Let's not even fucking pretend we give a shit about being malevolent. Greed welcomes that activity.
Funny that the devil you don't know might not be nicer. Suppose we create a place where greed is allowed but malevolence is not. I don't know, would that be a place to be?
What you have to worry about is your own efficiency. Best way is to find roads that are good at moving volume and if possible use roads when fewer people are doing the same. Second best case: only spending a few extra minutes in a logjam, i.e., having no more than a short distance to go in crowded conditions.
Finding roads is a matter of exploring alternate routes, seeing which is typically overloaded.
For future tech: dense population areas might achieve speedups by communicating with vehicles and alternating priorities between long segments of travel. Say there are several clustered vehicles planning to go from region A to region B while there is a cluster planning to go from region C to region D, and even another planning to go from E to F, and so on.
Then if there is a server that can control traffic lights, and these vehicles talk to the server, the lights can be controlled to prioritize A-B (and other non-interfering paths) for some time, C-D for some time, E-F for some time (perhaps as long as 5 or 10 minutes if the clusters are large), etc., that could speed up travel in crowded conditions. Alternatively, it can be simply advertised that a few particular region pairs become prioritized during rush hour(s), and then people can conform to the region pairs that are most suited, or avoid routes that involve the mass movements because there will be tons of people queuing up for their turn.
Having prioritizing periods could drain large portions of traffic as opposed to just letting people have a free-for-all, and then they just inch along wondering what all the taillights ahead are thinking of. Freeways were the dumb (i.e., low tech) way to join large population sources and drains. The freeways filled up quickly because they brought people to an area that was a lot slower. In these areas, there are still finer grains of mass movement, and if these areas are handled with a prioritization scheme, masses of people can be gotten out of the way
For those that don't know. The frequency of AC power is an indicator of the supply and demand status of the grid. The frequency is determined by the speed of the generators at the power station. If there is too much load on the generators, they slow down, and the grid frequency drops.
The Australian grid is targeting 50Hz, and had dropped to 49.8Hz.
.2 Hz is 0.4 %
How robust would a grid be if it was designed to run at 200 mHz? Would it flatline (DC) when there's a power loss? Or would it still just lose 0.4 %?
The simple fact is that the essential quality control involved in scientific publication - vetting the scientific content and standardizing the presentation - is expensive... Traditionally, that work has been done by publishers who charge subscription fees... When they started, they predicted that vetting, copy-editing and maintaining an article online could easily be done for under $1000. But they now charge authors several thousand dollars to publish an article...
This is the YouTube age. For the sake of becoming reknown, don't need journals.
Reproduce the lab work as a video, then present the theory in a nice tidy package.
Not sure what the cost would be to the researcher, but the societal benefit would be a lot quicker to propagate. Journals used to be good for listing massive bibliographies, but websites can do that too. Websites can host the video presentations too.
I've seen some nice presentations on YouTube but people try to make videos that reach wide audiences that might not understand the deep details. Well, a presentation of research lab work should be done for new research, and the thoughts should be explained to reach wide audiences too. It's not good enough just to make the traditional seminar presentation. A video can capture so much more depth, explain the intuitions, show the assembly and application of apparatus (including the lab rats and guinea pigs), show the intermediate results that led to different branches of thought, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.
I find it remarkably hypocritical that the SPCA of all organizations is chasing homeless people away from their local headquarters. Don't they realize that people are animals too, and deserving of at least the same caring and consideration that they'd give to homeless cats or dogs? Do they think that horses and cattle are deserving of their attentions but homeless humans aren't?
It's hypocritical to use machines. We need to see that little Spike and Fido are capable of keeping out the lowlifes.
> rich liberals want to protect their property values with artificial scarcity by electing city governments and zoning boards that issue nearly zero permits for housing construction
Problem is not that the rich have too much power but that the poor have too little power.
Why?
Machines are taking the power away? This is the mechanics but not the cause.
The cause is that the people are not taking the power back. People just keep doing the same thing that they did traditionally, thinking that things have been designed or evolved for the greater good. Silicon Valley is a small microcosm of empowering people, but the world does not catch on to the scale of the self effort they have to go through.
I recently did a lot of self study where I gained tremendous amounts of practical knowledge. I can tell you this was incredibly difficult and appeared abnormal to many people. But some of these people are now seeing that normal doesn't cut it if they want to achieve the same things.
