was to mimic Asimov's thinking on robots; Asimov's thinking behind the Laws of Robotics was to mimic the Abrahamic position on humans; and Larry_H, Asimov & the Abrahamic position was that corporations, robots & human persons are tools that can be constructed with constraints to make them useful but not dangerous.<br /><br />This begs an interesting question: <b>Who is the USER & who is the TOOL?</b><br /><br /><br />Bestlocumranchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06812045410916208141noreply@blogger.com