For September 2017, the ATOM AotM takes a very visual turn. With some aspects of the ATOM, seeing is believing.
Before photography, the only image capture was through sketches and paintings. This was time-consuming, and well under 1% were prosperous enough to have even a single hand-painted portrait of themselves. For most people, after they died, their families had only memories via which to imagine faces. If portraits were this scarce, other images were even scarcer. When image capture was this scarce, people certainly had no chance of seeing places, things, or creatures from far away. It was impossible to know much about the broader world.
The very first photograph was taken as far back as 1826, and black&white was the dominant form of the medium for over 135 years. That it took so long for b&w to transition to color may seem quite surprising, but the virtually non-existent ATOM during this period is consistent with this glacial rate of progress. The high cost of cameras meant that the number of photographs taken in the first 100 years of photography (1826-1926) was still an extremely small. Eventually, the progression to color film seemed to be a 'completion' of the technological progression in the minds of most people. What more could happen after that?
But the ATOM was just getting started, and it caught up with photography around the turn of the century with relatively little fanfare, even though it was notable that film-based photography and the hassles associated with it were removed from the consumer experience. The cost of film was suddenly zero, as was the transit time and cost from the development center. Now, everyone could have thousands of photos, and send those over email endlessly. Yet, standalone cameras still cost $200 as of 2003, and were too large to be carried around everywhere at all times.
As the ATOM progressed, digital cameras got smaller and cheaper, even as resolution continued to rise. It was discovered that the human eye does in fact adapt to higher resolution, and finds previously acceptable lower resolution unacceptable after adapting to higher resolution. Technology hence forces higher visual acuity and the associated growth of the brain's visual cortex.
With the rise of the cellular phone, the ATOM enabled more and more formerly discrete devices to be assimilated into the phone, and the camera was one of the earliest and most obvious candidates. The diffusion of this was very rapid, as we can see from the image that contrasts the 2005 vs. 2013 Papal inaugurations in Vatican City. Before long, the cost of an integrated camera trended towards zero, to the extent that there is no mobile device that does not have one. As a result, 2 billion people have digital cameras with them at all times, and stand ready to photograph just about anything they think is important. Suddenly, there are countless cameras at every scene.
But lest you think the ubiquity of digital cameras is the end of the story, you are making the same mistake as those who thought color photography on film in 1968 was the end of the road. Remember that the ATOM is never truly done, even after the cost of a technology approaches zero. Digital imaging itself is just the preview, for now we have it generating an ever-expanding pile of an even more valuable raw material : data.
Images contain a large volume of data, particularly the data that associates things with each other (the eyes are to be above the nose, for example). Data is one of the two fuels of Artificial Intelligence (the other being inexpensive parallel processing). Despite over a decade of digital images being available on the Internet, only now are there enough of them for AI to draw extensive conclusions from them, and for Google's image search to be a major force in the refinement of Google's Search AI. Most people don't even remember when Google added image search to its capabilities, but now it is hard to imagine life without it.
Today, we have immediate access to image search that answers questions in the blink of an eye, and fosters even greater curiosity. In a matter of seconds, you can look up images for mandrill teeth, the rings of Saturn, a transit of Venus over the Sun, the coast of Capri, or the jaws of Carcharocles Megalodon. More searches lead to more precise recommendations, and more images continue to be added. In the past, the accessibility of this information was so limited that the invaluable tangents of curiosity just never formed. Hence, the creation of new knowledge speeds up. The curious can more easily pull ahead of the incurious.
Digital imaging is one of the primary transformations that built the Internet age, and is a core pillar of the impending ascent of AI. For this reason, it receives the September 2017 ATOM AotM.
Related ATOM Chapters :
3. Technological Disruption is Pervasive and Deepening
I have said it before. It is not only the data availability and the ease of research. Rather the ubiquitous availability of cameras are changing the fabric our society. Suddenly, the law enforcement has to be more accountable. The companies are subject to public outcry (American Airlines). UFOs are out of fashion. (Where are the countless pictures snapped by the passersby?) Politicians, businesses, religious leaders now are all subject to a distributed and often unintended public surveillance.
There is also a dark side. The somewhat common sexting between teenagers brings a lot of unintended legal consequences. Some IOT and smartphone producers start collecting video and audio stream without much approval from the device “owners”.