This is not to say I am safe from the machines. I just learned something about self improvement.
side stepping minimum wage laws. Thing is, I'm guessing 99% of/.ers aren't in a position to worry about this. What we _are_ in a position to worry about is how 40 years of stagnant wages mean it's harder and harder for us to make ends meet. So we'll turn a blind eye. Thing is this will come around to bite us eventually, but when you're barely hanging on eventually doesn't really matter. Me? I'm just trying to get my kid through college and to hell with everything else. And that about sums it up. The working class is too busy surviving to band together and make a positive change. It's almost as if somebody designed it that way...
But that is patently false. With all the power of the Internet and people talking about issues, change for the better should be happening.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
When I was young, there was no Internet and the idea of a personal computer crawled out of the swamps of the vacuum tube era, yet there was still plenty of technology and angst over class distinction.
What is behind the problems, well what changed? There have been both positive and negative changes. Positive: better technology Positive: cleaner energy, taking more care of the environment Positive: increased scientific knowledge Positive: kinder, friendlier world insofar as policy, awareness, propaganda, etc. Negative: increased distraction of better entertainment Negative: fewer people needed to produce the same output Negative: more regulations, more Big Brother Negative: entry level competition is stiffer as niches are filled and standards are set
I look at the TV shows where people are "innovative" and look for angel investment. What do a lot of these people "innovate"? Clothing, craft food, exercise gimmicks, cosmetics, etc. One thing I don't do much of is walk through a mall, but if I did, the little shops in malls sell just this kind of crap too. Who buys this stuff? People with time on their hands, I suppose.
And now that there are fewer malls and more big boxes, I go into a big box and it's like a mall without walls. All the same crap is there only on a bunch of shelves. Row after row of very similar products, and not cheap either. And no one coming closes than a ten foot pole.
So are wages going to stagnate? Complaining won't do any good. Sales stagnated, but wages won't? Even upper management is hurting. If people are trying to make a quick kill on bitcoin, it isn't because they're rich to start with, it's because they're staring down the barrel of a gun. Can't push a rope.
The thing is, some people are actually trying to "innovate", that is, use the stuff between their ears, trying to do more. And then surely to God with all the technology available in the world, the creme de la creme would be the only ones making it onto prime time TV in order to talk to multimillionaires and not waste their time with weirdo gimmicks, or does that not make any sense? But even so, in order to fill up an hour of programming time, the majority that shows up is a bunch of rejects.
It's time to wake the hell up. It's time to "worry about this". Guess who or what is coming to eat your lunch? Machine intelligence. Then again, what does it matter? It's not a question of people being beaten by machines. I have observed plenty of human intelligence, and people are undeniably smart, but really and oddly not that smart either.
One solution may be to just let change happen. There are still very innovative people trying to make big differences, and the result is an outpouring of big differences, though it seems that things aren't changing fast enough, yet too fast all at the same time. We can question their motives and be aghast at some of the consequences. It is the throes and chaos of change. Not all change is driven by purity and light, and some is whimsical or stupid or impulsive, in short, wild and unstoppable.
Energy has always sought a lower level. The result is that someone will no
Two things 1. so true 2. pretty soon there will be a lot fewer people down the line, with no abatement in output or production
The effects are hard to predict. Prices probably will drop. Not sure what people will do for an income. Possibly people will seek higher goals such as space exploration, if Star Wars puts the message inspirationally enough across.
For a long time the third world has been exploited. The advent of machines and more streamlined business practices have led to people closer to home under the yoke. Perhaps that is a blessing in disguise, as people get an early warning that they have to find something more worthy to do.
Some might say, let change start at the top - but Amazon is all about change already. If you want Amazon to change (i.e., be less hurtful), you barketh up the wrong tree. Amazon has been ahead of the curve on an idea, but the idea will persist and evolve and spread to other businesses. Amazon's way is not entirely rocket science, and they face diminishing returns while trying to keep their advantage.
What is interesting is that Amazon is able to convince some people to work so hard (perhaps these people are natural born workaholics). Therein lies a power that is difficult to compete against. I have seen different businesses try to copy a model, but the ones that did not have good workers failed or stagnated while the ones with good workers did better and flourished in good times.
Even so, Amazon has already known well in advance that it cannot sit still because technology is allowing smaller competitors to catch up, even as technology is also changing economics.
