On China:
I think a lot of non-Chinese and non-Asians (I’m neither) simply struggle to grasp or outright ignore how big/populous China is and how large many of the already long ago completed Chinese improvement projects are.
Much in the same way most people are strangely unfamiliar with how geographically huge Russia is.
This lack of “basics” keeps setting the tone and biases, and are simply too easy to “forget” even without any ill intent.
Setting aside human maliciousness and pettiness, details of criticisms, priorities, differences of opinion, and that nothing is truly perfect the natural reaction should be one of plain awe; what China has done after their revolution and their “fair” share of tumbles is simply impressive and deserves praise, human-to-human. And no that does not take anything away from anyone; anyone who has failed at anything should know how hard any accomplishment can be and anyone has succeeded at anything hard however small should know the effort required. All human have experienced this at some level however minute (I would be at that level) and with just a small dash of honesty or awareness should be able to cherish anyone who manages to reach further.
Humanity would be nowhere without such fortunes, we probably wouldn’t even exist.
[ Anyway I’m being too chatty, it means there’s other stuff I ought to be doing and I’m slyly, subconsciously, making excuses not to get up and out lol X) time for me to go now that I’ve caught myself red handed]

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Mar 23 2023 15:10 utc | 103

Vikichka@84
You are a very silly troll.
The arguments that you make have been fallacious for centuries.
The truth is that while human beings are not equally capable, they are all equally unique and equally deserving of social protection.
All are entitled to protection from murderers and other criminals-without regard to whether they are tall, short, clever or dull, wealthy or poor.
Would you dispute that?
Some partisans of capitalism would and do- in their view it is proper and beneficial that wealthy, socially well connected, fashionably pigmented individuals should receive considerations and protection that most men cannot get.
One of the obvious inequalities in society are those between the experienced, elderly and the young encountering the ‘world’ for the first time. Unsurprisingly in most political discussion there is a tendency for the experienced to be given serious attention.
You, presumably, would dispute this custom, since you defend an hierarchy based upon wealth, which usually means an hereditary caste of some kind since wealth tends to be passed down in families.
As to ‘free markets’, where do these exist except in the rarified world of the sillier economic theorists?
All markets are communal events, regulated by and integrated with government. Where government is run by the wealthy, it regulates markets in their interests. And these interests are not those of the mass of people, consisting as it does of unique individuals who tend to share basic interests in such matters as clean air, pure food and protection from criminal behaviour.
What socialists want is very simple. We want all to be equally protected from threats to life. We want all to be given access to books (clearly you have been deprived in this matter) if they want it. Hence public libraries.
We want all to have access to healthcare of the best quality. We deprecate the continued existence of systems which deny healthcare to those unable to pay for it. That those most vulnerable to the profiteers who disfigure the medical professions tend to be the old and the young-those who most require help- merely underlines the need for communally provided and rationed healthcare.
We want all to have access to lodging and shelter from the elements- an end to homelessness, which you, doubtless see as a powerful incentive, like famine and disease, for individuals to accumulate wealth even by exploiting their neighbours.
We want all to have a fair share of nutritious foods- no civilisation can abide the sight of some dying of malnutrition while others wallow in excess.
Liberals, of course, are very happy that this should happen: the Potato Famines in Ireland and the successive famines in British ruled India were all consequences of the capitalists power over government policies.
What socialists understand is that it is well within the power of humanity to put an end, in the short term, to the problems of poverty. The capitalists know this as well as we do. But to them hope, like peace, is a threat to their power. They depend upon the desperation of hungry people to provide them with cheap labour. They depend upon the profits made by stripping the dying of all their savings to enrich themselves and add the properties of bankrupted cancer victims to the fortunes they pass on to their children.
And Socialists have massive concrete achievements that demonstrate that our ideas work. One is exemplified in the Peoples Republic of China where within my lifetime a vast population has been rescued from appalling poverty, with all its attendant vices, to the threshold of general prosperity. And all this despite having been surrounded, threatened, boycotted and attacked, on fronts from Turkestan and Tibet to Korea, Taiwan and Indochina, throughout its 74 year history. As life expectancy in China has risen from about thirty five to seventy three years of age its Capitalist enemies have killed tens of millions in their wars against it and its message of hope. By contrast in China hundreds of millions have been brought from lives of permanent misery and ignorance into a position where they and their children will be the architects and builders of a better world.
The Soviet Union, too made immense improvements in the lives of its inhabitants, while under unrelenting, comprehensive and disfiguring assaults from a capitalist class determined to retain its grip on people awoken by the example of the peoples of the old Russian empire.
It is one of history’s ironies that, thirty years after its death the Soviet Union shapes the world as much as it ever did in life.
The nations emerging from colonialism, victims of the imperialism which killed off the USSR, are recalling the part that Russians and their allies played in bringing the European Empires to an end. The heirs of Nelson Mandela and Kwame Nkrumah are rallying to the heirs of Mao and the CPSU.
The scarecrow of Communism no longer drives nations to sacrifice themselves to New York’s usurers and their death squads- in one country after another in Latin America the Monroe Doctrine is being defied. The trend is unmistakeable, from the US border to tierra del fuego, the war against the IMF, the lapdog OAS, the dollar and the empire, the narco-capitalists and the death squads is spreading. Cuba has been joined by Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia- a revolution for dignity, and Socialism is under weigh.
But the greatest irony of all is that the battle against the USSR has thoroughly corrupted the societies which were mobilised against it. The anti-communist ideology was built on lies, lies and more lies. As many lies as the invented victims of Stalin’s ‘gulags’ or the ‘murdered’ of the ‘Holodomor.’ A society which believes in Robert Conquest, Anne Applebaum or Timothy Snyder is a society feeding its brain to voracious parasites.
And when that society- centred on the old capitals of the anglophone Empire- has taken over the competing intellectual centres of europe, Italy, Germany, France, Scandinavia, Iberia and the Netherlands, in alliance with unreconstructed Nazis in eastern europe. When all of the ancient civilisations of western Christianity have been subsumed into NATO, the occupying and dictating power, they too have thrown over the heritage of Descartes, Newton, Montesquieu, Machiavelli, Kant, Marx et al, for the stinking intellectual porridge of Jim Crow racism, Ayn Rand simpletonism and the latest iterations of Puritan exceptionalist genocidalism.
In the revived Cold War, in Ukraine and every/elsewhere we can watch the idiots at work. For the first time this is stupidity unalloyed by the caution and compromises urged by realists who, with the assistance of great good luck, prevented the Curtis Le Mays, Reagans, and Dulles of the world from committing suicide for the planet.
The people who ‘knew better’ and raised their eyebrows when Robert Conquest’s latest offering was being printed in editions of millions or Solzhenitsyn’s madness was being rushed to the Literary Juries no longer have any influence. Kissinger, after 100 years of squalid self prostitution, is sounding rational in today’s Washington and he together with Cold War clowns like Mearsheimer, share the fate of being unheard.
The anti-communists in Congress are leading not just the USA but all its clucking chicks into a war that nobody, least of all they can possibly win.
And that Vivichka is where your anti-communism has led the world.

