Stock analysts aren't necessarily in the business of predicting future, rather they package and solidify existing "common sense" expectations of the market so that the actual business of investing and trading can go smoothly, until it doesn't.
I can speak from experience -- I considered myself mildly addicted and deactivated my account for two weeks as I was on a break before a new job, during which I just walked and read and slept. I discovered that after two weeks I was very reluctant to go back to FB as it felt like a pit that would drain my energy so I stayed deactivated. Three months later, my account is still deactivated and I only log in a couple of times a week to check the feeds from a couple of people and pages who consistently post very useful stuff.
At this point to me FB still feels like a pit, one in which unpleasant fragments of our personalities are plotting and scheming to earn validation and establish dominance. I feel sorry I'm not in as frequent contact with some of the people there but I can't bear to go back actively. I also see that I was more than mildly addicted. I think FB offers good opportunities to learn something and influence people (thought not win friends!) but that comes with a hefty price tag.
The Economist in my experience has a poor track record of predicting future. They describe world events in a way that sounds like they really know what they are talking about, in a measured, intellectual way, at times even boring to maintain the appearance of detachment, almost like how Sherlock Holmes would describe his clues. But unlike Holmes they are almost always wrong. That has been my impression. Their biggest blunders are Trump and Brexit and Trump-era economy, but I have a vague recollection of things they talked about year ago that never came to pass. Might be interesting to randomly pick an issue from early 2010s and see how well their headlines aged.
Btw their upset with Trump seems to have let their Russophobia seep through their cover art, though it's still quality art.
As much as I disliked HFT I wonder if that may have something to do with the longevity of this cycle. Kind of like ABS on the car, and to push the car analogy further, as long as the driver is not being unreasonable about where he takes the car, maybe the HFT/ABS can help stay on course in moments of danger.
A bubble burst and a recession is a natural means to purge inefficient businesses. Maybe HFTs slow down the buildup of inefficiencies.
Ivan? When you lump all the people of a particular nation whose voice you don't like under one ethnic characature, what do you call that, Mr. Enlightened European?
You say Trump is easy to read. Did you predict he would win in 2016?
Hillary got roasted not because she was lax about security but because she intentionally and with clear forethought moved the server out of the federal control to under her private control so that no one but her people could track what goes in and out.
That their security was lax and that the desire for control backfired only compounded her original sin.
It depends on the context. In the case of a monarchy and unlimited power, those qualities are often disastrous, though not always, and not all the time.
In the case of a democracy/republic where such fairly ignorant and semi-jingoistic enthusiastic energetic leader -- bigotry and corruption I see as purely the left's exaggeration -- can be kicked out after 4 and certainly after 8 years, and where the members of the legislative branch have to suck up primarily to their own constituents, well all that to say is that such jolt of energy that's bad in the context of the unlimited power may well result in some good here, and some has already. If anything, all the doom prophesized by the left has not materialized yet, not even remotely.
Thanks for the disclosure, which you really didn't owe me. I was wrong in my assumptions. The passion of online arguing got the better of me, and not for the first time.
There's a curse I've heard once, "may you have a strong opinion about everything." A lot of us seem to get struck by that curse, and I certainly was here.
That's right. I'd rather have a well-read, informed and intellectual President with whom I can have a good conversation than an anti-intellectual womanizing loudmouth who brings the country to peace and prosperity by however incomprehensible means.... is what I believe most educated liberals think these days. Their biggest fear seems to be Trump ending up being right about things because how he gets there does not seem to make sense.
At another level I'm not sure how much good this discussion does us, since we are using pure reasoning. At least I am, I don't have any experience in the field with GMOs and not much at all with regular crops. Pure reasoning and logic always breaks at some level when new details emerge.
What's more, I imagine if a pro-GMO person met several biotechnologists in a social setting and got an impression they were all sleazeballs, he'd probably change his stance even though no new information with respect to his logic and reasoning showed up. And vice versa, if an anti-GMOer found that all the biotech people he met at a BBQ were kind, pleasant, thoughtful people, he would not think as ill of GMO as before that, even if GMO tech was not discussed at all.
And then if those were singular events for both of our characters, without them meeting any biotech people in person again, both would revert to their pre-meeting positions in a matter of weeks, again without any new information about the topic.
That thought experiment makes me seriously doubt the usefulness of what we are doing here.
Not necessarily cancer increase but primarily the probability -- not at all tiny -- of disrupting the system in an unpredictable ways, when the goal can be achieved by other means. Would you use a hypothetical new experimental drug that is a substitute for exercise in that it say, reduces some cardiovascular problems, when you can go out and exercise? (Assuming you can, if you are not bed bound for example.) You wouldn't, because three years of trials don't show what side effects can happen in ten or twenty years. You'll only know that it won't outright kill you in three years.