> >so it can push not just packages but also services that come through it, like handymen, dog-walkers, groceries, you name it
>no way in hell am i going to let amazon or anyone
Here's a new take. If more people are being granted access to the domicile, why not have amazon provide the people that you really want in - security, housekeepers, cooks, babysitters, plumbers, Jehovah's witnesses (well maybe not that one), etc. You might not be able to afford to give any one of these full time work, but if there's a pool of them, it might be worth it to save your own time on menial work. Rather than needing a special lock and paraphernalia/paranoia, you live a more open life harking back to the days when people didn't even leave their doors locked.
I, for one, welcome our amazon overlords^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H extended family.
Unfortunately, in the UK, this won't work. One home owner installed his own close-to-lock box. Couriers from various companies then started using it without his permission as a "safe place" for other people to collect their parcel deliveries. He had to remove the lock box due to the hassle of strangers coming round and hammering on his door wanting their items back.
Technological solution: install an array of boxes for the others, charge rent
Yes. So, how do you price a game in bitcoin? If a game is $39.95 USD, how much bitcoin do you charge for it, if the value of 'one bitcoin' is fluctuating by four thousand dollars over the space of a week?
Is there anything that has a stable value? Any way to link a crytocurrency to gold, for instance, so that transactions are ***priced*** in gold rather than in so many coins. That way, business can be conducted as though gold was exchanged, and cryptocurrency would be usable, a radical concept.
Use cases are abstract. It's all theory. Who accepts cryptocurrency? The way things are going, who even understands it? Who even bothers? It's just entertainment to hear the numbers.
Suppose I have a car dealership. Now or soon I can sell a car for the low low price of 1 BTC. In this theoretical world, how do I use the cryptocurrency? What's the economics? People are driven to own cryptocurrency but not to spend it anyways, because it's so deflationary. Today I can buy a car. Tomorrow I can buy a house. The day after it's good for a yacht. But if I have a yacht and you have a bitcoin, you don't get near my yacht until I secure the purchase of something even more valuable, like a fighter jet, for that bitcoin. That way I don't hold the bag. The bitcoin is a medium that deflates a future purchase but it takes a lot of work to eliminate the risk. You would think that having done the work to earn some pocket change, you don't want another full time job just to spend it.
One day I'll tell the kids they don't know the value of a BTC, the way they scatter them around.
That 1 BTC that costs $5,000 to mine is worth $13,000 USD at today's exchange rate. Good luck convincing anyone that that's a stupid investment, especially if they've already dumped the capital into mining gear.
So someone is thinking "I know I could mine a bitcoin for x today but I want it bad enough to buy it for nx where n > 1."
What is that person thinking? The value of the bitcoin could go up much higher, to mx where m > n. Then profit is (m-n)x. The miner could profit at (n-1)x now or (m-1)x later.
I can see some people with spare cash trying to make a quick kill. It's probably faster than flipping houses. Then again, how long can this go on before the bubble pops?
Eventually, x goes up to the point where n approaches 1 (and m approaches n). So the speculators will probably be out of the game, but who will still be in the game? If x is prohibitively high, yet the result of the work is practically worth no more than the cost of the work, what is the point?
Bitcoin is appealing as an idea. Does the math make sense? It's surprising that people are throwing so much money into it.
Well, why not just *** declare *** that all remaining coins are to be allocated and sold rather than mined? The price is high enough, for God's sake.
It should just be a matter of coding to switch to an auction of the remaining coins. What are people going to do when there are n, n-1, n-2,..., 1 coin left to mine anyways?
But what's with the high price of bitcoin? Is that due to some people trying to game the system? Are some people trying to own all/the most bitcoins? I can see some billionaire(s) trying to own all bitcoin as a lark. After all, you can't take it with you.
No, the stink of corruption rises form the attempt to disassemble the US government, parcel the things of value out to private enterprises and shove the cost of paying for this theft off on to the middle-class
IMHO government corruption is a side effect, perhaps an illusion. Yet corruption does exist. Where?
Looking objectively, the government is extremely troubled, like a car stuck in deep snow. There's a lot of thrashing and inner panic. There's desperation to deal with numerous problems but not enough ability to get anywhere.
For sure, there are a lot of corrupt people in power, and power corrupts. Yet with so many corrupt people, the government has failed to implode generations ago, over and over, leaving mankind to pick through the ruins of armageddon, so deep down there is still a desire to make things work.