Posted by: bevin | Mar 23 2023 15:46 utc | 105

mindless bootlickers are ashamed when they betray all their professed principles and admit they live in a society. maybe if she had slurped harder one of her rich idols would have supported her, but no they treated her as garbage. that will likely happen to you, too, except you won’t have the sense to be ashamed.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Mar 23 2023 15:59 utc | 107

@ pretzelattack | Mar 23 2023 15:08 utc | 102
True games are a class of problems that are not NP-complete.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NP-completeness
They are unable to be solved in polynomial time, some may not even be computible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_game_theory
Deep unsolved problems in cooperative game theory is why robotaxis and human drivers will never be able to share the road. Driving is a cooperative game.

Posted by: too scents | Mar 23 2023 16:08 utc | 109

Posted by: too scents | Mar 23 2023 16:08 utc | 109
I’ll have to think about this. Professions develop their own vocabulary, to describe and analyze the problems they solve, and it is useful in that sphere. the meaning that game theory attributes to the word “game” diverges from the common use. which definition should we use in trying to determine how similar the process an AI bot goes through in solving a game is to how humans solve problems? I approach this problem with a bias–I don’t want to give self driving Teslas the right to vote. I admit that up front.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Mar 23 2023 16:34 utc | 111

Posted by: Vikichka | Mar 23 2023 16:28 utc | 110
The only worthwhile parts of your reply to Bevin were your admission that free markets do not exist (they never have, and they never will), and your implicit admission that you don’t care how deserving the children of the rich are, how meritorious they are, despite your obnoxious and transparent attempt to claim you value merit, and that the US is a meritocracy. I think you should donate every penny you earn for the rest of your life to supporting Hunter Biden’s coke habit, cuz he “deserves it”, and we all know what a great dad Joe is. Joe did everything for Hunter, got him that cushy Burisma gig, cause Hunter was his child by god, and everything rich people do is for their children, according to you.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Mar 23 2023 16:49 utc | 113

Posted by: Vikichka | Mar 23 2023 17:13 utc | 114
i don’t care what you do with your money, i just suggested you do what your bootlicking hypocritical idol Ayn Rand did and prostitute yourself to supporting the lifestyles of the wealthy. keep slurping. and keep sending money to Hunter he needs it cause he can’t support himself, and we all know you don’t want the rich to have jobs like normal folks. the laptop guy didn’t try to steal anything from Hunter, Hunter stole his labor, as the rich so often do, when he dropped off the computer and never paid him. typical wealthy parasite.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Mar 23 2023 17:20 utc | 115

Posted by: Vikichka | Mar 23 2023 15:47 utc | 106
I heard you say earlier that socialists like to make other people pay.
By the same “reasoning”, it is not bad for socialists to expropriate the property of the bourgeoisie because the bourgeoisie “likes to be charitable”.

