One of the few comments to touch on the kernel of the problem, but no direct mention of corporate cancers like the google. Or to put it in religious terms:
"There is no gawd but Profit, and the google must become Profit's #1 prophet."
Why would I want to use Outlook? To get away from the google. I'd prefer weak, old evil to the strong and fresh stuff. Microsoft actually has the resources to offer a superior email client--but they don't and I suppose they never will.
Upon reflection, I now feel like the Ask Slashdot question is ill formed. I am not one to have favorites, but there are definitely good and bad features of some email programs, and I could list a number of important features that I've been wanting and even advocating for over the years. Still waiting.
By the way, regarding the comments about filtering, these days my Gmail false positive rate is running around 10%, though the false negatives are still near the usual 1%. There are REAL solutions to the spam problems, but filtering is proven to be a minor annoyance to the spammers. Hint: Where is your pump-and-dump stock scam spam?
Glad to see the references to Eudora. It certainly was my favorite in its time, though I wouldn't go as far as some of the comments here...
Too bad there wasn't a better economic model in place to keep Eudora alive. Part of the general problem of corporate cancers seeking profit (instead of satisfied users seeking cost recovery for services received).
I agree with you about the transaction tax, but I think you can't say why. My elevator explanation is that the lack of any transaction charge is like allowing a friction-free engine to accelerate without limit. Whatever the engine is made of, at some point it is going to explode.
As regards the tax increase, I think you were just guessing completely wildly. My suggested principle would be a pro-freedom pro-choice progressive profit tax based on market share. The goal would be to insure there are enough players in each market to allow for freedom and meaningful choice. At the same time, competition should be balanced so that we aren't all living at the edge of starvation, which is the natural state of free competition. In corporate terms, starvation also corresponds to bankruptcy. In other words, too much competition becomes counterproductive, but too little competition is bad in other ways.
Hard for me to see what is going on. Apparently this topic has provoked a lot of ACs, but I don't see them... However you [marcle] have brushed on another interesting threat Facebook poses to the people who, like you, don't use Facebook.
If someone wants to steal your personal information, they can actually use Facebook to sneak up on you from behind. I actually think I've seen evidence of fake identities created on SMS systems to seek links to people who are NOT using those SMS systems. I think it's more on LinkedIn than Facebook (but my evidence is limited), but the scam is pretty obvious and clever--and near as I can tell none of the SMS systems have a strong economic reason to fight it as hard as it should be fought.
In case it isn't clear already, imagine that someone knows you are not on Facebook. Then they collect as much personal information as they can from other places where you are visible in public (so it works better with actual celebrities) and use that data to create a fake Facebook account in your name. The data will already give them some people who know you, but if they are smart they won't directly approach your close friends on Facebook, but rather look for less close friends who will "friend" you on Facebook without much risk of telling you. Or they can wait for other people to notice and "friend" you. In all the cases the goal is to fish for more information to build a more complete dossier of the target.
I can't tell if I'm paranoid or have a criminal mindset.
In the era of corporate cancerism, of course the cancers grow toward their 'blood' supplies. Soulless inhuman machines programmed to seek profit will always try to increase profits by doing more of whatever is generating profit.
In religious terms: "There is no gawd but Profit and Apple is Profit's #1 prophet."
However Facebook has a dream. It wants to become a much larger cancer so that it can swallow Apple, too. Same sick dream as each and every other corporate cancer. They are not programmed to worry about death of the host society.
Facebook's economic model is to capture your time by exploiting your social instincts to like other people. Family members? Friends? Partisan political sympathizers? Whatever. As long as you trust them enough to spend more time on Facebook, the profit seems to increase. Damn the torpedoes, and full speed ahead on the creative accounting.
Solution? Change the economic model, but I've already written my thoughts on how. Let's hear your better idea! Just kidding. On today's Slashdot I have to expect a flood of snark with perhaps a delayed flow of actual thought.
The price cuts might be driven by competition, which would be okay, or by Moore's Law and its corollaries, which would be even better, but I think this pricing probably reflects a fundamental reappraisal of the value of possessing your data. Once they have their hands on your data, you are the one with the burden of getting it away from them--and you can never be certain that they didn't retain a copy. There might even be incentivizing from the actual legal authorities to make their own work easier. After all, you have nothing to hide if you aren't don't anything wrong!
In shorter words: If possessing your data becomes more valuable on the back end, then of course the google would feel justified in encouraging you to give them more data by cutting the front-end prices.