The corruption isn't there all that much at the aggregate level (though micro levels could be rife with it), but at the aggregate level we seem to be going farther into the woods, not working our way out.
Many people have the freedoms to change things, try things, etc. Indeed, there are enormous opportunities for people to better themselves, counter to the idea that government is corrupt. In these circumstances, and by sheer proximity of people, there is a lot of friction and pain. This is unavoidable.
Indeed, people have the means to gather more and more information about other people, and it becomes inevitable that people will do so perhaps unwittingly or effortlessly. Is it natural for government (good or bad) to leverage this? Corporations are most likely to leverage it anyways, and if you are looking for corrupt entities, corporations are more likely to be incredibly corrupt. Is there anything in that Trump has a business background? It's doubtful - he could have stayed in the corporate world and probably would have become better off faster.
The only thing left for people to do is to handle the situation. There are cycles where technology makes life scarier. Then some technology might emerge to alleviate the problem, but one is always vulnerable in new ways.
Unfortunately, one of the things I've learned over the years is how little IQ correlates to anything useful; at least once you get much past 1.5 or 2 standard deviations over the mean.
But over lo these many years you inch farther and farther beyond the mean?
If the mean was ebbing, you could be just standing still. If the mean was also increasing, you would be getting smarter faster.
Then we come to the question of "correlate". There are a lot of useful things popping up all the time. Seems to be more stuff and more frequently on top of that, so more times more, or more squared. Does that mean if your increasing intelligence is just bumping up little by little over years and years, the correlation fails because the world is getting so much harder to keep up with?
Slashdot Mirror
Let's not even fucking pretend we give a shit about being malevolent. Greed welcomes that activity.
Funny that the devil you don't know might not be nicer. Suppose we create a place where greed is allowed but malevolence is not. I don't know, would that be a place to be?
> overall traffic flow seems most efficient
What you have to worry about is your own efficiency. Best way is to find roads that are good at moving volume and if possible use roads when fewer people are doing the same. Second best case: only spending a few extra minutes in a logjam, i.e., having no more than a short distance to go in crowded conditions.
Finding roads is a matter of exploring alternate routes, seeing which is typically overloaded.
For future tech: dense population areas might achieve speedups by communicating with vehicles and alternating priorities between long segments of travel. Say there are several clustered vehicles planning to go from region A to region B while there is a cluster planning to go from region C to region D, and even another planning to go from E to F, and so on.
Then if there is a server that can control traffic lights, and these vehicles talk to the server, the lights can be controlled to prioritize A-B (and other non-interfering paths) for some time, C-D for some time, E-F for some time (perhaps as long as 5 or 10 minutes if the clusters are large), etc., that could speed up travel in crowded conditions. Alternatively, it can be simply advertised that a few particular region pairs become prioritized during rush hour(s), and then people can conform to the region pairs that are most suited, or avoid routes that involve the mass movements because there will be tons of people queuing up for their turn.
Having prioritizing periods could drain large portions of traffic as opposed to just letting people have a free-for-all, and then they just inch along wondering what
all the taillights ahead are thinking of. Freeways were the dumb (i.e., low tech) way to join large population sources and drains. The freeways filled up quickly because they brought people to an area that was a lot slower. In these areas, there are still finer grains of mass movement, and if these areas are handled with a prioritization scheme, masses of people can be gotten out of the way
For those that don't know. The frequency of AC power is an indicator of the supply and demand status of the grid. The frequency is determined by the speed of the generators at the power station. If there is too much load on the generators, they slow down, and the grid frequency drops.
The Australian grid is targeting 50Hz, and had dropped to 49.8Hz.
.2 Hz is 0.4 %
How robust would a grid be if it was designed to run at 200 mHz? Would it flatline (DC) when there's a power loss? Or would it still just lose 0.4 %?
The simple fact is that the essential quality control involved in scientific publication - vetting the scientific content and standardizing the presentation - is expensive... Traditionally, that work has been done by publishers who charge subscription fees ... When they started, they predicted that vetting, copy-editing and maintaining an article online could easily be done for under $1000. But they now charge authors several thousand dollars to publish an article ...
This is the YouTube age. For the sake of becoming reknown, don't need journals.
Reproduce the lab work as a video, then present the theory in a nice tidy package.
Not sure what the cost would be to the researcher, but the societal benefit would be a lot quicker to propagate. Journals used to be good for listing massive bibliographies, but websites can do that too. Websites can host the video presentations too.