Posted by: Colin | Mar 23 2023 17:36 utc | 117

@ bevin | Mar 23 2023 15:46 utc | 105
I apologize in advance for how cruel this will sound, but bevin, please do’t ever again go on vacation!
—malenkov (evading the banned home IP range)

Posted by: malenkov | Mar 23 2023 17:40 utc | 119

Of course, speculators will not like the Soviet Union.
That’s one of the reasons why the SU was good.

Posted by: Colin | Mar 23 2023 17:44 utc | 121

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Mar 23 2023 15:10 utc | 103
Agreed, astounding achievements.
Posted by: pretzelattack | Mar 23 2023 15:16 utc | 104
Campaign For Real Automation?
Posted by: too scents | Mar 23 2023 16:08 utc | 109
Have to disagree about road sharing. It would be sufficient for robotic vehicles to adopt a consistent, deferential and easily learned driving style to which human drivers could themselves adapt. Limiting robotic vehicles to contexts in which they can be operated safely rather than trying to match human abilities. Also, there a lot of dumb, dangerous human drivers that manage to scrape by.

Posted by: anon2020 | Mar 23 2023 17:54 utc | 123

Inlagd av: bevin | Mars 23 2023 15: 46 utc | 105
I´m so glad you are back! Suddenly both Karlof1 and you had disappeared…luckily enough Karlof1 soon came back, but you were gone. Finally Suzan told us you took a vacation!
Thank you bevin and karlof1 and many other wise men and women who comment here on b´s eminent blog.

Posted by: Northern Eve | Mar 23 2023 18:03 utc | 125

Posted by: rjb1.5 | March 23, 2023 at 18:03
…echo chamber…

Posted by: rjb1.5 | Mar 23 2023 18:03 utc | 127

Posted by: Nephtys | Mar 23 2023 19:15 utc | 128
McFaul is this you?

Posted by: Vikichka | Mar 23 2023 20:31 utc | 129

Meanwhile Lagarde admitted that central banks will lose control of monetary system without introducing CBDC.
unimperator | Mar 23 2023 13:28 utc | 92
Lady is clueless. Far from fixed. Jaw boning won’t cure the patients. CBDC is not for retail and the “product” is not ready.
Does Citi follow Credit Suisse out to pasture?
In the previous round of bailouts in 2008- 2010 Citi was in deep.
March 22, 2023
Citigroup’s Citibank Took the Largest Amount of Loans from the FHLB of NY in 2022, Reminiscent of FHLB Loans Taken by Silvergate, SVB, Signature, and First Republic Bank

On March 13 we published the chart below, showing the ten financial institutions that had taken the largest loan advances from the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco as of year-end 2022. It’s a very ominous sign that the bank at the top of the list, Silicon Valley Bank, collapsed and is now under the control of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Silicon Valley Bank had $212 billion in assets as of year-end 2022, making it the second largest bank failure in U.S. history. The largest failure was Washington Mutual in 2008, with approximately $300 billion in assets.
The second bank on the list, First Republic Bank (ticker FRC), has seen its share price collapse, had its debt downgraded deeper into junk by S&P Global on Sunday, and is experiencing an exit stampede by depositors.
The sixth bank on the list, Silvergate Bank, is in the midst of a voluntary liquidation after its hot money crypto depositors headed for the exits.
The seventh bank on the chart, Western Alliance Bank (ticker WAL), has also seen its share price collapse and was put on a negative credit watch by Moody’s.
To put it another way, there seems to be a direct correlation between needing to take big loan advances from your regional federal home loan bank and being in deep distress. Federal Home Loan Banks were created by Congress to provide affordable mortgages to poor people. They weren’t meant to bail out federally-insured banks that got in bed with crypto carnival barkers or to bail out a Wall Street IPO pipeline in drag as a federally-insured bank.[.]
Citigroup’s Citibank making an appearance on this chart is not a good omen given its history. Citigroup/Citibank were the largest borrowers from the Fed’s emergency bailout programs during the financial crash of 2007 to 2010, secretly receiving over $2.5 trillion in cumulative loans according to a 2011 audit conducted by the Government Accountability Office on the Fed’s emergency lending facilities.
[.]
https://wallstreetonparade.com/2023/03/citigroups-citibank-took-the-largest-amount-of-loans-from-the-fhlb-of-ny-in-2022-reminiscent-of-fhlb-loans-taken-by-silvergate-svb-signature-and-first-republic-bank/

