I don't have nearly enough data to hypothesize either, reallyOriginally Posted by EyeKhan
I don't have nearly enough data to hypothesize either, really
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
Ok, you said humanity doesn't work that way, meaning currently observed humanity as opposed to humanity can't work that way, a much more defining statement. Got it. Still, you can't possibly know there are no nations out there making and following long term plans . . . .
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
Of course not, nor can I know there isn't a big ole English tea pot orbiting Saturn. I just haven't seen anything so far to make me think that a likely proposition.
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
As a gas trader in the UK (And by gas I mean gas, not car fuel) I can admit to being both. It is my responsibility to purchase gas for nearly a third of the country on a daily basis for residential homes and businesses, but if I see a pattern emerging in prices that means I can speculate and take on a profit, do you think I'd take advantage of that? You're goddamn right I will. There certainly are banks and other companies who are in the market solely to trade forwards and turn a profit, but don't be under any illusion that companies that are there to supply a physical product are doing it from the goodness of their heart.There's a difference between industries and corporations that are users and holders of oil and gas (or other commodities) who are hedging for their business survival....and traders/speculators that are simply buying/selling for profits. Airlines, trucking companies, and food growers/distributors are in a different league than HFT and for-profit speculators in general.
If you have a beef with that, take it up with the CFTC. They're the ones who suggested it, not me.
That's because your gas prices include "other costs" and reflect a truer "price" for society. The US doesn't do that, but has decided to make gas cheaper than it really is. Our economy depends on consumption of all things, but especially consuming fossil fuels.
There's a web site that calculated "other costs" into gas prices, including environmental and health impacts, building sprawl, foreign wars for oil and military funding, subsidies for this or that....and came up with the real cost/price of US gas between $10-12/gallon.
How do you expect to run with the wolves at night when you spend all day sparring with the puppies?
- Omar Little
That is, at best, a gross oversimplification of what happened and as such rather distorted from the reality.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
Already have all of those.
Who do you think those corporations and industries are buying the oil from? Unicorns?
They are buying from traders. Energy producers also hedge to guarantee them stable revenues/operating margins. This helps them maintain steady output. They sell those contracts to traders, who in turn sell energy to people who want the energy.
Dread, you missed my point about different trader types. Ack!
I'll try again. Those who hedge for actual delivery/consumption/manufacturing profit, and those who trade simply for profit are different entities. They can have the same goal (making money, or not losing money in the future) with different missions and investor groups behind them.
There aren't the same 'barriers' between commodities and futures trading like there once were (back in the Olden Times) when Boards of Trade had membership requirements based on direct relationship to the commodity. ie, to buy/sell/hold winter wheat meant a trader had to be representing an actual farmer, a bread manufacturer or food conglomerate, and be a member of the Chicago Board of Grains Exchange (or whatever it was called). That's an overly simplistic example, but you get the gist. The premise was that "outsider" speculators could pop in and out, causing price spikes that would hurt the actual commodity, and the purpose of future trading/hedging it in the first place.
That's my understanding of how trading used to operate, before reformation and evolution of stock exchanges, mercantile boards, commodities and futures markets. Modernization is a good thing, more participants and competition is a good thing. But unless it comes with modernization of rules, regulations, or oversight TOO....it's an invitation for exploitation and manipulation.
HFT and synthetic derivatives are classic examples. Allowing mortgage banks to become investment banks meant home loans were turned into CDOs. Mixing mortgage default insurance with MBSs meant homes were being traded like Monopoly dollars by banks, brokers, and insurance companies. Mix municipal bonds and pension plans in the mix, and it's a whole new toxic soup.
That's why we saw investment banks applying for bank-holding status (Goldman Sachs), insurance companies being treated as systemically important banks (AIG), bond markets fleeing to t-bills (PIMCO)....with an FDIC, SEC, CFTC, Treasury, Federal Reserve and DoJ blind-sided and overwhelmed.
I realize my post if full of all sorts of sub-topics and tangents. It was a long-winded way to explain why (IMO) it's high time we stop saying Freeee Markets function best "unfettered" or without Regulations.
Dread, you missed my point about different trader types. Ack!
I'll try again. Those who hedge for actual delivery/consumption/manufacturing profit, and those who trade simply for profit are different entities. They can have the same goal (making money, or not losing money in the future) with different missions and investor groups behind them.