I've seen some nice presentations on YouTube but people try to make videos that reach wide audiences that might not understand the deep details. Well, a presentation of research lab work should be done for new research, and the thoughts should be explained to reach wide audiences too. It's not good enough just to make the traditional seminar presentation. A video can capture so much more depth, explain the intuitions, show the assembly and application of apparatus (including the lab rats and guinea pigs), show the intermediate results that led to different branches of thought, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.
I find it remarkably hypocritical that the SPCA of all organizations is chasing homeless people away from their local headquarters. Don't they realize that people are animals too, and deserving of at least the same caring and consideration that they'd give to homeless cats or dogs? Do they think that horses and cattle are deserving of their attentions but homeless humans aren't?
It's hypocritical to use machines. We need to see that little Spike and Fido are capable of keeping out the lowlifes.
Humans are also animals.
According to the learned, humans are machines.
> rich liberals want to protect their property values with artificial scarcity by electing city governments and zoning boards that issue nearly zero permits for housing construction
Problem is not that the rich have too much power but that the poor have too little power.
Why?
Machines are taking the power away? This is the mechanics but not the cause.
The cause is that the people are not taking the power back. People just keep doing the same thing that they did traditionally, thinking that things have been designed or evolved for the greater good. Silicon Valley is a small microcosm of empowering people, but the world does not catch on to the scale of the self effort they have to go through.
I recently did a lot of self study where I gained tremendous amounts of practical knowledge. I can tell you this was incredibly difficult and appeared abnormal to many people. But some of these people are now seeing that normal doesn't cut it if they want to achieve the same things.
This is not to say I am safe from the machines. I just learned something about self improvement.
> extra $50 ... support a wife and ...
Interesting, looking at the Rachel Jeffs story, her father Warren Jeffs had 70 wives (50 kids), but he was running a $100M empire.
Yes, you do have to think big, apparently.
side stepping minimum wage laws. Thing is, I'm guessing 99% of /.ers aren't in a position to worry about this. What we _are_ in a position to worry about is how 40 years of stagnant wages mean it's harder and harder for us to make ends meet. So we'll turn a blind eye. Thing is this will come around to bite us eventually, but when you're barely hanging on eventually doesn't really matter. Me? I'm just trying to get my kid through college and to hell with everything else. And that about sums it up. The working class is too busy surviving to band together and make a positive change. It's almost as if somebody designed it that way...
But that is patently false. With all the power of the Internet and people talking about issues, change for the better should be happening.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
When I was young, there was no Internet and the idea of a personal computer crawled out of the swamps of the vacuum tube era, yet there was still plenty of technology and angst over class distinction.
What is behind the problems, well what changed? There have been both positive and negative changes.
Positive: better technology
Positive: cleaner energy, taking more care of the environment
Positive: increased scientific knowledge
Positive: kinder, friendlier world insofar as policy, awareness, propaganda, etc.
Negative: increased distraction of better entertainment
Negative: fewer people needed to produce the same output
Negative: more regulations, more Big Brother
Negative: entry level competition is stiffer as niches are filled and standards are set
I look at the TV shows where people are "innovative" and look for angel investment. What do a lot of these people "innovate"? Clothing, craft food, exercise gimmicks, cosmetics, etc. One thing I don't do much of is walk through a mall, but if I did, the little shops in malls sell just this kind of crap too. Who buys this stuff? People with time on their hands, I suppose.
And now that there are fewer malls and more big boxes, I go into a big box and it's like a mall without walls. All the same crap is there only on a bunch of shelves. Row after row of very similar products, and not cheap either. And no one coming closes than a ten foot pole.
So are wages going to stagnate? Complaining won't do any good. Sales stagnated, but wages won't? Even upper management is hurting. If people are trying to make a quick kill on bitcoin, it isn't because they're rich to start with, it's because they're staring down the barrel of a gun. Can't push a rope.
The thing is, some people are actually trying to "innovate", that is, use the stuff between their ears, trying to do more. And then surely to God with all the technology available in the world, the creme de la creme would be the only ones making it onto prime time TV in order to talk to multimillionaires and not waste their time with weirdo gimmicks, or does that not make any sense? But even so, in order to fill up an hour of programming time, the majority that shows up is a bunch of rejects.
It's time to wake the hell up. It's time to "worry about this". Guess who or what is coming to eat your lunch? Machine intelligence. Then again, what does it matter? It's not a question of people being beaten by machines. I have observed plenty of human intelligence, and people are undeniably smart, but really and oddly not that smart either.