I was referring to GMOs in general -- unless a plant (or an animal?) has that "terminator" gene, it has the potential for spreading by natural means which cannot be tightly controlled except in a lab. All of us living species propagate geometrically, do we not? For each one of us there is one + x on the average in the next generation. X changes over time, but usually goes down from up after overpopulation and exhaustion of resources. That is my understanding.
"Plausible mechanism" implies a solid, robust model, and that we have completely understood the interactions. Reality is we don't know, and in the field of life sciences, we *always* get surprised by something we did not expect. Every single time.
Re thalidomide, appreciate the correction. My argument stays though, it is wrong to risk huge unknowns for minor gains. (Unlike other anti-GMOers perhaps, I am in favor of GMOs where the gains are potentially huge and cannot be achieved any other way. I am also in favor of practicing GMO technology in a very controlled way so we can apply it when we need.)
You may have missed the part of the "extremely unlikely changes" propagating geometrically. Any sort of breeding creates changes that are statistically not that far from natural selection processes in terms of probability. Typical GMO changes are statistically incredibly unlikely to happen during the dominant statistical processes we call "natural" and for which has the process of evolution adjusted. That makes the process more unpredictable, and justified in doing only in extreme situations.
Kind of like giving highly experimental drugs to very sick patients without prospect of recovery otherwise is justified, while giving Ritalin to overactive kids -- or, for a darker shade of dark, giving thalidomide to mothers experiencing typical labor pains -- isn't.
The status of ArmoredDragon financial or other potential gains from GMOs is also very important to judge the value of the information in his post, I think you will agree.
Don't those activists have faith that scientists can accurately predict all possible interactions in the real world from their models for decades ahead? Do they not understand that using the geometric progression to propagate extremely unlikely changes in genetic material is not a cause for concern because the models are so good they do not allow any room for errors?
Btw you do not work in biotech, do you? I would like to think that you advocate more GMOs for purely ethical reasons and not because you stand to gain from GMOs in any way.
"In one of the most brilliant papers in the English language Hume made it clear that what we speak of as 'causality' is nothing more than the phenomenon of repetition. When we mix sulphur with saltpeter and charcoal we always get gunpowder. This is true of every event subsumed by a causal law — in other words, everything which can be called scientific knowledge. "It is custom which rules," Hume said, and in that one sentence undermined both science and philosophy." -- Philip K. Dick
This could well have been just two ladies reading from a script -- if so that's the cheapest demo in the history of high profile demos. My hats off to Google for that!
I imagine that such a candidate was even offered as a choice in the first place was a direct reflection of the state we were in -- totalitarian-leaning people thought they could get away with it. If so then Hillary, endorsed by the likes of Schmidt, was part of the package that was rejected, which maybe includes identity politics as well. That's at least the rationalization for my optimism.
He applied linear thinking and took it to the extreme to make a good story. But societies go through cycles. The tide turned in 2016 -- perhaps as a consequence of the 2008 crash -- where people have rejected, democratically speaking, the vision that had been offered to them, of which this is a part. Try as he might have, Schmidt couldn't help Hillary win.
"In one of the most brilliant papers in the English language Hume made it clear that what we speak of as 'causality' is nothing more than the phenomenon of repetition. When we mix sulphur with saltpeter and charcoal we always get gunpowder. This is true of every event subsumed by a causal law — in other words, everything which can be called scientific knowledge. "It is custom which rules," Hume said, and in that one sentence undermined both science and philosophy." -- Philip K. Dick
This isn't really a good time to judge by because not only the politicians but people too have never been so polarized. They congressmen are less doing what they are told and more genuinely believing the other side are such idiots if they are pushing for something then it must be a terrible idea (or are doing it just for cheap points with their base, which is kinda what I think about this particular vote).
It matters less than you think. Unlike in European parliaments where members need to vote along the party line or they'll be kicked out and replaced, the US congressmen have primarily their constituency to please. So a Democrat in a very conservative area may be pro life and a Republican in a very liberal area may be pro choice.
Tim Cook is an influential and respected member of the community. He did help create lots of jobs and his decisions had impact on the economy on the order of hundreds of billions of dollars. He has seen and known far more than you or I in the area of tariffs and to a lesser degree immigration, therefore his opinion has far more weight than mine or yours (very likely -- can't say since you posted as AC, you could be Tim Cook).
To a degree, Tim Cook is an elder in the community, so his opinions are worth considering, even by Trump, which I believe he does.
That said, why post as AC? I support Trump as well. Let's stop this nonsense about hiding from supporting a legitimate president.
Slashdot Mirror
Stock analysts aren't necessarily in the business of predicting future, rather they package and solidify existing "common sense" expectations of the market so that the actual business of investing and trading can go smoothly, until it doesn't.