There aren't the same 'barriers' between commodities and futures trading like there once were (back in the Olden Times
That's my understanding of how trading used to operate, before reformation and evolution of stock exchanges, mercantile boards, commodities and futures markets. Modernization is a good thing, more participants and competition is a good thing. But unless it comes with modernization of rules, regulations, or oversight TOO....it's an invitation for exploitation and manipulation.
HFT and synthetic derivatives are classic examples. Allowing mortgage banks to become investment banks meant home loans were turned into CDOs. Mixing mortgage default insurance with MBSs meant homes were being traded like Monopoly dollars by banks, brokers, and insurance companies. Mix municipal bonds and pension plans in the mix, and it's a whole new toxic soup.
That's why we saw investment banks applying for bank-holding status (Goldman Sachs), insurance companies being treated as systemically important banks (AIG), bond markets fleeing to t-bills (PIMCO)....with an FDIC, SEC, CFTC, Treasury, Federal Reserve and DoJ blind-sided and overwhelmed.
I realize my post if full of all sorts of sub-topics and tangents. It was a long-winded way to explain why (IMO) it's high time we stop saying Freeee Markets function best "unfettered" or without Regulations.
This is post is about as naive as they come. Sorry GGT
How do you expect to run with the wolves at night when you spend all day sparring with the puppies?
- Omar Little
I believe the proper term here is Luddism.
Hope is the denial of reality
I think the key obstacle to long term planning is elections. However I'm not interested in trying out life without them. I'd say some serious long-term planning had to be behind the Great Wall in China.....
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
Well, do enlighten us brainiac.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
Which is just another way of agreeing with me in lamenting that National Socialism did not triumph over robber barons and Bolsheviks. And so it goes.
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
There are numerous factors that undermine long-term planning, and elections are but one. Ultimately, what is the incentive for any government to plan for the long-term?
Hope is the denial of reality
Never underestime a politicians ego and desire to be viewed positively by history.
Besides, nearly half the time you guys have lame duck presidencies.
Except most historians fall into the same fallacy of looking at near-term results, so you're far more likely to be judged positively if you do something that has immediate positive effects, even if it causes problems down the line.
Hope is the denial of reality
Dread, you missed my point about different trader types. Ack!
I'll try again. Those who hedge for actual delivery/consumption/manufacturing profit, and those who trade simply for profit are different entities. They can have the same goal (making money, or not losing money in the future) with different missions and investor groups behind them.
There aren't the same 'barriers' between commodities and futures trading like there once were (back in the Olden Times
That's my understanding of how trading used to operate, before reformation and evolution of stock exchanges, mercantile boards, commodities and futures markets. Modernization is a good thing, more participants and competition is a good thing. But unless it comes with modernization of rules, regulations, or oversight TOO....it's an invitation for exploitation and manipulation.
Seriously? All I can really point out is:
1) You're basically saying that some people earn "good" profits and some people earn "bad" profits. I have no idea how you can determine which traders would fall into which category. I'm not sure you even know, I'm just illustrating a flaw in what you're describing.
2) Restricting who can trade in energy makes the market more closed-off and can lead to higher prices. There's no such thing as an "outsider". If you're trading in the energy markets, you're trading in the energy markets. You're not an outsider.
Aside from my personal rambling style of posting, it's still interesting (and important) to compare and contrast pre/post Great Depression with pre/post Great Recession. Globalization, regulations, politics and ideologies have changed a lot since the 1930's. From banking to investing, and monetary theories. Everyone continues trying to find flaws or errors, why/how things turned so ugly after 2007. It's multi-factorial, of course.
Seriously? All I can really point out is:
1) You're basically saying that some people earn "good" profits and some people earn "bad" profits. I have no idea how you can determine which traders would fall into which category. I'm not sure you even know, I'm just illustrating a flaw in what you're describing.
2) Restricting who can trade in energy makes the market more closed-off and can lead to higher prices. There's no such thing as an "outsider". If you're trading in the energy markets, you're trading in the energy markets. You're not an outsider.
Call me naive or luddite all ya want
but IMO the de-regulation of the 90's came with overly optimistic freee market theories. Everyone from Alan Greenspan to Bill Clinton's administration and legislators of that time were happy to oblige. It was easier when 'unfettered' markets were growing to claim any regulations were bad; much harder to explain why it's the type of regulation that matters.