One solution may be to just let change happen. There are still very innovative people trying to make big differences, and the result is an outpouring of big differences, though it seems that things aren't changing fast enough, yet too fast all at the same time. We can question their motives and be aghast at some of the consequences. It is the throes and chaos of change. Not all change is driven by purity and light, and some is whimsical or stupid or impulsive, in short, wild and unstoppable.
Energy has always sought a lower level. The result is that someone will no
My dick's growing shorter
> a lot of people down the line are being fucked
Two things
1. so true
2. pretty soon there will be a lot fewer people down the line, with no abatement in output or production
The effects are hard to predict. Prices probably will drop. Not sure what people will do for an income. Possibly people will seek higher goals such as space exploration, if Star Wars puts the message inspirationally enough across.
For a long time the third world has been exploited. The advent of machines and more streamlined business practices have led to people closer to home under the yoke. Perhaps that is a blessing in disguise, as people get an early warning that they have to find something more worthy to do.
Some might say, let change start at the top - but Amazon is all about change already. If you want Amazon to change (i.e., be less hurtful), you barketh up the wrong tree. Amazon has been ahead of the curve on an idea, but the idea will persist and evolve and spread to other businesses. Amazon's way is not entirely rocket science, and they face diminishing returns while trying to keep their advantage.
What is interesting is that Amazon is able to convince some people to work so hard (perhaps these people are natural born workaholics). Therein lies a power that is difficult to compete against. I have seen different businesses try to copy a model, but the ones that did not have good workers failed or stagnated while the ones with good workers did better and flourished in good times.
Even so, Amazon has already known well in advance that it cannot sit still because technology is allowing smaller competitors to catch up, even as technology is also changing economics.
Tomorrow, it will be manual controls disabled unless you pay the 500% self-drive (i.e.: think "self-serve", you get to drive it your self!) premium.
That day, self drive shouldn't require insurance.
Self drive should just work, no mistakes. Do you expect that from tires? Who buys tire failure insurance? Yet tire failure is damn scary.
> > keep finding hidden cameras
>Airwithout their consent
Precisely. That's why the cameras have to be OVERT. Post signs that cameras are present.
Cameras are security mechanisms and justified.
>videotaping someone nude
Set up a special room for that (but there also has to be other rooms that guarantee privacy). Bring it on.
> >so it can push not just packages but also services that come through it, like handymen, dog-walkers, groceries, you name it
>no way in hell am i going to let amazon or anyone
Here's a new take. If more people are being granted access to the domicile, why not have amazon provide the people that you really want in - security, housekeepers, cooks, babysitters, plumbers, Jehovah's witnesses (well maybe not that one), etc. You might not be able to afford to give any one of these full time work, but if there's a pool of them, it might be worth it to save your own time on menial work. Rather than needing a special lock and paraphernalia/paranoia, you live a more open life harking back to the days when people didn't even leave their doors locked.
I, for one, welcome our amazon overlords^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H extended family.
Unfortunately, in the UK, this won't work. One home owner installed his own close-to-lock box. Couriers from various companies then started using it without his permission as a "safe place" for other people to collect their parcel deliveries. He had to remove the lock box due to the hassle of strangers coming round and hammering on his door wanting their items back.
Technological solution: install an array of boxes for the others, charge rent
Yes. So, how do you price a game in bitcoin? If a game is $39.95 USD, how much bitcoin do you charge for it, if the value of 'one bitcoin' is fluctuating by four thousand dollars over the space of a week?
Is there anything that has a stable value? Any way to link a crytocurrency to gold, for instance, so that transactions are ***priced*** in gold rather than in so many coins. That way, business can be conducted as though gold was exchanged, and cryptocurrency would be usable, a radical concept.
> use cases
Use cases are abstract. It's all theory. Who accepts cryptocurrency? The way things are going, who even understands it? Who even bothers? It's just entertainment to hear the numbers.
Suppose I have a car dealership. Now or soon I can sell a car for the low low price of 1 BTC. In this theoretical world, how do I use the cryptocurrency? What's the economics? People are driven to own cryptocurrency but not to spend it anyways, because it's so deflationary. Today I can buy a car. Tomorrow I can buy a house. The day after it's good for a yacht. But if I have a yacht and you have a bitcoin, you don't get near my yacht until I secure the purchase of something even more valuable, like a fighter jet, for that bitcoin. That way I don't hold the bag. The bitcoin is a medium that deflates a future purchase but it takes a lot of work to eliminate the risk. You would think that having done the work to earn some pocket change, you don't want another full time job just to spend it.