Posted by: Likklemore | Mar 23 2023 23:05 utc | 131

Even if closed the source code exists somewhere and should be able to be used to in public and in detail explain exactly why any notion of additional non-programmed intelligence is deemed true, even if indirect or by emergence. Do a full trace tracking every call and step if necessary (extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof if it’s not to be interpreted as speculation).
If not (as is the case) then it is hand-waving and an inclination towards fraud such as stock manipulation on the part of for example Microsoft (whom nobody seems to currently mind having right up in their grill —and further— as long as they get to have fun with the new toy. Oh and the same obviously goes for Google/Alphabet and anyone else like them).
Hype.
Now I don’t mind in the slightest if people want to believe something else than what I’m saying (I sort of do that myself), nor that people argue as if such-and-such was the case which is or will be useful anyway in my opinion. I’m somewhat there already, just not on the public stuff and the “language calculators”. Anything remotely close to actual synthetic intelligence would be far too important to be on public display. Just be aware that proof has not been presented (and I am aware that my own suspicions have no such proof).
All that aside I do not believe any of the language models or vision models etc. allow for the level of emergence required in order to have any reason to think (or believe) they will be able to do anything special except by fluke errors or coincidence. I consider those approaches entirely unlikely to ever amount to anything outside of their limited goals.
In fact is there any kind of proof they are capable of anything emergent at all no matter however slight? In other words not just something transient or subjective but instead something “out of bounds”?
Because that ought to be news if there was! (And someone “feeling like” or believing this-or-that does not suffice).
Job replacement? Maybe and could be fine as long as everything is “as usual” but guess what…
And the people involved do not seem to be all that creative or imaginative, if they had any flair they could have named their toys stuff like “CopycatChat” or “MonkeyDoDo” 🙂

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Mar 24 2023 1:24 utc | 133

Posted by: Hermit | Mar 24 2023 2:09 utc | 134
“When there was but one human on this planet did he own the planet? If so how did he acquire it? What price was paid for it? How about the second human? When he was born did he own anything? If so, how? How about the 8 billionth human to be born?”
One human on the planet owning the planet? Yes, absolutely! Think of it this way, today you are in Yellowstone national park, you got to compete with other humans just to get to the park. That one human had the entire planet all to him/her self. Survival is the real game, not ownership.
Spirothete – Thanks for the word of the day, cue Pee-Wee Herman! 🙂

Posted by: nathan in WA US | Mar 24 2023 2:25 utc | 135

What is a spirothete?
spirothete

Posted by: lex talionis | Mar 24 2023 2:53 utc | 137

Sorry. I just saw the definition at @ 132, but I still don’t understand what it means. I guess the artifact part throws me. Is it some lab made virus? Artificial intelligence? A homunculous? A Jeff Koons manufactured robot that becomes your companion?

Posted by: lex talionis | Mar 24 2023 3:01 utc | 139

lex talionis | Mar 24 2023 2:53 utc | 137
Spirothete: a word coined to describe a living (self-aware) being, initially created as an artifact. From Latin, spiro -are; intransit., to breathe, blow, draw breath; to be alive; to have inspiration; be inspired; transit., to breath out, expire (also L spiro-/equiv Gk Pneuma (πνεῦμα) an ancient Greek word for “breath”, and in a religious context for “spirit” or “soul”, the breath of life) and synthetic adj 1: (chemistry) not of natural origin; prepared or made artificially 2: involving or of the nature of synthesis (combining separate elements to form a coherent whole) as opposed to analysis.
Initially introduced on the CoV in 2002 http://virus.lucifer.com/archive/0205/2636.html.
Also Spirothetic, adjective, describing something having the attributes of a spirothete.
Refer also: Artificial Intelligence and SpirothetesAndHumans.
spiro-, spir-, spira-, spirat-, -spire, -spiring, -spiration, -spirational (Latin: breath of life, breath, breathing, mind, spirit, courage, “soul”). Source: http://www.lexfiles.com/basic-latin-l-v.html (Accessed 2008-03-09).
synthetic from 1690s, as a term in logic, “deductive,” from French synthétique (17c.) and directly from Modern Latin syntheticus, from Greek synthetikos “skilled in putting together, constructive,” from synthetos “put together, constructed, compounded,” past participle of syntithenai “to put together” (see synthesis). From 1874 in reference to products or materials made artificially by chemical synthesis; hence “artificial” (1930). As a noun, “synthetic material,” from 1934. Related: Synthetical (1620s in logic). http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=synthetic (Accessed 2017-04-03).

Posted by: Hermit | Mar 24 2023 3:48 utc | 141

When there was but one human on this planet did he own the planet? If so how did he acquire it? What price was paid for it? How about the second human? When he was born did he own anything? If so, how? How about the 8 billionth human to be born?
Posted by: Hermit | Mar 24 2023 2:09 utc | 134

If the first human owned the planet and he passed the planet as inheritance to his children and the 8 billionth human doesn’t own a thing, then either some parent down the road decided his children are unworthy of inheritance, or said parent spend his share on party and alcohol and left said children with nothing. You don’t think you are entitled to the things you sell, right?
Or do you think you can have your care and eat it?

Posted by: Vikichka | Mar 24 2023 4:00 utc | 143

Posted by: Colin | Mar 24 2023 3:58 utc | 142

In socialist/”East” Germany, workers had easy work and enjoyed many benefits.

Do you consider people shot in the back for trying to leave to be a benefit?