The video/image stream is tightly integrated with the social networks (FB,G+, instagram, etc). The face recognition and automated image tagging are making every picture snapped a data point. Just a year ago I saw a company policy stating that it is OK to upload pictures of your co-workers and clients to the social networks as long as you don’t tag the persons on them. I am not sure if that is a lip service to the privacy or a simple naïveté.
Posted by: fatcat | October 02, 2017 at 03:31 PM
on unrelated note:
Many economic thinkers are opposing the QE. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-30/feds-quack-treatments-are-causing-stagnation
Posted by: fatcat | October 03, 2017 at 10:33 AM
fatcat,
Many economic thinkers are opposing the QE
They are morons, and hundreds of millions of people are going to suffer in a matter of months.
That said, the Fed did more damage with start-stop QE, than the benefit of the QE itself. It has to be declared as permanent, since that removes the uncertainty and timing complexities.
Posted by: Kartik Gada | October 03, 2017 at 10:59 AM
Kartik
This is why, I really wish you would do your post soon.
I have friends who I have exposed to the ATOM and they are literally laughing at me. One even told me, dude if I listened to you I would have left Amazon at 475 (last year) it is at 960 now. These are good friends and I care about their well being and so despite these taunts I am telling them read the Atom again. Most of them have doubled down on market, saying the Yellen put will come back and their will be new highs soon. And I am telling them, yes eventually (essentially what you have written in the ATOM) but not till the crisis happens, why take a chance. The rebuke from the friends community is brutal at times. And honestly, the evidence seems to be on their side. The Favorite line I hear is dude you (as in me) are one of those scaremongers after 2009 who were telling not to buy the market and look where it is now. So I have actually stopped responding to the rebukes. But I wish you would do that post now. So perhaps I could save these "morons" their yearly savings that they are about to dump in the market. Some, to their credit have backed off, saying well let's see what happens in October. But they haven't backed off strategically only tactically to see how the usual October mania plays out. Kartik I don't mean to raise this in every article but I think this is the core of the ATOM playing out and I think what fatcat illustrated is what I listen to literally on a daily basis.
Posted by: Sunny | October 03, 2017 at 12:48 PM
Sunny,
Most of them have doubled down on market,
You have no obligation to save them from losses. Particularly if they have large egos now.
I will do a post addressing my 2017 prediction, and whether it was wrong or not, but it will not be anything that satisfies these people.
Dude you (as in me) are one of those scaremongers after 2009 who were telling not to buy the market and look where it is now.
If they don't know the difference between 2009 and 2017, then you are wasting your time trying to tell them anything. I bet all of their money is in a handful of tech stocks, with no diversification outside of tech whatsoever. They appear to believe there will *never* be a recession. Why should one waste time on people who think that?
Oh, and AMZN is up just 14% in the last year, or LESS than the S&P500 :
https://yhoo.it/2xWfYU5
So why are you taking their claims at face value? It is simply not true that Amazon is up 100% in the last year.
No matter what I write, they will double down, so that is not a reason to rush anything. Plus, it appears you only presented the 2017 aspect of the ATOM to them, so they think the entire ATOM publication is a pessimistic document.
So perhaps I could save these "morons" their yearly savings that they are about to dump in the market.
From what you have described about them, I don't feel like saving them. It seems they all are concentrated in the 4-5 biggest tech stocks that are in the media the most, which is the most rookie move they could ever make. Are they Indians? If so, doubly no, since their entire social circle is ultra-groupthink, and it is neither possible nor desirable to persuade them of anything.
Meanwhile, the ^vix has been hovering around 10 for five months now. That is the biggest top indicator you can find. I am the one who earned 70%/year returns for 4 years, and teach the Options and Futures class at Stanford.
https://continuingstudies.stanford.edu/coursework/document/7511/?f=20163_BUS%20162_Syllabus.pdf
You are giving way too much importance to these people. You are completely buying into their wrong frame, which is that :
i) A few big stocks (like AMZN) represent the entire equity market.
ii) They have no awareness of indices, options, or futures.
iii) You portrayed the 5% of the ATOM that is about this, as the crux of the ATOM.