One day I'll tell the kids they don't know the value of a BTC, the way they scatter them around.
> regrowing plant material
Simple win-win: genetically modified bitcoins that grow on trees
At any rate, computing the PoW on quantum computers or DNA computers might solve (or might exacerbate) the power usage.
That 1 BTC that costs $5,000 to mine is worth $13,000 USD at today's exchange rate. Good luck convincing anyone that that's a stupid investment, especially if they've already dumped the capital into mining gear.
So someone is thinking "I know I could mine a bitcoin for x today but I want it bad enough to buy it for nx where n > 1."
What is that person thinking? The value of the bitcoin could go up much higher, to mx where m > n. Then profit is (m-n)x. The miner could profit at (n-1)x now or (m-1)x later.
I can see some people with spare cash trying to make a quick kill. It's probably faster than flipping houses. Then again, how long can this go on before the bubble pops?
Eventually, x goes up to the point where n approaches 1 (and m approaches n). So the speculators will probably be out of the game, but who will still be in the game? If x is prohibitively high, yet the result of the work is practically worth no more than the cost of the work, what is the point?
Bitcoin is appealing as an idea. Does the math make sense? It's surprising that people are throwing so much money into it.
> x million left to mine
Well, why not just *** declare *** that all remaining coins are to be allocated and sold rather than mined? The price is high enough, for God's sake.
It should just be a matter of coding to switch to an auction of the remaining coins. What are people going to do when there are n, n-1, n-2, ..., 1 coin left to mine anyways?
> game the system
But what's with the high price of bitcoin? Is that due to some people trying to game the system? Are some people trying to own all/the most bitcoins? I can see some billionaire(s) trying to own all bitcoin as a lark. After all, you can't take it with you.
No, the stink of corruption rises form the attempt to disassemble the US government, parcel the things of value out to private enterprises and shove the cost of paying for this theft off on to the middle-class
IMHO government corruption is a side effect, perhaps an illusion. Yet corruption does exist. Where?
Looking objectively, the government is extremely troubled, like a car stuck in deep snow. There's a lot of thrashing and inner panic. There's desperation to deal with numerous problems but not enough ability to get anywhere.
For sure, there are a lot of corrupt people in power, and power corrupts. Yet with so many corrupt people, the government has failed to implode generations ago, over and over, leaving mankind to pick through the ruins of armageddon, so deep down there is still a desire to make things work.
The corruption isn't there all that much at the aggregate level (though micro levels could be rife with it), but at the aggregate level we seem to be going farther into the woods, not working our way out.
Many people have the freedoms to change things, try things, etc. Indeed, there are enormous opportunities for people to better themselves, counter to the idea that government is corrupt. In these circumstances, and by sheer proximity of people, there is a lot of friction and pain. This is unavoidable.
Indeed, people have the means to gather more and more information about other people, and it becomes inevitable that people will do so perhaps unwittingly or effortlessly. Is it natural for government (good or bad) to leverage this? Corporations are most likely to leverage it anyways, and if you are looking for corrupt entities, corporations are more likely to be incredibly corrupt. Is there anything in that Trump has a business background? It's doubtful - he could have stayed in the corporate world and probably would have become better off faster.
The only thing left for people to do is to handle the situation. There are cycles where technology makes life scarier. Then some technology might emerge to alleviate the problem, but one is always vulnerable in new ways.
> between Legos
You're almost there.
Basically, the fun toy you need is between the legs.
Japan refuses to have nukes.
Japan, having been nuked, might get kinda PO'd by now?
Unfortunately, one of the things I've learned over the years is how little IQ correlates to anything useful; at least once you get much past 1.5 or 2 standard deviations over the mean.
But over lo these many years you inch farther and farther beyond the mean?
If the mean was ebbing, you could be just standing still. If the mean was also increasing, you would be getting smarter faster.
Then we come to the question of "correlate". There are a lot of useful things popping up all the time. Seems to be more stuff and more frequently on top of that, so more times more, or more squared. Does that mean if your increasing intelligence is just bumping up little by little over years and years, the correlation fails because the world is getting so much harder to keep up with?