Posted by: Vikichka | Mar 24 2023 4:05 utc | 145

Below is a Xinhuanet posting that makes me wonder what will be said about Ukraine in 20 years

CAIRO, March 23 (Xinhua) — U.S. military invasion of Iraq 20 years ago was largely framed in news media to meet strategic objectives, and the skewed media narratives continue to hide many truths, said an opinion piece published on the website of Al Jazeera on Monday.
In the article titled “How U.S. propaganda won Iraq’s ‘battlespace’,” the columnists said the United States has utilized information operations as tools of wars since World War I.
During the U.S. invasion of Iraq, in addition to “dressing up battlefield events in polite language,” the U.S. propaganda also “invented targets and set operational objectives.”
The U.S. mission in Iraq defined victory as “the winning of Iraqi and American hearts and minds,” and the media was enlisted as a force multiplier in the exercise of soft power, it said.
“Perception management” became a strategic priority for the U.S., which involved “carefully crafted press conferences and press releases as well as the selective leaking of information,” and journalists within military units “helped control the perspective from which Americans viewed the conflict, with the experiences of U.S. soldiers foregrounded and those of Iraqis relegated to the background,” it added.
U.S. information operations “exaggerated the threat of enemies or even invented one altogether,” it noted, adding few Americans are aware of how many Iraqi civilians were killed alongside the so-called insurgents, most of whom saw themselves as defending their homeland from an aggressive invasion and occupation.
The success of U.S. propaganda on the Iraqi war is reflected in Americans’ attitudes about the invasion. The fact that the war was illegal under international law “drew little comment in the mainstream press,” and the violation of Iraqi sovereignty, as well as numerous war crimes committed there, “were simply filtered out of media coverage and political discourse,” said the opinion piece.
Ultimately, the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq proved calamitous for Iraqis, with over a million civilians killed. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of American soldiers were also deceived into fighting an unjust war, and 4,500 paid with their lives, it said.
However, till now, 20 years after the war, no politicians or military planners have been held to account, it stressed.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 24 2023 5:04 utc | 147

An open letter to Colin, Refinnejenna, Hermit, pretzelattack, Tom Q. and others* who,
over the past month or so, have been responding to Vikichka posts:
Do you not understand that this Vikichka is nothing but a disruption to this blog? This Vikichka is, by your frequent and mostly correct in fact responses, most successful. One can only hope the Peter Prinicple will kick in soon and it will be replaced. Please look around at its responses and you will see it has added no value to this blog yet has received a huge amount of attention.
*Bevin, who is the least in need of defense, has been gone for some weeks and responded to Vikichka (Posted by: bevin | Mar 23 2023 15:46 utc | 105), probably not fully aware of the amount of crap Vikichka has been tossing out. I will be very surprised if Bevin continues a back and forth of posts with it.
It makes no difference whether more can be added to what Bevin wrote there in #105.
It should be obvious by the response to Bevin’s post that Bevin was spot on when he wrote,
“Vikichka@84 You are a very silly troll.”
Please consider whether you want to keep engaging this silly troll.

Posted by: waynorinorway | Mar 24 2023 5:33 utc | 149

Posted by: Vikichka | Mar 24 2023 4:00 utc | 143
What did you want to say?
Of course, somehow alcohol did not lead to similar effects in the USSR that impede social mobility as in capitalist countries ……
Do you think that people in eastern Germany who remember the East German era generally felt that society was more united, life was simpler, and feeling happier was not welfare in the socialist era?
Is it a bad thing that the very few who didn’t like the fact that they couldn’t exploit others in East Germany would not be able to escape it?
The ability of SBF (or the future Elon Musk) to flee the US in an attempt to escape punishment for his scam is one of the downsides of the US.
Or do you think SBF’s fraudulent wealth also belongs to your “hard-working, non-alcoholic and therefore should be able to be passed on to future generations without estate taxes”?

Posted by: Colin | Mar 24 2023 5:51 utc | 151

“The world of finance is a mysterious world in which, incredible as the fact may appear, evaporation precedes liquidation.” [Joseph Conrad]
Posted by: juliania | Mar 24 2023 5:36 utc | 150

The poor keep insisting on having a lifestyle they can’t afford, so they keep taking credits they can’t repay.

Posted by: Vikichka | Mar 24 2023 7:23 utc | 153

Is it a bad thing that the very few who didn’t like the fact that they couldn’t exploit others in East Germany would not be able to escape it?
Posted by: Colin | Mar 24 2023 5:51 utc | 151
The “very few” 4 million that managed to flee and the other like 16 million that couldn’t flee.

Posted by: Vikichka | Mar 24 2023 7:44 utc | 155

This could be germane (or not) to the discussion on wealth, poverty, privilege, entitlement, employment and equity.

In the middle of his appearance on TV, Macron realized that he was wearing a watch worth 80,000 euros, so he quickly decided to take it off without anyone noticing

https://twitter.com/spriter99880/status/1638979083383066657

Posted by: Melaleuca | Mar 24 2023 9:36 utc | 157

a watch worth 80,000 euros
Posted by: Melaleuca | Mar 24 2023 9:36 utc | 157
—
What utility beyond keeping time could give a watch such value?