If you really want to bother them (since such people are usually Democrats), say that the market was stagnating before Trump, but Trump is the reason it is going up since Hillary's shadow of doom is gone. That should be funny.
Posted by: Kartik Gada | October 03, 2017 at 01:09 PM
I learnt long ago that it is almost impossible to change other peoples minds, especially when dealing with pretty radical ideas. Something about leading a horse to water etc.Yes, some people are very persuasive but most of us just come across as cranks and if you ask me it isn't a great idea to try to convince friends and relatives unless they are really receptive to the idea.
Fortunately in the case of the ATOM-DUES it is not really necessary to persuade anyone you are likely to know. I can't see this proposal being implemented via a lengthy debate and then a vote where a majority has to be convinced that it is a good idea. That would take a decade and surely result in the implementation of some horrible UBI financed by taxes that no one would be happy with.
It is much more likely that the ATOM-DUES will initially be implemented in an ad hoc manner. Some bright treasurer will do much as Australia did in 2009. When it is realised that no harm and some good was done it will gradually become a regular payment, followed by a realisation that this money needn't be added to the national debt, followed by a slow winding back of the welfare state.
Posted by: Joe | October 03, 2017 at 05:17 PM
Hi Kartik,
That said, the Fed did more damage with start-stop QE, than the benefit of the QE itself. It has to be declared as permanent, since that removes the uncertainty and timing complexities.
Well it is a living proof that you can in inject a lot of money in the system and not only avoid inflation but improve the economy.
Posted by: Fatcat | October 03, 2017 at 06:33 PM
Check this out: Netflix is 4x cheaper per viewing hour than incumbents.
http://www.businessinsider.com/netflix-raising-prices-october-2017-10?op=1
Posted by: a.m. | October 05, 2017 at 08:51 AM
Hi a.m,
Check this out: Netflix is 4x cheaper per viewing hour than incumbents.
Ironically, they just have announced a rate increase
Posted by: fatcat | October 05, 2017 at 10:13 AM
Hi Kartik,
I would say that you have made quite a few predictions with amazing accuracy, dare I say even too successful. The first big one was about the price of oil. It was precise, falsifiable, well-defined and quite unbelievable back then when the people were seriously expecting 200$/b to be the new norm. The oil drum was churning out articles how we will run out of energy and will have to scale back.
I would say that that prediction has the same importance as Ray Kurzweil predicting the demise of the Soviet Union and the world chess champion being beaten by a computer. You both start from the same basic model. He is concentrating on the computation; you look broadly at all technical improvements.
Of course a couple of predictions could be right for the wrong reasons. A few years ago, he sounded way too optimistic. And suddenly the self-driving cars were not only bale to finish the darpa challenge but were tested in real traffic.
And now comes another big one, which was almost a casual side note from you mentioning that all the mainstream economists will be baffled why no inflation materializes despite all the QE.
And lo and behold: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/us/politics/janet-yellen-fed-interest-rates-inflation.html
The economic mystery is that inflation has remained low despite the tightening labor market. The Fed has undershot its goal of 2 percent annual inflation in each of the past five years. After getting close early this year, inflation has swooned again
And
This year, she said, the weakness is harder to explain. “I think my main message about what we’ve been seeing is that 2017, the shortfall in inflation is a mystery,” she said.
and again
Mr. Feldstein said he shared in the general puzzlement that inflation was not rising more quickly, but he said the Fed’s sole concern was to keep it that way.
“I was there when the inflation rate was 10 percent” in the late 1970s, he said. “If somebody told me we would have zero inflation, I would say that’s O.K.”
Let’s hope that you were wrong about the next major recession in 2017-2018.
Posted by: fatcat | October 06, 2017 at 12:03 PM
Thanks, fatcat. That is the highest praise I can receive.
Posted by: Kartik Gada | October 06, 2017 at 05:29 PM
Hi Kartik
Yes, you are correct they are mostly Indians but one of them is Caucasian and a former boss (a decent one) and he is in sixties. He is the one I was really worried about as he is about to retire in a year or two. And he has gone both feet into this mania. He actually called my views, really the Atom, Scary. And so at some point, you have to decide what is the point in helping these people. If they are not even willing to read the ATOM in full. You are also correct, in that they are hung up on the Tech stocks. Frustrating that you are trying to help people protect their money and instead they see that as scaremongering. Fatcat is right about leasding the horse to the water. The weird thing is the Caucasian friends are totatlly okay giving a significant percentage of their money to that charalatan pastor in Houston who wouldn't opne his mea church to Harvey's victims. But not willing to listen to reason. Oh Well.
