mikaeluman

Modern financial markets are extremely complicated. Not because all parts of the subject are complicated, but more of a result of a layer-upon-layer-upon-layer effect mixed with jargon.

Anyway, regarding this contract. What happens if a bunch of random people bet on water scarcity? Well, if there is no water scarcity they will simply lose all their money.

If there is water scarcity, however, this will be a clear signal of trouble ahead several weeks (or even months) before the scarcity becomes a real problem for real people.

Yes, these greedy speculators will earn a lot of money (from people hedging and from other speculators); but it will not be because of losses of ordinary people using water on a day-to-day basis.

Those people, if water scarcity sets in, will have to ask their supplier (the state I suppose? or are there private companies in CA?) why this is happening and solve the problem.

No I did not. I merely pointed out that markets cannot change reality. They give you a view of reality.

Regarding this contract, it is financially settled. So there is no actual delivery of water, and it merely offers you an exposure to already existing prices of water in California.

To your example. During the US housing price bubble (so called) that deflated 08; it was generally much cheaper to rent. So a user did not necessarily have to buy a house. And when you purchase real estate far beyond what is needed, then obviously you will have to rent because you can't occupy it all by yourself. The true price of living hasn't changed just because people are overvaluing real estate.

Consider water. Say a speculator drives the price way up in the sky to the extent that ordinary people are affected. What will said speculator do with these contracts? Either she will sell them (and the price rebounds), or she will be stuck with tons of water which is burdensome and incurs costs to store. So clearly she will want to sell this water and at that point be subject to the market demand for it.

In other words, undue speculation drives you out of business.

Now, regarding this future contract it is financially settled based on the actual index value of what water costs. So it's not capable of being driven by silly speculation at all.

More things traded means more information and better prices. Runaway prices can function as a clear signal that there are problems in the water supply that need to be addressed. On the other hand, a stable market will be an indication that the infrastructure works, and prices will reflect that trade-off between speculators and market participants bearing risk, versus commercial users hedging to get stable future costs.

Markets are a wonderful creation and should be welcomed.

If you are not sure why, then please read about what has happened before when far-left revolutions occurred based on these concepts of supposed “privilege”.

For example in Lenin’s Soviet Union. People were judged by their class membership rather than their individual behavior.

This ideology of group-membership based society is harmful to everything I consider liberal and free.

Don’t judge people by their appearance, judge them by their character.

The problem I find with this has much to do with character. I will not comment on the research (because I do not know the field) but rather comment on why character matters and why motivation is important.

Having read her email and tweets; it is quite clear that she is as much a political activist for a far-left “woke” interpretation of the world that I view as of immediate threat to our way of living, democracy and free speech.

Of course you can still author great papers but you would be naive to expect her to reach any conclusion that goes against her political goals.

In her email she makes this clear. She even posts demands if her paper is not published. In her email she professes to being “dehumanized” for her color and makes it clear that - irrespective of any factors - hiring only 14% women in a year is not acceptable.

She continues to say that they had been “enough talking”. We need action.

This type of urgency to take action (of course only the actions she herself approves of) and stop talking are clear indications of a person who no longer lives by liberal values but has embraced an ideology to which they now belong.

At that point, as an employer of researchers, I would consider her credibility to be severely damaged. If at that point I receive demands from this person “or else”. Then I would of course also accept her resignation.

I think the tech industry will need to continue to stand up to the anti-liberal values of these “woke” people before they cause too much harm.

I thought we had worked out in 2010-2012 that the CAP theorem, consistency, availability and partition tolerance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAP_theorem#History) made this impossible?

Where is the mistake.

I don't want to have to trust everything follows a policy.

It's much easier if I don't even have to trust you. Please change this.

I don’t understand this. Usually the answer to bad algorithms is to produce better ones, through research.

What is the alternative? To give up and stay out? Ethical considerations are great. Define fairness and set a valid goal for the algorithm that takes fairness into account.

Do the signatories presume a non-quant approach would be less biased towards this supposed “systemic racism”?

Tested and verified. It was deleted right away. I didn’t even right anything harsh.

Imagine you posting “nazi bandits” on a WW2 video and seeing it vanish after 15s.

We in the IT community need to disassociate with google as much as we possibly can.

Free speech is more important than ever.

This is a mistake.

It implies that we should all agree that WHO:

1) Is not corrupt 2) At all times represents the best available expert opinion and advice

But all institutions can become corrupted and the second point is highly implausible.

