Wednesday, November 27, 2019

A Framework for Understanding the Future of the U.S.

[I posted this on the Ran Prieur subreddit a while back.  I held off on the cross-post because I didn't want anyone to think I had returned at that time.]

[I also realize this piece has a very small potential audience.  If someone is used to thinking about politics morally they probably won't want to think about futurism probabilisticly.  None of these ideas give me a warm glow, nor would I stay attached to them if new information came in that showed them to be wrong.  See also Crony Beliefs by Kevin Simler]

[And now, the piece I had written.]

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I think projecting future outcomes for Americans is best done in 3 tranches:

top 1%: whose wealth is in run-away imperial mode. I think it's entirely possible this group will be able to hold on to high-tech through all of the long emergency, if not watch the tech improve. That's the weird part, the idea that it seems more people have on [r/ranprieur] than any other sampling of doomer thought I have seen.

next 19%: who are so busy, busy, busy. Much too busy to think, certainly too busy to give any group any slack to any imperfection in themselves or others. I have the hardest time projecting what will happen for this group. I am pretty sure the savings they have so dutifully placed in stock-only index funds will be wiped out in the next crash (or run-away stagflation). They have been primed for this robbery, however, conditioned day in and out to follow orders, and accept lies at all levels of life. Little drones, who have learned to dis-integrate (they say "compartmentalize"), so they have no integrity. Why would anyone else have integrity either? After the great robberies, they will shrug and get back to work (hell, they know someone whose kid got into Harvard -- bet those student loans will be a bugger!) They will work for this system as long as the system has use of them. Again, I don't know how to mentally model how long that will be.

[Not much longer than true general purpose autonomous vehicles, though.  That problem is harder than most people think, while automating much of office work is easier than most people think.  The status of the various workers creates a bias about the cognitive loads.]

lower 80: who will see third-world results.  The long crisis has already begun for them, but the middle 19% allow the counter-revolution to continue grinding (often, hilariously, under the guise of social leftism). Whatever innovations that might be created by altruistic groups trying to help the global poor do more-with-less might (but only might) be imported back to help this population. Two further thoughts: 1) their carbon footprint will be drastically smaller in 50 years than it is now (and I mean *ahem* one way, or another). 2) They will have virtually no economic demand-pull if our political economy stays on its course (or even has the same assumptions).

I think these are the forces at work. They mix and match in a lot of possible ways, from genocide, to wars, to some possible hybrid of extremely low carbon footprints with some need for UBI or guaranteed work.

[Looking back, I now realize this attempt at modeling is really for generation X onward.  The Baby Boomer retirement and medical crises will be a political convulsion.  I detest the moral vacuity of the groups thought-leaders, but there is a real generational solidarity, so I would never bet against them politically.  So . . . The robbery of the gen-X (and onward) 19% might not be directly from the markets as much as taxes.  This much would be obvious to someone to the right of me.  What isn't obvious to that person is that it is older, white people who played at rugged individualist when it was their turn to pay taxes who will be pushing the redistribution and then attempting to absorb all of it.]

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Round Up #21

From Research

I am looking into investment again, so that is what I captured in my research.

I have heard about at least one billionaire hoarding nickles.  Looking into it further lead to this marvelously interesting article on the work done to change the alloy. (Also, some analysis of hoarding a million dollars in nickles).

I thought that maybe healthcare as a sector would be protected against inflation.  Turns out that is almost certainly wrong.

If I hadn't moved into different intellectual circles, I wouldn't know that Netflix isn't very much in China, but instead is growing in India and Japan.  Whether that is deliberate strategy or there are forces barring their way, the article doesn't say.

The great puzzle of our time: why so many bonds with negative interest rates around the world? (including now negative interest rates for "junk" ie "high yield" bonds).  I like this short memo on the topic.

Reddit

I wrote two popular pieces on r/leanfire, one about leaving my job, and the second about the aftermath.

I suggest r/BottleNeck for people who wants to learn about peak energy without fear porn.

I took a quick stab at answering the question of how many of the Celtics in 1960s are in the Hall of Fame based just on team success and reputation.  This then manifested someone showing me the work done more rigorously.

A hot take on the possibility of negative interest rates in the U.S.  (see above).

Musings on why most people don't really know what makes for a good manager.

Reminder that our culture is a wasteland.

I saw A Narcissist's Prayer :
That didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And if it was, that's not a big deal. And if it is, that's not my fault. And if it was, I didn't mean it. And if I did... You deserved it. 

Aphorisms/Shorts

What conservatives don't understand is that only artificial things can be as clean as they want.

Liberals prefer to be liberal with other people's money, and conservatives prefer to be conservative with other people's morals.  Oh, I'm now an old man, fighting last generation's war. Now right-wingers also prefer to be right-wing with other people's money and leftists prefer to signal leftism about other people's morals.

Space travel isn't going to be colonization.  It is going to be white flight.

I love bad decisions; I could watch them all day.

The argument that it was better to build a school than a prison might have been true.  But now, in order to pay for the care of the richest generation in human history, we will soon have money for neither.

The way the ideas of Buddhism spread through the West was basically self-help for affluent people.

"Why bother explaining if the audience always sees it as a starting point for a win-lose debate rather than an opportunity to learn?" Jacob Lund Fisker, hallow be his name.

"Anxiety is paying interest on pain, but if you catch it in time, you only have to pay the principal." Ran Prieur

I'm Back.

I'm back.  I can't promise that I'll post every Wednesday, but I'll shoot for 90% here.

The top piece will always be a serious attempt at doing my best -- either artistically, or in the attempt to further truth.  When I post more than one piece on the same day, the piece further down (ie posted a bit earlier) will usually be some kind of B side -- either a humor piece or something that I think might be of limited interest, such as how long I can continue on with the same razor.