Posted by: Sunny | October 07, 2017 at 10:53 AM
Oh and here's the kicker they are all sending their kids to really expensive schools. When I suggest state schools so they can save on things like Tuition through state waivers. The response is too condescending to argue against. Some of these guys are spending upwards of 80,000.00 a year on their kids school (that is room and board including tuition and books). That is more then twice what I made in my first job a while ago. Arguably one is going to Dartmouth but still 80 grand a year, do you know the tuition alone is 45,000.00, hard to understand.
Posted by: Sunny | October 07, 2017 at 11:00 AM
Sunny,
Remember that these are people who are not merely saying the the recession did not being in 2017 (it arguably has, given the ^vix), but they are effectively saying there will NEVER be a recession. Even now. When do they believe the recession will be?
You have to learn how to not buy there frame, and demand a re-frame. Get them on record saying that there will 'not be a recession in the forseeable future'.
Lastly, it appears that you presented the ATOM incorrectly. They think it is a pessimistic document, because you presented the 2017 crisis prediction as the entirety of the thesis. Most people who read the ATOM think the opposite - that it is too optimistic.
Posted by: Kartik Gada | October 07, 2017 at 03:38 PM
Sunny,
I could write an entire article about how when Indians are piling into any economic decision en masse, that is always a sign of a top in that market. It is the biggest cliche of all. Indians by definition are top indicators.
Posted by: Kartik Gada | October 08, 2017 at 01:28 PM
ha, Peak Indian. Ill bear that in mind.
Posted by: Stephen murray | October 08, 2017 at 02:12 PM
Kartik, I have a question I wanted to send you but could not find your email so here it goes:
If an independent scientist has found how to reverse ageing in humans(5 year project, my own time and money) and wants to get the maximum money for the research, what would you recommend ?
I wrote https://breakthroughprize.org/ but got no answer.
I asked for funding on top of the 3 million and to speak to someone in a position of authority.
Will crowd sourcing work ? But then my work will be out and that's it. Will I make 3 million + ? Funding for refining the research ?
You can delete this message and write me on email if you want.
Posted by: Alex IW | October 08, 2017 at 03:27 PM
Hello Alex,
Crowdfunding can work.
But you should reach out to Aubrey du Grey, Dave Gobel, Sonia Arrison, etc. who are working on this. See if you can join up with them as they already get grant money and donations.
Posted by: Kartik Gada | October 08, 2017 at 04:47 PM
What singularity? The future of the human state has been predicted all the way out to 2100, and the scientific, economic, and futurology consensus is that humanity by 2100 will suffer a miserable existence because of climate change. The science, the economics, and the futurology are settled.
Posted by: Eitan | October 10, 2017 at 04:48 PM
Eitan
... futurology consensus is that humanity by 2100 will suffer a miserable existence because of climate change...
And the humanity will bear the insufferable conditions with extended life expectancy to prolong the suffering, higher GDP per capita to increase the pain and even space settlements to offset the guilt...
Posted by: fatcat | October 11, 2017 at 09:23 AM
This is why I wanted to speak with Kartik in private...
Aubrey de Grey took LONGECITY funds (100k) to remove AGE's from skin with red laser and said they are not looking to pursue this line of research. He stole that money. After that everyone left LONGECITY forums. Dave Gobel and Sonia Arrison bark up the wrong tree from what Ive seen on wikipedia. I need to watch some youtube videos of them and will update if I change my mind about them. Dont expect breakthrough from any of them. All they care about is making money, not progress. Thats why I did the reaserch on my own and know how to reverse ageing. This information came in at a high price so I hope you will appreciate it.
As for the singularity, we are already post singularity. There is black project augmented cognition AI able to monitor everything and everyone on planet earth. Infiltrate and induce fake dreams and emotions, implant false memories to make you believe in life after death so that you leave them alone and not try to improve things.They also push this in universities. This is my personal experience. You can find more on youtube by searching "black project augmented cognition AI":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNFVvwkh048
I should be way past the point of attempting to share this info and should just keep to myself but that's another mentality they force, so as I said, I hope you appreciate my post.