Personally, I still believe some of the post Great Depression regulations make sense, even in today's modernized trading/investing climate. Separating investment banks from retail banks, proprietary trades from institutional trades, FDIC from Treasury and Federal Reserve guarantees---those ideas still make sense and have merit.
Some day the NY mercantile exchange might merge with the NY stock exchange, then merge with NASDAQ. Or maybe all sorts of smaller exchanges will become the norm. My point is that Regulations and oversight need to keep up with modernization. If we'd done that during the housing bubble and creation of MBSs and synthetic CDOs, it's possible there wouldn't be millions of US foreclosures, with more on the way, or debtors deep in doo-doo.
Maybe small towns in Norway, or Iceland might have avoided their melt-down. Ditto for IceSave UK depositors Perhaps Greece wouldn't have been convinced to monetize their sovereign debt, or the ECB would have had actual facts to reject their EU membership. These things are all related to modernization and regulation of accounting rules, and global exchange-related activities.
Obviously we first need to figure out what counts as long term. That aside, what would you say was the incentive for the Chinese to build the great wall? IIRC the big stone cathedrals in Europe took a long time to build and practically bankrupted local economies. Then there's the pyramids - Africa's and Central America's - God's are a powerful incentive to do some long term planning, though it tends to be for really stupid things.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
Considering how "effective" it's been, I would say it was an ancient version of a white elephant. The main point of the cathedrals was personal aggrandizement either for the king of the pope; not sure how you can equate that with solid long-term planning. I would imagine those kings and popes could have won more wars if they didn't waste money on pretty buildings and luxuries. Ditto for the pyramids and pharaos. A modern equivalent would be for Obama to dump a few trillion dollars into the space program. Not quite sure how that would solve the main problems facing humanity.
Hope is the denial of reality
Right --- long time to build costing lots of resources doesn't necessarily = long term planning. Ok.
What DOES count as long term planning? How about building tiered farms in mountains? Or any kind of ancient irrigation systems - stuff that took a long time to build and resulted in lasting community benefits? What examples of modern long term planning are there? What about China's modernization "miracle?" It appears from the outside they've been working a consistent plan for a long time - since the 70's? That's unheard of planning in the US. What about the phase-out of CFCs? That was a pretty longish term plan.
As far as the great wall is concerned, I haven't read a lot about its effectiveness, though I seem to recall it functioned as a road as much as a barrier. That and its effectiveness against invaders was more about making it a pain for them to get into and out of China with their horses and whatever booty they took in raids... I think I'll look it up and see what I find.
Also - of course you know I disagree on funding the space program, but whatever. No need to argue about that stuff....
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
I was with you right up until you implied the space program was a waste.
What are the main problems of humanity anyway?
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
12 calories of oil burnt on average for 1 calorie of (Western) food, the global redistribution of elements and compounds that are against the interests of the species, looming global conflicts with nuclear potential, unpredictable and uncontrollable climate change.
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
There's a group trying to re-build coral reefs by an underwater farming of sorts. They lay out huge frameworks that look like tree branches, or brackets, with small pieces of organic material (maybe they were bits of live coral, I can't remember) hanging from it like ornaments. Those grow into big enough chunks to be moved to a nursery-type area, and eventually grown into a whole new reef. Repopulating the fish and aquatic life that had become desolate, lifeless places. Their long-term goal is decades if not hundred-year cycles, keeping ocean eco-systems healthy as part of global human healthy eco-systems. It was neat stuff.
Seems to me that global warming would make millions of square miles of Arctic land usable for the first time in tens of millions of years, which wouldn't be such a bad thing. I mean, sue the brown peoples might starve or drown or whatever else, but for the white peoples of northern countries, it sounds like a pretty good deal... makes me wonder why you seem opposed to the idea, actually.
Hell, you ask me, it's just a pity it won't happen in my lifetime... what could be better for a guy like me than a nice temperate island fortress around the 70th parallel? And I don't imagine it would be all that expensive to acquire such a place while it's covered by 2 feet of ice and permafrost.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
I don't have any faith in the linearity you suppose there.
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
Huh. Well....
What are the interests of the human species? Everyone's interested in avoiding extinction, I think, but what else is the species interested in as a whole? Predicatability, maybe. Our diversity of interests might be the biggest problem right there....
A 12/1 caloric ration isn't a problem by itself - energy's ridiculously plentiful. It's our socio-economic entrenchment with (enslavement to?) fossil fuels that's got us on the road to extreme famine.