I can speak from experience -- I considered myself mildly addicted and deactivated my account for two weeks as I was on a break before a new job, during which I just walked and read and slept. I discovered that after two weeks I was very reluctant to go back to FB as it felt like a pit that would drain my energy so I stayed deactivated. Three months later, my account is still deactivated and I only log in a couple of times a week to check the feeds from a couple of people and pages who consistently post very useful stuff.
At this point to me FB still feels like a pit, one in which unpleasant fragments of our personalities are plotting and scheming to earn validation and establish dominance. I feel sorry I'm not in as frequent contact with some of the people there but I can't bear to go back actively. I also see that I was more than mildly addicted. I think FB offers good opportunities to learn something and influence people (thought not win friends!) but that comes with a hefty price tag.
I picked 2011, a few headlines:
"Latin America changes its guard: Democracy is happily becoming routine"
"The long goodbye: China gets ready, cautiously, for new leaders"
"As the novelty wears off: Things will start to fall apart for Britain’s centre-right coalition government"
"Powerhouse Deutschland: Germany will increase its influence on the euro-zone economy"
"Foreign frustrations: Blocked at home, what can Barack Obama achieve abroad?"
The Economist in my experience has a poor track record of predicting future. They describe world events in a way that sounds like they really know what they are talking about, in a measured, intellectual way, at times even boring to maintain the appearance of detachment, almost like how Sherlock Holmes would describe his clues. But unlike Holmes they are almost always wrong. That has been my impression. Their biggest blunders are Trump and Brexit and Trump-era economy, but I have a vague recollection of things they talked about year ago that never came to pass. Might be interesting to randomly pick an issue from early 2010s and see how well their headlines aged.
Btw their upset with Trump seems to have let their Russophobia seep through their cover art, though it's still quality art.
As much as I disliked HFT I wonder if that may have something to do with the longevity of this cycle. Kind of like ABS on the car, and to push the car analogy further, as long as the driver is not being unreasonable about where he takes the car, maybe the HFT/ABS can help stay on course in moments of danger.
A bubble burst and a recession is a natural means to purge inefficient businesses. Maybe HFTs slow down the buildup of inefficiencies.
I'm curious about cockroach Gouda. (Cockroach Brie, not so much.)
Ivan? When you lump all the people of a particular nation whose voice you don't like under one ethnic characature, what do you call that, Mr. Enlightened European?
You say Trump is easy to read. Did you predict he would win in 2016?
Hillary got roasted not because she was lax about security but because she intentionally and with clear forethought moved the server out of the federal control to under her private control so that no one but her people could track what goes in and out.
That their security was lax and that the desire for control backfired only compounded her original sin.
It depends on the context. In the case of a monarchy and unlimited power, those qualities are often disastrous, though not always, and not all the time.
In the case of a democracy/republic where such fairly ignorant and semi-jingoistic enthusiastic energetic leader -- bigotry and corruption I see as purely the left's exaggeration -- can be kicked out after 4 and certainly after 8 years, and where the members of the legislative branch have to suck up primarily to their own constituents, well all that to say is that such jolt of energy that's bad in the context of the unlimited power may well result in some good here, and some has already. If anything, all the doom prophesized by the left has not materialized yet, not even remotely.
Thanks for the disclosure, which you really didn't owe me. I was wrong in my assumptions. The passion of online arguing got the better of me, and not for the first time.
There's a curse I've heard once, "may you have a strong opinion about everything." A lot of us seem to get struck by that curse, and I certainly was here.
That's right. I'd rather have a well-read, informed and intellectual President with whom I can have a good conversation than an anti-intellectual womanizing loudmouth who brings the country to peace and prosperity by however incomprehensible means. ... is what I believe most educated liberals think these days. Their biggest fear seems to be Trump ending up being right about things because how he gets there does not seem to make sense.
At another level I'm not sure how much good this discussion does us, since we are using pure reasoning. At least I am, I don't have any experience in the field with GMOs and not much at all with regular crops. Pure reasoning and logic always breaks at some level when new details emerge.
What's more, I imagine if a pro-GMO person met several biotechnologists in a social setting and got an impression they were all sleazeballs, he'd probably change his stance even though no new information with respect to his logic and reasoning showed up. And vice versa, if an anti-GMOer found that all the biotech people he met at a BBQ were kind, pleasant, thoughtful people, he would not think as ill of GMO as before that, even if GMO tech was not discussed at all.
And then if those were singular events for both of our characters, without them meeting any biotech people in person again, both would revert to their pre-meeting positions in a matter of weeks, again without any new information about the topic.
That thought experiment makes me seriously doubt the usefulness of what we are doing here.
Not necessarily cancer increase but primarily the probability -- not at all tiny -- of disrupting the system in an unpredictable ways, when the goal can be achieved by other means. Would you use a hypothetical new experimental drug that is a substitute for exercise in that it say, reduces some cardiovascular problems, when you can go out and exercise? (Assuming you can, if you are not bed bound for example.) You wouldn't, because three years of trials don't show what side effects can happen in ten or twenty years. You'll only know that it won't outright kill you in three years.
