HughCaulk
4d ago
There’s also another ending where we all die/are reduced to slaves. Happy endings often sound fake/gay/cliche so maybe you’d like the more cynical version.
With a new tech, it’s hard to even comprehend the direction things will take. But it’s a well regarded consensus that P(doom) is high and rising, so this is an effort to write a fictional story about how “doom” happens. If you can do better it would be a great contribution to AI safety and alignment.
HughCaulk
6d ago
Lmao that’s a great point
Hard to escape from this sort of thing these days, I guess? Shame to see very divisive topics being taught in public schools nonetheless. There needs to be a way to opt out of public school via some sort of school choice/voucher system. Competition is a good thing!
HughCaulk
8d ago
These people are sick. Teaching kindergarteners about sexual fetishes will never be ok, whether it’s gay or straight. Unfortunately there are a lot of very intelligent pedophile/groomer men, who’ve successfully convinced suburban white women that it’s a moral imperative to ram this down children’s throats, and steamroll the wishes of parents.
Need to look into sending the kids to catholic (or other reasonable religious) school, especially in these hyper-woke areas.
HughCaulk
21d ago
Because everyone else’s fiat currency depreciates even faster and is all around worse than the dollar. This is just how fiat currencies are designed.
The slow and steady transition to bitcoin & hard money is marching forward…
HughCaulk
21d ago
These sort of comments are popular but don’t make sense to me. Trump is simultaneously a political genius who can win two elections with the deck stacked completely against him, and also a blathering idiot with the critical reasoning and planning skills of a 3rd grader.
Not to mention his cabinet being comprised with very intelligent people and industry veterans…
HughCaulk
21d ago
As of now, sure. But if it’s really a trade war against China, then an obvious escalation would be tariffing any other country that trades with China. Encourage other countries to turn their backs on China to keep access to US market.
HughCaulk
22d ago
Of course. Just give out 100 blanket pardons at the end of your term.
A lot of these earlier crypto announcements were clearly insider traded, cause you can see these crazy flows actually on the blockchain. Tradfi very opaque
HughCaulk
22d ago
Idk when the S&P dumps 20% in a week it’s a pretty good buy signal. Especially if you’re on a longer term time horizon
HughCaulk
22d ago
Breaking: all reciprocal tariffs halted for 90 days EXCEPT on China. Tariff rates over 100% on Chinese exports.
So it seems like it’s more of a targeted war against China specifically? Likely giving other nations time to choose (with us or against us), and slapping the nations who chose to align with China with huge tariffs in 90 days.
Interesting choice to make as a country then… do we want cheap goods from China but lose access to the American market? Or do we want to be able to sell to Americans?
The next “stick” will be weaponizing the financial system against China-aligned nations, while China dumps treasuries and tries to spark a financial crisis.
HughCaulk
25d ago
Yeah unironically this. Sprinkle some typos, call someone a fag, etc. AIs will never be at this level 😄
HughCaulk
27d ago
Of course, since we can export “nothing” (ie: fiat money) for something (like real imports). So our material wealth is greater than most other counties (who don’t have this power up).
Things are not all rosy though. Chronic disease is higher here than any western nation, life expectancy is down, and severely lags behind our peers, deaths of despair are up… material wealth is not the only type of wealth. And at what cost?
HughCaulk
27d ago
You’re missing the point here imo. This is economics 101 level analysis. America isn’t drilling for oil and then trading oil for Japanese cars. That’s what a persistent and high trade deficit means.
America is creating dollars ex-nihilo and then trading these dollars for real overseas goods. This is how having the reserve currency is a huge blessing, since we can trade unbacked paper money for real cars, computers, microwaves, etc!
But this blessing turns into a curse. This benefits individuals and orgs which can create dollars out of nothing, who are people with assets who can create money through debt. The government debt being at $37T is an exact symptom of this too, all these paper bonds have been exported overseas and we’ve received real items in return. The issue is that poorer people don’t benefit much from this “print money for overseas goods system” and it increases wealth inequality over time. Also, it hollows out your manufacturing base, for an increasingly financialized economy (dominated by the coastal regions in the US)
Tarriffs attempt to undo this curse, as being the reserve currency is starting to cause major issues at home (wealth inequality, ballooning government debt, no manufacturing is a national security issue). There’s going to be major pain. But it’s better now, than later, when the USG goes ~bankrupt and needs to default on the entire financial system. That’s gonna be some pain…
HughCaulk
27d ago
Yes, and that American/domestic producers will compete to gobble up these new margins on the newly more expensive goods.
HughCaulk
27d ago
Saying that manufacturing jobs haven’t left America, and especially in the middle states is just plain stupid
HughCaulk
27d ago
Why exactly are they non sensical? The first order effect is that tarriffs make it more profitable to produce things in America vs offshore, so there will be more jobs and industry created here. It’s only the secondary and tertiary effects where it starts to get ugly
HughCaulk
27d ago
If houses depreciate significantly it crushes bank loans and mortgage backed securities basically making them worthless. This caused the 2008 crisis.
If most people put 20% or less on their mortgage, and the price of houses goes down >20%, they own zero equity and will just walk away, not pay loans, and hand the keys to their lender. Now it’s the banks problem and a brewing financial crisis.
HughCaulk
28d ago
Very detailed explanation, thanks a lot.
The entire reason the founders set the system up the way they did was to make things intentionally hard to coordinate.
Yeah, and this is why DOGE will likely fail. They will get some culture war cuts and furious headlines, but it’s actually up to Congress to not just pass CR bills that roll over the last budget into a new one. Congress will actually need to sack up and significantly cut outlays. Won’t hold my breath.
HughCaulk
29d ago
Actually I’ve found that the zerohedge in house analysis is pretty accurate (and sensational, but they are in the selling-clicks business). A lot of their reposts and features from different figures like Peter Schiff (long time gold bug) is very doom and gloom.
But also, they’ve been shilling gold for years and now it’s up >50% YoY on one of its biggest pumps ever?
Secondly, doom and gloom doesn’t mean that stocks are going to zero, economy dead. Really we are in a slow motion crack up boom, where runaway government spending moons the currency supply and this pushes home prices, stock prices, and asset prices all to unfathomable highs.
HughCaulk
29d ago
Is there conclusive evidence on how these cuts are actually going, and how much money is being saved? It’s nearly impossible to navigate the media landscape of propaganda, lies, and hit pieces to really know what the numbers are saying.
Just wait and see what the next budget reports say? See if debt to gdp actually starts falling?
Here is a projection from the CBO (congressional budget office) projecting DOGE to be a massive failure, and note this analysis is from a right wing/libertarian news org so I’d actually give it more credibility: https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/cbo-forecasts-doge-and-ai-will-be-massive-failures-sees-us-debt-exploding-productivity
Of course not. These “rationalists” are rational as long as their takes don’t touch anything political or CW-related. Otherwise, yikes
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