WHO ignored Taiwan’s early warning and maintained for a dangerously long time that human to human transmission was not possible.

There is a reason why the US cut funding to WHO.

This new direction of social platforms to silence people is a fundamentally anti-intellectual and authoritarian idea. We are heading for something awful if we all keep playing along.

The blockchain was not meant to solve the problem they are trying to solve.

We already have digital currency and it works quite well.

I really have no idea what they are doing.

The issue is that you seem to not be able to abstract the fact that you may very well find yourself on the "wrong" side of the debate at one point in time.

When that happens, you desperately need channels to communicate what's true and break through so we get a better world to live in.

And in fact, this has been the case for many rights we today hold as self-evident such as abolishment of slavery and the equality of the sexes.

This is not a debate about science, it's a meta-debate about science and a debate about philosophy and the liberal arts.

Even your example with geocentrism is actually a counter-argument to yourself. At that time, the consensus view was geocentrism and so naturally anything that went against the consensus was dangerous and scorned, resulting in being put in prison and silenced.

That's what you are suggesting we regress to...

The mere word "denialism" is a scary sign of the times we live in.

Is the idea that anything that goes against the current "consensus" be removed? And is this just regarding climate change or does it apply to how we think about physics, statistics or even software engineering? Are you an "agile denialist"?

This type of reasoning shows a profound lack of understanding of what free speech is and why it's fundamental to our society. That involves catering to people who produce/consume content that is not consensus-based, regardless of whether they are right or wrong.

Did it even occur to these so-called journalists that if Greta wants to do research prep for a debate against a "denialist", then it's a very useful feature to be able to search for all their arguments and get them served to you? Or should she and others just focus on censorship and deplatforming instead?

Having worked in the finance industry developing risk models for clearing houses, I can safely say that the problem is a lot worse than the authors make it out to be.

Regulators across the globe, practically all of whom are wholly ignorant of what they regulate, demand implementations of their tabular formulas which are often highly specific rather than generalized and so become obsolete as quickly as people find gray spots in the formulations and ways to circumvent the intentions of the regulation. Basic it reads more like law than math and it doesn’t work.

That means all costs go to implementing these sub-par models leaving no room for innovation.

In the end, common people will have to foot the bill and regulations will get even worse. Vicious cycle.

Wow. The sad state of journalism... and of critique from readers at this site.

Obviously bumping salaries by 1/4 is not reasonable.

In order for costs not to outweigh benefits that clinic would need to be some kind of utopia...

On that point you are correct.

US combines the worst of two worlds in so many ways.

Sweden at least does "socialism" correct in some areas.

Sigh...

This is what happens when you start with faulty definitions.

Orwellian at best.

I am from Sweden.

What you are talking about is not "freedom". It is collective insurance.

That may be efficient and convenient if done properly. But it has nothing to do with freedom. Read other posts...

Such nonsense.

You may want to study property rights (protection from pollution) and freedom of speech (publishing studies).

I don't know about the Koch bros, but libertarians are the most anti-corporate people you can find, precisely because government and corporations collude to destroy individual rights and freedom.

You may want to stop reading your lefty media if you are to retain any intellectual capacity.

The word "freedom" refers to freedom _from_ coercion. This is why a big government, that takes your income, inherently reduces economic freedom.

Consider the opposite.

"Now with free education and free golf lessons I have so much more freedom".

This is essentially nonsensical. This concept of "freedom" can be taken to mean anything you like, and deliberately hides the other side of the transaction. Namely, the tutors who are coerced to teach you math and golf. Or, if they are paid, the people who are taxed to pay for your "freedom" while receiving no benefit whatsoever.

The same goes for social safety nets and the rest. It is telling that these basic moral concepts are not spread in our society today. This year US may well get Trumped. Next time it will be Berned (literally).

Sick and tired of non-swedes thinking socialists ever did anything for this country. Nothing was "solved" by politics in those years. Quite the opposite, our lean and mean economy faltered until the socialists became fiscally conservative in the 90s.

The sheer arrogance of Swedes dissing US is also annoying. Go to our new ghettos and inspect the great equity the progressives have established lately.

Because you don't care about those people who would really benefit from an easy job for 1-2 years which gives them a foot in. Horrible values on display.

Economic 101. Minimum wage does nothing except hinder the disadvantaged. But yes, may also be good to get rid of your competition. Useless debate, because people, even engineers, don't think about it economically but only politically. If you believe it works, let's just make it $50 an hour.

I am sorry but this seems like complete left wing rethoric bullshit. I can pick data too.