Of course, considering the snarkiness of today's Slashdot, aggravated by the low quality of the moderation, I probably should include an explanation of the old legal saying "Possession is nine points of the law." At least that might make the snark look a bit snarkier?
I've noticed. Actually, I think one of Trump's most amazing characteristics is what a terrible liar he is. It's kind of like political humor. The joke depends on understanding the reality, and Trump can't lie well because he can't recognize such basic concepts as truth and reality upon which to base more sophisticated lies.
Time for my little ontology of lies, but let me see if I can just dig up a link... That's extremely interesting. I know exactly what to look for and I know that I've published it in many places on the Web, and yet the google doesn't return ANY link to my writing. I even pushed it by adding my name to some of the searches, and still came up dry. However, one of the early hits is from someone else, who is an Internet acquaintance and who is citing my ontology as the first part of his comment.
I can speculatively address your second point. I was speculating that China would invade BOTH of them. As long as the US stayed out of it, I think China could overwhelm and control the little ones. After the fact was accomplished, they would just take the nukes and leave North Korea for South Korea to clean up, while focusing their own cleanup on Taiwan.
There seems to be some confusion here. I am NOT advocating that the Chinese communist form of corporate cancerism is superior to any other flavor. This is actually a separate topic, but I would argue that both capitalism and communism are dead and might as well be buried. Actually, there's a good argument that Taiwan is closer to capitalism than most countries these days, but it's the cancers that rule now.
My point is about the real-world politics of power-based negotiations. Trump wants to "win" against North Korea, which is not likely even though North Korea is objectively extremely weak. Kim is basically holding two cards: (1) All the hostages in Seoul, and (2) China's support. Trump is trying to offer ZTE's survival to Xi as an inducement to lean on Kim, and I don't think it's going to work. Yes, Xi is probably pissed about the ZTE fiasco, but it isn't that important to him. It might even be to his advantage to blame Trump for the declining growth rate in China rather than admit the uglier reality that high rates of growth are never sustainable.
Then again, maybe someone isn't talking to me. Some parts of this discussion seem pretty confused, even if I started the branch.
Are you saying there is a parent company somewhere else? I always thought it was a Chinese company?
Let me see what Wikipedia says... Near as I can tell, it's as Chinese as it gets (though I didn't know how high it ranked). So the joke was that Trump didn't know that?
I think that theory has crossed into conspiracy terrain. It would be much easier to get the malware integrated into the components at the American end. Actually, they probably wouldn't add the malware itself, but the hidden capability to trigger the installation of malware at some later date. That way they could avoid exposing anything to the Chinese, but all of the devices made with the components would be ready to go whenever needed.
I'm kind of unclear on your point. Most of your comment seems to be about the relative value of Taiwan versus North Korea (and I think I agree with your assessment there), but you quoted the part of my comment that was narrowly focused on the meeting next month.
Let me clarify that I think Xi could put enormous pressure on Kim to do various things, but I'm pretty sure he won't. In fact, one possible explanation for what is happening is that Xi wants to reduce Trump to Kim's level on the world stage, sort of a noisy nuisance that no one takes too seriously. (Same as Trump always was, but he never understood that and Trump is now living in total denial of reality.)
However I am sure I disagree with you on the last part. China does not "have Taiwan" the way they want to have it. The trade ties are important, but they know they could get a much better deal with a few divisions stationed there. Also that would take care of any mumbling about independence.
Good points, especially the last one, and I lament the lack of mod points to give you.
You did make me wonder how owners of ZTE phones feel about this mess. Maybe they were never popular? I've considered getting a ZTE a couple of times, but never did...
Hmm... Perhaps I should snatch one up in a liquidation sale? Out-of-production sales are usually the best prices, though the normal push is from the new models coming in.
Can you explain the joke? I seem to be missing it.
For all we really know, Putin might be one of the largest shareholders in ZTE... His dark fortune is mostly unknown, with estimates ranging from $20 billion to $200 billion.
I still think Trump's primary focus (and desperate hope) is to get Xi to lean on Kim. I read Trump as desperate to get something out of the June 12th meeting, but the most likely scenario is that Kim is teeing Trump up for a YUGE punt. Actually, Trump already defined a game of reverse chicken, by claiming he will "win" by walking out if he can't get what he wants. Under the terms of Trump's own game, I'm expecting Kim to walk out first and claim the win. China's next response to Trump will go along the lines of "Tut, tut, tut, Little Donald. Let's not do anything rash."