Elements and compounds - ie resources? - being globally redistributed....that's not necessarily a problem either, is it? The methodologies we currently use aren't the best ideas, of course. The way some have too much and others not enough is a formula for conflict. But there is enough for everyone and there are ways to exploit resources that are not so destructive, but like with fossil fuels we have chosen to stick with the easy ways of doing things. Wealth from the status quo gives incentive and the ability for our 'leadership class' to stifle sensible change.... that might be a problem.
Also - when has climate change ever been controllable and predictable? The difference today is rate of change. Life in general isn't used to that, so massive extinction or at least ecological chaos is a real possiblity.
But what happens if we change nothing? If development and exploitation of resources continues the same as always, distribution doesn't get any 'fairer' and the juggernaut of Western culture completes the assimilation of the rest of humanity. What is down this road? Swift and dramatic ecological change. Massive famine and maybe plague. Economic chaos. Global warfare.
But as long as the wars don't go nuclear, and as long as the ecological change doesn't make the world uninhabitable by large mammals, humanity's not going extinct. Not sure I see any of this as a "problem of humanity...." It isn't much different from what we've always done, is it?
All humanity needs to sidestep extinction from these activities is an Azimovian foudation somewhere to ride it all out. Problems of Humanity solved.
The brown ones will fight to survive. They have the numbers, though we have the [better] guns. Is that the best Way, though?
What year, about, do you expect to die?Hell, you ask me, it's just a pity it won't happen in my lifetime...
It's really all about predictability, isn't it? Who is safe when the only known around the next bend is the certaintly of radical difference from what was around the last?
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
And an increasingly myopic, short-term, instant gratification mentality that defines what we need is what we want, and we want it right now!
Rate of change, plus new knowledge that comes from scientific discoveries and factual data. It's still perplexing how/why some religious fundies insist the world is some 5,000 years old, or insist that science has been co-opted by lib'ruls with a political agenda. That's the more worrisome and potentially dangerous "chaos", IMO.Also - when has climate change ever been controllable and predictable? The difference today is rate of change. Life in general isn't used to that, so massive extinction or at least ecological chaos is a real possiblity.
Isn't that how multi-generational, anti-science, and fear-inspiring religious fundamentalists frame the picture, too?It's really all about predictability, isn't it? Who is safe when the only known around the next bend is the certaintly of radical difference from what was around the last?
Yeah, I'm apologizing in advance for the formatting, but you kinda brought this on yourself. I'm doing it for my benefit (I'm a simple-minded person), if you can parse your response back into a single segment, that'll be just fine.
The aggregate of the development of human society (at least for the top of the pyramid) is an increase in 1) the amount of energy one has at their personal disposal, combined with out-sourcing it to more and more complex devices1 from our own musculature, and perhaps more recently 2) the amount of computational capacity available to the individual, combined with out-sourcing it to more and more complex devices. I think these two could serve as useful starting points for iterating the interests of the species, based on the previous behaviour of the species. An obvious point 3) is the daily caloric intake for each individual, but if 1 and 2 begin failing at a rapid rate, number 3 is soon to follow and the obvious survival angle is also already most likely in dire peril.
1In this sense, a car is more complex than a horse, even though that's obviously not mechanically true.
Excuse me? The reason why we're so addicted to fossil fuels as a species is the energy density packed within, it's solar energy packed for millions of years to be released in less than a century. Due to short-sightedness and stupidity, we simply lack, for the most part, the ability to harness the energies in our relatively low energy-density environment (1 AU from the Sun). If energy were so 'ridiculously plentiful', why must we burn all that oil to the exclusion of other forms? Oil is very nice, but as the songwrite noted, all good things must yet come to an end...
I think we're saying somewhat the same thing through different logic?
Resources or materiel if you like, I was thinking chemically. And their global redistribution is done directly against our long-term interests to a disturbingly high percentage. We'll end up burning oil to ferry back materiel from the developing world (quote unquote), and possibly burning some more oil killing the people we sold it as trash to begin with. I mean for God's sake, if an individual creature handled its energy budget like this, it'd have been selected against ages ago.
And the trash is just a part of the entire issue. I mean ._.
Yes, this was implicit, but it was nice of you to spell it out.
So you're basically willing to bet $Globe on humanity solving its crises to come with just enough warfare? And for the points 1 and 2 above to continue their steady progress after we've ejected enough surplus population? My gods, your optimism puts young Icaros to shame.
His name was Asimov
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote