There's some code I wrote 30 years ago that's still running inside a text-based, multiplayer, internet game (LPMUD). I wouldn't say it's useful, per se, but it'll probably continue to run for at least several more years.
2,862 karma · joined May 14, 2021
That's true, but not really saying very much. Any differentiable function is locally linear around a neighborhood of any point where the derivative exists.
> Also exponential growth does hit some kind of ceiling relatively quickly.
Well... that depends. Much like how markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent, exponential growth can often remain exponential for much longer than it takes to create a problem. Conversely, sometimes it can't remain exponential long enough to prevent a problem. Exponential growth is a hard beast to tame.
> And it seemeth, that the cause why it is called mortgage is, for that it is doubtful whether the feoffor will pay at the day limited such sum or not: and if he doth not pay, then the land which is put in pledge upon condition for the payment of the money, is taken from him for ever, and so dead to him upon condition, &c. And if he doth pay the money, then the pledge is dead as to the tenant, &c. [Coke upon Littleton, 1664]
H_s(x) := -\sum_{x \in X_s} p(x) log(p(x))
Or, wait... are you referring to running such an analysis on the output of the model? Yeah, that might prove interesting....
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So, I suppose, you may never know, huh? Because it could be.
Sorry, but yes, it was. It might not have been written down, but if all it took was for a few people to "scream bloody murder demanding the government make them whole," we need to look deeper at the implicit assumptions surrounding that system. And, part of those assumptions is that truly wealthy individuals get a greater level of service from that system than the rest of us, including bailouts like this. The same goes for "too big to fail" type institutions (viz JPMC and other big banks who are directly benefiting from a loss of confidence in institutions like SVB).
I recently saw this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th3KE_H27bs
The speaker, Nick Hanauer, has a net worth somewhere around a billion dollars. In his talk, he explicitly says he's a capitalist, capitalism is good, etc. But, if you ignore all that and look at the rest of what he says, he comes this >< close to advocating socialism.
According to him (and I agree), the lessons we should be learning here are fivefold:
1. Markets aren't anywhere near as efficient in reality as they are in theory. That leads to some counterintuitive things like when Seattle raised their minimum wage, it didn't lead to unemployment because the price of labor went up; it led to people who work in restaurants being able to afford to eat in restaurants, which is good for the economy. Oh, and unemployment actually fell in the region while this was happening.
2. A big pillar of the neoliberal myth is that "...the price of something is always equal to its value." He directly goes on to tie this to the case of one person who makes $50k per year and another who makes $50M per year. The second person's work isn't 1000x more valuable than the first. The person getting paid $50k is only getting paid $50k because workers have lost almost all their bargaining power in the market, period.
"And by pretending that the giant imbalance in power between capital and labor doesn't exist, neoliberal economic theory became essentially a protection racket for the rich," he goes on to say.
3. Humans are not "perfectly rational, and relentlessly self-maximizing." Homo economicus is a myth; let us bury him where he lies. Greed is not good. Humanity's superpower isn't selfishness, but reciprocity and a willingness to cooperate.
4. The purpose of corporations is not solely to enrich shareholders (i.e. the "shareholder primacy" theory). Customers, workers, and communities matter as much or even more than shareholders. Which leads to...
5. The laws of economics are a choice. If we want to do something about all this, all we have to do is choose to do it.
Finally, one thing he said in the talk really sums it up for me, and that's this:
"[I]t isn't capital that creates economic growth,it's people; and it isn't self-interest that promotes the public good, it's reciprocity; and it isn't competition that produces our prosperity, it's cooperation."
Unfortunately, the contemporary practice of capitalism is incompatible with these principals, and the people who are benefitting from it are very powerful as a result of decades of neoliberalism. Those people I mentioned in the bottom half of the income spectrum, they have the power to make change happen. Just look at what's going on in France right now.
But the people at the top (not the 1%, really, more like 0.1% and the 0.01%) have the poor, the middle class, and somewhat well off all at each others' throats. Without mass, collective action, I do not hold out much hope for humanity over the next two decades.
Oh, and BTW, keep in mind, this isn't just me, some random canine on the internet saying this stuff. I do say this stuff on here frequently, and what it's gotten me is mostly downvotes and being made into a second class citizen who can only post at an average rate of a couple comments per hour, for no good reason that I can discern or anyone will tell me.
So, if you believe these words, feel free to not believe me. Hell, I got myself about as close to banned as you can get without actually getting banned or shadowbanned by, among other things, trying to tell y'all these things. But do believe this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Hanauer, because he knows what he's talking about.