Posted by: too scents | Mar 24 2023 9:45 utc | 159

More memes for the moment:

Me, realising AI, the most powerful tools that mankind has ever created, is now in the hands of a ruthless corporate monopoly

Elon Musk: “I’m sure it’ll be fine”
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1639200036578885632

Posted by: Melaleuca | Mar 24 2023 10:15 utc | 161

too scents | Mar 24 2023 9:45 utc | 159
I guess that’s why certain consumer toys are status “symbols”.
At some point an item’s utility is lost and the price one pays for the logo or brand becomes paramount.
The same could be said of (eg)
Cars
Shoes
Shirts
Even houses

Posted by: Melaleuca | Mar 24 2023 10:20 utc | 163

Posted by: Vikichka | Mar 24 2023 7:44 utc | 155
Red herring again.
You were talking about the security risk of crossing the Berlin Wall. Less than 10,000 people have ever tried to cross the Berlin Wall since it was built. I referred to them.
You are now talking about economic migrants who were in no danger before the Berlin Wall was built.
However, the fact is:

Majority of East Germans Oppose Reunification, Poll Shows With AM-East Germany, Bjt
December 17, 1989

Life in Communist East Germany was ‘almost comfortable’ at times, Merkel says

In terms of well-being, a wide range of objective and subjective indicators from the early to mid-1990s show that East Germans’ early experience of regime transition was one of severe dislocation. The objective measure of live births provides a graphic illustration of the effect on people’s confidence in the future. Immediately after unification, the birth rate in the Eastern Länder fell dramatically, reaching its lowest point in 1994 at 79,000 live births. This represented a fall of some 60 per cent of the total births registered in 1989.

After all, you only represent your own opinion and are not in a position to accuse other people “you didn’t live under socialism, you don’t understand”.

Posted by: Colin | Mar 24 2023 11:26 utc | 165

Posted by: Vikichka | Mar 24 2023 7:23 utc | 153
How to tell me you don’t understand economics without telling me you don’t understand economics.
“You just need to save” just doesn’t work.
A poor person earning less than $2,000 a month can’t “just save” because he or she would be living on the street or starving to death.
And, if the poor save at the same rate as the bourgeoisie, then the overall savings rate of society will be too high, reaching economically sub-optimal and unsustainable levels.
The poor who have to spend every penny they have actually take on the role of providing enough consumption to keep the overall net output of society maximized.
If the poor did not consume as much, the rich would not be able to make as much profit as they do today.
This is why Keynes invented Keynesianism to save liberalism and the bourgeoisie rather than to oppose them.
Finally, the passage he quotes talks about accounting magic and derivatives scams, not anything about your twist.

Posted by: Colin | Mar 24 2023 11:34 utc | 167

After all, you only represent your own opinion and are not in a position to accuse other people “you didn’t live under socialism, you don’t understand”.
Posted by: Colin | Mar 24 2023 11:26 utc | 165
Actually, I do. I lived under socialism/communism. And I know a lot more about Germany, than you do.

Posted by: Vikichka | Mar 24 2023 12:06 utc | 169

Reader advisory: The following comment is unrelated to AI or to distribution of wealth.
I was struck by the following paragraph from the TASS article President has finger on the pulse of reconstruction in new Russian regions — Kremlin:

On Sunday, video footage of the Russian President’s working trip to Mariupol came out. During that trip Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin reported to the President on the progress of work being done to rebuild the city. The Russian leader and the Deputy Prime Minister drove around the city in a car. During the trip Putin pulled up to the courtyard of one of the residential areas and talked to residents. During the President’s trip and impromptu tour of the city, traffic was not blocked, the head of state drove the car through the city himself.

I find it hard to imagine a western head of state doing this.

Posted by: David Levin | Mar 24 2023 13:41 utc | 171

Congrats to Canada for proposing a military alliance against China and Russia (FACEPALM)
« As Canada has proposed creating yet another security alliance in East Asia aimed against Russia and China, it would be safe to assume that it would cause further instability in the region, as Moscow and Beijing would likely regard it as a hostile initiative.
Tensions in East Asia and the Pacific may soon reach a whole new level as Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has reportedly pitched an idea of a new anti-Chinese security framework which, along with his country, would include the United States, South Korea and Japan. »
Yeah, I’m sure if we just stick together and keep doubling down, we’ll beat those foreigners. (/s)
https://sputniknews.com/20230324/canada-wants-to-project-itself-as-a-pacific-power-through-a-new-anti-chinese-framework-scholar-1108748592.html

Posted by: Featherless | Mar 24 2023 14:10 utc | 173

Anything to say other than to once again make unfounded and refuted points?
Posted by: Colin | Mar 24 2023 13:51 utc | 172
LOL. What’s unfounded in me living under communism? Lmao. I’m probably one of the very few, if not the only one, here. Telling me about the good life under socialism/communism is like telling a fish that the sea is dry.