That's predicated on the theory that China basically likes things as they are now. I think China sees a strong and unified Korea as a probable nuisance and possible threat. Unless China sees some substantial advantage in an actual peace treaty, they might as well leave things as they are. Meanwhile Bolton keeps braying about the "Libya model" and Kim knows exactly how that one worked out. No sane dictator would give up his nukes to follow Qaddafi's lead.
My reasoning certainly could be flawed. I actually expected China to make a move before this. I figured the Chinese would offer Trump a deal of North Korea for Taiwan. I still think China is confident that they can integrate Taiwan with little problem and enormous profit, while South Korea would be kept busy for decades trying to heal and integrate North Korea. The lack of official peace in Korea has been mostly harmless, but the establishment of an independent Taiwan would really piss them off.
However the troll did raise an interesting point regarding the insider trading, though I certainly can't take it on his say so. So how else could smart insiders profit from their phone calls with Trump if they don't want to be so obvious as playing with ZTE? Future contracts? Gambles on related companies, both suppliers and customers?
Where is the insight in that tiny bit of fluff? There is an obvious peculiarity here: "Trump says America first, but NOT if it will hurt ZTE!" Not that the lie or self-contraindication is peculiar as regards Trump. The peculiar question is "Why?" Two obvious answer candidates:
(1) Trump is begging Xi to lean on little Kim Jong-Un to play nice next month. I do think Kim is insane, but not nearly insane enough to trust Trump, and it is possible that Trump realizes how embarrassing this fiasco could become. Libya model indeed.
(2) Someone is making money on this scam. Who did Trump telephone about this course reversal? Hint: Look for "sharp" investors who suddenly bought up a bunch of ZTE shares. In this case, we're back to the question of whether or not Trump got his own beak wet.
Actually reminds me of the ongoing Cohen fiasco. Was Cohen keeping all the loot, or was he kicking some back to Trump? In either case, it's going to be really hard to pardon him (which means Cohen is going to flip and drag ALL of Trump's skeletons out of the closet).
Simple counterexample will suffice to prove motivations count.
Where is all of your pump-and-dump stock scam spam? It's gone because they studied the motivations and cured the problem. After several academic papers were published proving that the scammers were effectively shaking money out of the tree, the authorities responded by changing the rules. The motive was profit, the profit was removed, and that specific problem was solved.
I'm not denying that motivations are difficult to figure out. In this case, I think the primary motive was probably pure stupidity of some sort. Or perhaps impure stupidity mixed with viciousness?
Mindless vandalism? I'm trying to imagine what could motivate such a crime. What sort of grievance could justify attacking a system that lets people borrow bikes?
Just wants to annoy other people? Maybe he sells cars and he felt the bikes were hurting sales? Maybe he's just a mercenary working for the car salesman? Or maybe the prick did it simply because he could.
There are legitimate uses for anonymity. This is NOT one of them.
I know you're making a joke, but I was quite serious. I think that Trump is such a simpleminded buffoon that his behavior can be modeled quite accurately. I think Trump's complexity is close to a mouse's, and we are at the level where a mouse's behaviors can be modeled. My Roomba is already at the cockroach level.
If Putin's model of Trump shows that he is going to do what Putin wants or even something that Putin can profit from, then Putin does nothing. If the model shows that Trump is going to do something bad, then Putin might still do nothing and just take the profit from betting on the other side (since his assets are all dark) or Putin can tweak the inputs (via a few fools on FAUX or via the few Twitter accounts that #PresidentTweety follows or via some of the fools Trump calls) until Trump is ready to do what Putin prefers. In extreme cases, Putin could even tweak the situation to manipulate Trump's options.
Your defense of corporate cancerism is not persuasive, and I think degree matters. In this case it matters a lot.
Reflecting upon the situation, I now see a clear path to the destruction of America. Having divided and conquered the nation (largely under Putin's guidance and influence (as inherited from the old KGB)), historically (and hysterically) vindictive Trump is now focused on consolidating his grip on power and destroying his enemies. I think Trump sincerely believes his best course is to start a "safe" "little" war to force the nation to "unify" behind as a great war leader. That has made him a sucker for the advice of such fools as Bolton, who still hasn't realized how badly we lost the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the nation's weak and divided state, a real war may not only be lost, but may tear the entire country to pieces.
Slashdot Mirror
One of the few comments to touch on the kernel of the problem, but no direct mention of corporate cancers like the google. Or to put it in religious terms:
"There is no gawd but Profit, and the google must become Profit's #1 prophet."
That's what the program wants the AI to do.