I was referring to GMOs in general -- unless a plant (or an animal?) has that "terminator" gene, it has the potential for spreading by natural means which cannot be tightly controlled except in a lab. All of us living species propagate geometrically, do we not? For each one of us there is one + x on the average in the next generation. X changes over time, but usually goes down from up after overpopulation and exhaustion of resources. That is my understanding.
"Plausible mechanism" implies a solid, robust model, and that we have completely understood the interactions. Reality is we don't know, and in the field of life sciences, we *always* get surprised by something we did not expect. Every single time.
Re thalidomide, appreciate the correction. My argument stays though, it is wrong to risk huge unknowns for minor gains. (Unlike other anti-GMOers perhaps, I am in favor of GMOs where the gains are potentially huge and cannot be achieved any other way. I am also in favor of practicing GMO technology in a very controlled way so we can apply it when we need.)
You may have missed the part of the "extremely unlikely changes" propagating geometrically. Any sort of breeding creates changes that are statistically not that far from natural selection processes in terms of probability. Typical GMO changes are statistically incredibly unlikely to happen during the dominant statistical processes we call "natural" and for which has the process of evolution adjusted. That makes the process more unpredictable, and justified in doing only in extreme situations.
Kind of like giving highly experimental drugs to very sick patients without prospect of recovery otherwise is justified, while giving Ritalin to overactive kids -- or, for a darker shade of dark, giving thalidomide to mothers experiencing typical labor pains -- isn't.
The status of ArmoredDragon financial or other potential gains from GMOs is also very important to judge the value of the information in his post, I think you will agree.
Don't those activists have faith that scientists can accurately predict all possible interactions in the real world from their models for decades ahead? Do they not understand that using the geometric progression to propagate extremely unlikely changes in genetic material is not a cause for concern because the models are so good they do not allow any room for errors?
Btw you do not work in biotech, do you? I would like to think that you advocate more GMOs for purely ethical reasons and not because you stand to gain from GMOs in any way.
"In one of the most brilliant papers in the English language Hume made it clear that what we speak of as 'causality' is nothing more than the phenomenon of repetition. When we mix sulphur with saltpeter and charcoal we always get gunpowder. This is true of every event subsumed by a causal law — in other words, everything which can be called scientific knowledge. "It is custom which rules," Hume said, and in that one sentence undermined both science and philosophy." -- Philip K. Dick
She only lost because Russia and China inflated their GDP. That, and a bit of Comey. And misogyny of course.
This could well have been just two ladies reading from a script -- if so that's the cheapest demo in the history of high profile demos. My hats off to Google for that!
I imagine that such a candidate was even offered as a choice in the first place was a direct reflection of the state we were in -- totalitarian-leaning people thought they could get away with it. If so then Hillary, endorsed by the likes of Schmidt, was part of the package that was rejected, which maybe includes identity politics as well. That's at least the rationalization for my optimism.
Also there was Brexit...
He applied linear thinking and took it to the extreme to make a good story. But societies go through cycles. The tide turned in 2016 -- perhaps as a consequence of the 2008 crash -- where people have rejected, democratically speaking, the vision that had been offered to them, of which this is a part. Try as he might have, Schmidt couldn't help Hillary win.
There is really no causation, only repetition:
"In one of the most brilliant papers in the English language Hume made it clear that what we speak of as 'causality' is nothing more than the phenomenon of repetition. When we mix sulphur with saltpeter and charcoal we always get gunpowder. This is true of every event subsumed by a causal law — in other words, everything which can be called scientific knowledge. "It is custom which rules," Hume said, and in that one sentence undermined both science and philosophy." -- Philip K. Dick
This isn't really a good time to judge by because not only the politicians but people too have never been so polarized. They congressmen are less doing what they are told and more genuinely believing the other side are such idiots if they are pushing for something then it must be a terrible idea (or are doing it just for cheap points with their base, which is kinda what I think about this particular vote).
It matters less than you think. Unlike in European parliaments where members need to vote along the party line or they'll be kicked out and replaced, the US congressmen have primarily their constituency to please. So a Democrat in a very conservative area may be pro life and a Republican in a very liberal area may be pro choice.
Tim Cook is an influential and respected member of the community. He did help create lots of jobs and his decisions had impact on the economy on the order of hundreds of billions of dollars. He has seen and known far more than you or I in the area of tariffs and to a lesser degree immigration, therefore his opinion has far more weight than mine or yours (very likely -- can't say since you posted as AC, you could be Tim Cook).
To a degree, Tim Cook is an elder in the community, so his opinions are worth considering, even by Trump, which I believe he does.
That said, why post as AC? I support Trump as well. Let's stop this nonsense about hiding from supporting a legitimate president.