Posted by: Vikichka | Mar 24 2023 14:16 utc | 175

Posted by: Vikichka | Mar 24 2023 14:16 utc | 175
Considering you even think you’re still living under socialism (sea), there’s not much I can say.

Posted by: Colin | Mar 24 2023 14:41 utc | 177

@ Vikichka | Mar 24 2023 14:49 utc | 178
I enjoy a good life precisely because I value society above wealth.

Posted by: too scents | Mar 24 2023 14:53 utc | 179

I enjoy a good life precisely because I value society above wealth.
Posted by: too scents | Mar 24 2023 14:53 utc | 179
In other words, you own nothing and you are happy.

Posted by: Vikichka | Mar 24 2023 16:49 utc | 181

@juliania | Mar 24 2023 5:36 utc | 150
Nice quotes.
There is a very fundamental problem caused by the repeal of Glass-Steagall that nobody is talking about. We have created the perfect environment for fraud. Everybody wants to be a bank, because commercial and investment operators are now working together, being two faces of the same oligarch controlled magical money machines. The commercial banks manipulate market factors, resulting in prices moving as they would, triggering much larger movements in instruments, which allows them to manipulate rates and values and triggering derivative and other swaps, in which the investment banks (and crypto-gamers) profiteer like pirates, looting the public on every wriggle of a market with automated AI trading thousands of times a second, making a fraction of a penny on every transaction and calling this a profit.
This was used in combination with the suspension of the liquidity reserve requirements during CoViD, which allowed banksters to print money without limit. Instead of issuing it to the public (what the measure was supposed to achieve) the money went into their investment arms, where it was used to buy up every asset worth stealing, irrespective of price. A little manipulation later, and the value of the investments had soared sufficiently to go round to the Federal-drive-up window to borrow against the new inflated values which were promptly round-tripped the same way.
Let me give some concrete examples
A house that sold for $40k in 2005, and had another $20k put into it, creating three lettable units. Rents brought in about $1k a month. Sufficient to return about $600/month after loans, interest and taxes, for the next 15 odd years. This house was then bought by a bank-financed realtor consortium for $150k. They did not even quibble on price. That’s because they then tripled the renta, and refinanced at $300k based on the new rentals, getting their money and a fat profit back. Meanwhile all their other properties soared in value, because of the higher sales prices achieved in the marketplace at sale, allowing them to refinance and raise rentals. The tenants left, but because the same thing has happened to every building with a “For Sale” sign on it for the last three years, there are no properties available to buy or to rent at prepandwmic prices. People who saw bigger raises than they had seen in their lives, and imagined they were doing well, are now being looted. Rents have doubled or tripled, and a prepandwmic $100 trolly of groceries is now $300. And don’t think of building. A prepandemic $30 sheet of plywood is now $120 – in the US. In much of the rest of the world it remains cheaper than before the pandemic, because demand is down., while the price of building has quadrupled. The rise in prices has been driven by the banksters buying production facilities, including food processors, loading them with debt and reselling them to fools.based on cooked balance sheets using historical volumes multiplied by current prices that few can afford. Buying distribution companies, and slowing deliveries to raise prices and hence margins. Buying farms that are failing because the price of fertilizer has been raised by sanctions and a broken rail system,and growing ethanol and biodiesel feedstocks which are much more profitable than growing food, Buying back the spent mash from the distillers, and using it to forcefeed sick livestock held in crowded confinements, producing poop mountains that poison the lakes and rivers and kill the oceans, selling the produce to China, so ass to raise the price of meat in the USA. All the while, buying politicians to put sanctions and tariffs on competitive products that create obscene profits for those engaged on this manipulation.
So we are reaching a point where the public funds research, sponsors the building of a factory, provides a tax holiday for longer than the facility is used, that will hire the people they must, and contract everything they can to avoid all the costs and responsibilities of employment, paying as little as possible, while pushing prices and costs into the stratosphere in search of profits. Workers are easy to abuse, at 43.9%, the percent of non-institutionalized Americans of an actual working age (18 to 65) employed for one hour or more per fortnight or working in family operated businesses without pay, expressed as the number of actual workers as a ratio of the total population (see Employment 2023Q1) has never been lower, or the Federal employed, unemployed and “marginally attached” numbers more gamed.than now. As a result, a few expensive items sold for crazy prices makes economic productivity higher than ever, profits have never been higher, but most Americans are one paycheck away from homelessness and hunger, many employed people cannot afford decent living quarters or food, let alone to purchase what they produce, which is why the US economy though healthy on paper, is actually crashing faster than the USA’s failing infrastructure, which hasn’t received needed investment since the 1970s. We can’t afford it, because our oligarchs need their pound of flesh. Besides, if you are not delivering anything, who needs roads. One can always hire mad max as a delivery contractor, sell him the needed vehicles at exorbitant prices on the never never, reflecting the sale as a profit, and then claw back more than you pay him in bogus charges.
And it’s all legal. What a wonderful world.