Why would I want to use Outlook? To get away from the google. I'd prefer weak, old evil to the strong and fresh stuff. Microsoft actually has the resources to offer a superior email client--but they don't and I suppose they never will.
Upon reflection, I now feel like the Ask Slashdot question is ill formed. I am not one to have favorites, but there are definitely good and bad features of some email programs, and I could list a number of important features that I've been wanting and even advocating for over the years. Still waiting.
By the way, regarding the comments about filtering, these days my Gmail false positive rate is running around 10%, though the false negatives are still near the usual 1%. There are REAL solutions to the spam problems, but filtering is proven to be a minor annoyance to the spammers. Hint: Where is your pump-and-dump stock scam spam?
Glad to see the references to Eudora. It certainly was my favorite in its time, though I wouldn't go as far as some of the comments here...
Too bad there wasn't a better economic model in place to keep Eudora alive. Part of the general problem of corporate cancers seeking profit (instead of satisfied users seeking cost recovery for services received).
I agree with you about the transaction tax, but I think you can't say why. My elevator explanation is that the lack of any transaction charge is like allowing a friction-free engine to accelerate without limit. Whatever the engine is made of, at some point it is going to explode.
As regards the tax increase, I think you were just guessing completely wildly. My suggested principle would be a pro-freedom pro-choice progressive profit tax based on market share. The goal would be to insure there are enough players in each market to allow for freedom and meaningful choice. At the same time, competition should be balanced so that we aren't all living at the edge of starvation, which is the natural state of free competition. In corporate terms, starvation also corresponds to bankruptcy. In other words, too much competition becomes counterproductive, but too little competition is bad in other ways.
Hard for me to see what is going on. Apparently this topic has provoked a lot of ACs, but I don't see them... However you [marcle] have brushed on another interesting threat Facebook poses to the people who, like you, don't use Facebook.
If someone wants to steal your personal information, they can actually use Facebook to sneak up on you from behind. I actually think I've seen evidence of fake identities created on SMS systems to seek links to people who are NOT using those SMS systems. I think it's more on LinkedIn than Facebook (but my evidence is limited), but the scam is pretty obvious and clever--and near as I can tell none of the SMS systems have a strong economic reason to fight it as hard as it should be fought.
In case it isn't clear already, imagine that someone knows you are not on Facebook. Then they collect as much personal information as they can from other places where you are visible in public (so it works better with actual celebrities) and use that data to create a fake Facebook account in your name. The data will already give them some people who know you, but if they are smart they won't directly approach your close friends on Facebook, but rather look for less close friends who will "friend" you on Facebook without much risk of telling you. Or they can wait for other people to notice and "friend" you. In all the cases the goal is to fish for more information to build a more complete dossier of the target.
I can't tell if I'm paranoid or have a criminal mindset.
In the era of corporate cancerism, of course the cancers grow toward their 'blood' supplies. Soulless inhuman machines programmed to seek profit will always try to increase profits by doing more of whatever is generating profit.
In religious terms: "There is no gawd but Profit and Apple is Profit's #1 prophet."
However Facebook has a dream. It wants to become a much larger cancer so that it can swallow Apple, too. Same sick dream as each and every other corporate cancer. They are not programmed to worry about death of the host society.
Facebook's economic model is to capture your time by exploiting your social instincts to like other people. Family members? Friends? Partisan political sympathizers? Whatever. As long as you trust them enough to spend more time on Facebook, the profit seems to increase. Damn the torpedoes, and full speed ahead on the creative accounting.
Solution? Change the economic model, but I've already written my thoughts on how. Let's hear your better idea! Just kidding. On today's Slashdot I have to expect a flood of snark with perhaps a delayed flow of actual thought.
The price cuts might be driven by competition, which would be okay, or by Moore's Law and its corollaries, which would be even better, but I think this pricing probably reflects a fundamental reappraisal of the value of possessing your data. Once they have their hands on your data, you are the one with the burden of getting it away from them--and you can never be certain that they didn't retain a copy. There might even be incentivizing from the actual legal authorities to make their own work easier. After all, you have nothing to hide if you aren't don't anything wrong!
In shorter words: If possessing your data becomes more valuable on the back end, then of course the google would feel justified in encouraging you to give them more data by cutting the front-end prices.
Of course, considering the snarkiness of today's Slashdot, aggravated by the low quality of the moderation, I probably should include an explanation of the old legal saying "Possession is nine points of the law." At least that might make the snark look a bit snarkier?