Posted by: Hermit | Mar 24 2023 18:13 utc | 183

@Bemildred | Mar 24 2023 10:46 utc | 164
May I strongly recommend Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Incerto (Includes Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, Antifragile, Skin in the Game), in particular Fooled by Randomness which explains every wealthy person and most not-wealthy people too.
He is one 9f the most erudite and fun writers of valuable non-fiction on the planet. A rare gem of a mind unconstrained by average editors.

Posted by: Hermit | Mar 24 2023 19:02 utc | 185

This seems like a pretty big under-reported deal.
Shared Human Values: Chinese official calls for common ground, respecting every country’s path to democracy ==> https://news.cgtn.com/news/2023-03-24/VHJhbnNjcmlwdDcxMTk3/index.html
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Second+International+Forum+on+Democracy

Posted by: too scents | Mar 24 2023 19:23 utc | 187

From a ZH posting

Bloomberg just reported that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen – who was singlehandedly responsible for stoking and restarting the bank crisis on Wednesday which until that day was easing back, with her comments that nobody in charge was even talking about a uniform deposit insurance, let alone working on one – will convene the heads of top US financial regulators Friday morning for a previously unscheduled meeting of the Financial Stability Oversight Council.
The meeting will be closed to the public, the Treasury Department said in a statement. The Treasury didn’t say what time the meeting would begin, and it wasn’t immediately clear whether the council would issue a statement following the meeting.
The step comes as regulators continue efforts to instill calm in financial markets and among bank depositors following the recent failure of two mid-sized lenders in the US and the near-collapse of banking giant Credit Suisse Group AG before its government-brokered takeover by rival UBS Group AG.
FSOC’s members include the heads of the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and several other regulatory agencies. It has little legal authority but serves as a coordinating forum. Here is a list of the full members:
The Council’s voting members are:
The Secretary of the Treasury who serves as the Chairperson of the Council;
The Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System;
The Comptroller of the Currency (OCC);
The Director of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (CFPB);
The Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC);
The Chairperson of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC);
The Chairperson of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC);
The Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA);
The Chairman of the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA); and
An independent member with insurance expertise who is appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate for a six-year term.
Yesterday we asked “What is the record for shortest interval between a final rate hike and the first rate cut.”
Are we about to discover that the answer is “just two days.”

Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 24 2023 19:53 utc | 189

Did Canada supply “infected insects” to U.S. Military during the Korean War?
Jeffrey S Kay reports that it did and that Canada, including Queens and Mcgill Universities, played a leading role in the development of the biological weapons used against Korea.
https://www.thecanadafiles.com/articles/did-canada-supply-infected-insects-to-us-military-during-the-korean-war

Posted by: bevin | Mar 24 2023 20:31 utc | 191

Something is happening in Syria. The US oil securing base in Deir Ezzor countryside was apparently hit by rockets and they are claiming lot of casualties.
“BREAKING: US is getting smashed in Syria.
SAA and allies are now targeting Konoco field in Deirezzour. The base is reportedly on fire, with significant casualties being taken by the occupiers.”
https://twitter.com/cirnosad/status/1639356006101848064

Posted by: unimperator | Mar 24 2023 20:44 utc | 193

Watching the Duran and the Credite Suisse-UBS deal includes $108 billion backing by the SNB. Exactly twice the $54 billion announced just four days earlier. Kudos to the Duran guys for noting it, I hadn’t seen any info on it.
Consider $108 billion the first installment, I had mentioned in an older post all these bank lootings follow the same trajectory and used MPS in Italy for example, they start out low balling, and then in the back pages, down the line, down the memory hole, the number snowballs. This one started rolling down the mountainside at $54 billion – Yodel-Lay-Hee-Hoo!
So, $108 billion is the first installment, the upright Swiss sure looted a whole lot! Fine watches, fine cheese, fine chocolate, fine, fine, criminality.

Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Mar 24 2023 20:48 utc | 195

[.] the Credite Suisse-UBS deal includes $108 billion backing by the SNB. Exactly twice the $54 billion announced just four days earlier. Kudos to the Duran guys for noting it, I hadn’t seen any info on it.
Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Mar 24 2023 20:48 utc | 195
More funds were made available. I read mid-week that UBS said they would have to back away from the shot-gun-marriage deal struck on 19th, last Sunday evening. SNB will be mouse-clicking up a good deal more. Over in Germany DB is the next in line, this bank has been on the watch list for at least 5 years. Scholz is jaw-boning, no worries It’s safe.
Addendum my post @ 190
Newsweek now has a post on the CS contagion affecting DB.LINK

Posted by: Likklemore | Mar 24 2023 21:42 utc | 197

Likklemore @ 197

Scholz is jaw-boning, no worries It’s safe.

Saw that! Laughed too. Well, if ol’ Scholzie says it’s safe, then that’s all you need to know. The man oozes confidence like a septic wound oozes puss.

Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Mar 24 2023 21:55 utc | 199