I've noticed. Actually, I think one of Trump's most amazing characteristics is what a terrible liar he is. It's kind of like political humor. The joke depends on understanding the reality, and Trump can't lie well because he can't recognize such basic concepts as truth and reality upon which to base more sophisticated lies.
Time for my little ontology of lies, but let me see if I can just dig up a link... That's extremely interesting. I know exactly what to look for and I know that I've published it in many places on the Web, and yet the google doesn't return ANY link to my writing. I even pushed it by adding my name to some of the searches, and still came up dry. However, one of the early hits is from someone else, who is an Internet acquaintance and who is citing my ontology as the first part of his comment.
https://plus.google.com/104092...
Hey, if the search engines [I double-checked with Bing] can't find it, then that's the same as never having written it these days.
I can speculatively address your second point. I was speculating that China would invade BOTH of them. As long as the US stayed out of it, I think China could overwhelm and control the little ones. After the fact was accomplished, they would just take the nukes and leave North Korea for South Korea to clean up, while focusing their own cleanup on Taiwan.
There seems to be some confusion here. I am NOT advocating that the Chinese communist form of corporate cancerism is superior to any other flavor. This is actually a separate topic, but I would argue that both capitalism and communism are dead and might as well be buried. Actually, there's a good argument that Taiwan is closer to capitalism than most countries these days, but it's the cancers that rule now.
My point is about the real-world politics of power-based negotiations. Trump wants to "win" against North Korea, which is not likely even though North Korea is objectively extremely weak. Kim is basically holding two cards: (1) All the hostages in Seoul, and (2) China's support. Trump is trying to offer ZTE's survival to Xi as an inducement to lean on Kim, and I don't think it's going to work. Yes, Xi is probably pissed about the ZTE fiasco, but it isn't that important to him. It might even be to his advantage to blame Trump for the declining growth rate in China rather than admit the uglier reality that high rates of growth are never sustainable.
Then again, maybe someone isn't talking to me. Some parts of this discussion seem pretty confused, even if I started the branch.
Are you saying there is a parent company somewhere else? I always thought it was a Chinese company?
Let me see what Wikipedia says... Near as I can tell, it's as Chinese as it gets (though I didn't know how high it ranked). So the joke was that Trump didn't know that?
I think that theory has crossed into conspiracy terrain. It would be much easier to get the malware integrated into the components at the American end. Actually, they probably wouldn't add the malware itself, but the hidden capability to trigger the installation of malware at some later date. That way they could avoid exposing anything to the Chinese, but all of the devices made with the components would be ready to go whenever needed.
I'm kind of unclear on your point. Most of your comment seems to be about the relative value of Taiwan versus North Korea (and I think I agree with your assessment there), but you quoted the part of my comment that was narrowly focused on the meeting next month.
Let me clarify that I think Xi could put enormous pressure on Kim to do various things, but I'm pretty sure he won't. In fact, one possible explanation for what is happening is that Xi wants to reduce Trump to Kim's level on the world stage, sort of a noisy nuisance that no one takes too seriously. (Same as Trump always was, but he never understood that and Trump is now living in total denial of reality.)
However I am sure I disagree with you on the last part. China does not "have Taiwan" the way they want to have it. The trade ties are important, but they know they could get a much better deal with a few divisions stationed there. Also that would take care of any mumbling about independence.
You got me to look at the AC comment. What are the opposite of congratulations?
Why are you feeding the troll? Your closing sums up the situation well enough, but you're not even likely to earn any funny mods in that context.
Good points, especially the last one, and I lament the lack of mod points to give you.
You did make me wonder how owners of ZTE phones feel about this mess. Maybe they were never popular? I've considered getting a ZTE a couple of times, but never did...
Hmm... Perhaps I should snatch one up in a liquidation sale? Out-of-production sales are usually the best prices, though the normal push is from the new models coming in.
Can you explain the joke? I seem to be missing it.
For all we really know, Putin might be one of the largest shareholders in ZTE... His dark fortune is mostly unknown, with estimates ranging from $20 billion to $200 billion.
Z^-2
I still think Trump's primary focus (and desperate hope) is to get Xi to lean on Kim. I read Trump as desperate to get something out of the June 12th meeting, but the most likely scenario is that Kim is teeing Trump up for a YUGE punt. Actually, Trump already defined a game of reverse chicken, by claiming he will "win" by walking out if he can't get what he wants. Under the terms of Trump's own game, I'm expecting Kim to walk out first and claim the win. China's next response to Trump will go along the lines of "Tut, tut, tut, Little Donald. Let's not do anything rash."
That's predicated on the theory that China basically likes things as they are now. I think China sees a strong and unified Korea as a probable nuisance and possible threat. Unless China sees some substantial advantage in an actual peace treaty, they might as well leave things as they are. Meanwhile Bolton keeps braying about the "Libya model" and Kim knows exactly how that one worked out. No sane dictator would give up his nukes to follow Qaddafi's lead.
My reasoning certainly could be flawed. I actually expected China to make a move before this. I figured the Chinese would offer Trump a deal of North Korea for Taiwan. I still think China is confident that they can integrate Taiwan with little problem and enormous profit, while South Korea would be kept busy for decades trying to heal and integrate North Korea. The lack of official peace in Korea has been mostly harmless, but the establishment of an independent Taiwan would really piss them off.
However the troll did raise an interesting point regarding the insider trading, though I certainly can't take it on his say so. So how else could smart insiders profit from their phone calls with Trump if they don't want to be so obvious as playing with ZTE? Future contracts? Gambles on related companies, both suppliers and customers?
Z^-1
Where is the insight in that tiny bit of fluff? There is an obvious peculiarity here: "Trump says America first, but NOT if it will hurt ZTE!" Not that the lie or self-contraindication is peculiar as regards Trump. The peculiar question is "Why?" Two obvious answer candidates:
(1) Trump is begging Xi to lean on little Kim Jong-Un to play nice next month. I do think Kim is insane, but not nearly insane enough to trust Trump, and it is possible that Trump realizes how embarrassing this fiasco could become. Libya model indeed.
(2) Someone is making money on this scam. Who did Trump telephone about this course reversal? Hint: Look for "sharp" investors who suddenly bought up a bunch of ZTE shares. In this case, we're back to the question of whether or not Trump got his own beak wet.
Actually reminds me of the ongoing Cohen fiasco. Was Cohen keeping all the loot, or was he kicking some back to Trump? In either case, it's going to be really hard to pardon him (which means Cohen is going to flip and drag ALL of Trump's skeletons out of the closet).
Simple counterexample will suffice to prove motivations count.
Where is all of your pump-and-dump stock scam spam? It's gone because they studied the motivations and cured the problem. After several academic papers were published proving that the scammers were effectively shaking money out of the tree, the authorities responded by changing the rules. The motive was profit, the profit was removed, and that specific problem was solved.
I'm not denying that motivations are difficult to figure out. In this case, I think the primary motive was probably pure stupidity of some sort. Or perhaps impure stupidity mixed with viciousness?
I'm afraid I don't understand what sort of point you are trying to make. Perhaps something like bad things happen, so we should give up?
Do you have any sort of constructive solution to offer? (I do, but I've already presented it out on Slashdot and never detected any interest.)
Mindless vandalism? I'm trying to imagine what could motivate such a crime. What sort of grievance could justify attacking a system that lets people borrow bikes?
Just wants to annoy other people? Maybe he sells cars and he felt the bikes were hurting sales? Maybe he's just a mercenary working for the car salesman? Or maybe the prick did it simply because he could.
There are legitimate uses for anonymity. This is NOT one of them.
I know you're making a joke, but I was quite serious. I think that Trump is such a simpleminded buffoon that his behavior can be modeled quite accurately. I think Trump's complexity is close to a mouse's, and we are at the level where a mouse's behaviors can be modeled. My Roomba is already at the cockroach level.
If Putin's model of Trump shows that he is going to do what Putin wants or even something that Putin can profit from, then Putin does nothing. If the model shows that Trump is going to do something bad, then Putin might still do nothing and just take the profit from betting on the other side (since his assets are all dark) or Putin can tweak the inputs (via a few fools on FAUX or via the few Twitter accounts that #PresidentTweety follows or via some of the fools Trump calls) until Trump is ready to do what Putin prefers. In extreme cases, Putin could even tweak the situation to manipulate Trump's options.
Your defense of corporate cancerism is not persuasive, and I think degree matters. In this case it matters a lot.
Reflecting upon the situation, I now see a clear path to the destruction of America. Having divided and conquered the nation (largely under Putin's guidance and influence (as inherited from the old KGB)), historically (and hysterically) vindictive Trump is now focused on consolidating his grip on power and destroying his enemies. I think Trump sincerely believes his best course is to start a "safe" "little" war to force the nation to "unify" behind as a great war leader. That has made him a sucker for the advice of such fools as Bolton, who still hasn't realized how badly we lost the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the nation's weak and divided state, a real war may not only be lost, but may tear the entire country to pieces.