Posted by: Alex IW | October 11, 2017 at 10:12 AM
From hour living mayflies, to millennial trees, nature has evolved the lifespan control mechanism. But we humans will never find it or manipulate it. Never! And what is four percent annual growth (and accelerating) compounding to 5000% in a century going to do if the world is a whole 2C warmer? Misery, misery perpetrated by deniers who don't see humanity's dismal future. If I had a time machine I'd just go back to the good old life of the nineteenth century, when the climate was still pristine... sob sob,... I'm going to meet up with my friends at Starbucks now and come up with some urgently needed subsidies, taxes, and growth suppressors, see if we can avoid this disaster. Too bad there are so many old fashioned people out there who don't understand our modern thinking...
Posted by: Eitan | October 11, 2017 at 05:11 PM
I don't understand Eitan and Alex are you venting or offering alternative solutions ?. You Know Kartik has spent a lot of time researching the ATOM. And put forth some ground breaking ideas. I am not clear on what is it that you are trying to portray. I think the smart money is on your side as far as climate change is concerned, why dump on the Atom ?. I think if you read through the blog, You would see Kartik and most of the posters here lean heavily towards science and would in all likely hood agree with you on climate change that it is indeed real. So again are you venting or offering alternatives - just asking.
Posted by: Sunny | October 11, 2017 at 07:10 PM
ATOM is very real and Kartik doesn't mention the missing progress:
https://imgur.com/QbSoC6J
Pic is from amazon review of the bubble and beyond.
What I'm saying is, the ATOM is slow compared to what could have been if the world was run with a bit of future thinking.
Instead of all having access to the black project augmented AI and experiencing feelings that 99,99% of average people never will experience(they showed it to me), the technology is used to oppress first and foremost.
Moore's law is SLOW compared to what tech is available.
Graphene polymers are better than steel. Cars can be made to last indefinitely even with stainless steel, but aren't.
Companies sell obsolete products out of the box so they can sell "improvements" on the garbage they sell.
All diseases and addictions are cured, including ageing. Yet we still see money shoved in fake research.
As Peter Thiel said: [Smartphone]"This is not innovation."
We can have everything a smartphone does directly in the brain but apes sell shiny things to other apes for money, delaying progress.
Germany could have had 5 hours of work per week per person years ago and that with old statistics:
http://www.5-stunden-woche.de/
We are way behind on how good public tech should be, the only people who did it okay but not ideally are the DOD. Even they miss a few things of importance. They do things that work. This is the solution.
Posted by: Alex IW | October 11, 2017 at 09:14 PM
I too appreciate Kartik's thinking on the ATOM, even though can see many potential future deviations when it comes to more specific predictions. I think Eitan and fatcat make some points by joking, but their points are relevant and really on the same subject as the ATOM. I don't see it as "dumping". It is really part of the same extended discussion about future trajectory. I also agree with Eitan and fatcat about the pathetic and unimaginative mentality of climate change doomsdayers who think they are so advanced in their thinking. The two are mutually exclusive: Either the ATOM happens or the climate doomsday. In light of the ATOM, or whatever one wants to call irreversible never before seen exponential growth, and accelerating, I think climate doomsday concepts are quite ridiculous. Issues of climate doom are not about science. They are perhaps twenty percent science and eighty percent economics and especially futurology (to use Eitan's term) as the ATOM concept clearly demonstrates.
Posted by: HB | October 12, 2017 at 12:39 PM
Let’s imagine a few scenario’s:
10th century lifestyle – 95% of the people are illiterate, with life expectancy probably in the low forties, if we exclude the early child mortality... Do the people care about the environment? A bit, in the sense that there would be a famine if the climate pattern changes. Will they care about 2C temperature increase in 100 years, provided that there will be no more famine than usual ? Not at all. What about preserving species, variability and such ? Not at all. As long as there’s food. No body would be bothered with moderate pollution. They would put with radiation that can give you cancer in 30 years as long as there is warmth now and we don’t have to freeze to death. The major causes of death are famine, infections, wars and accidents/casual murder.
our current lifestyle we use way more resources than scenario 1. But the utility we get from the resources is many orders of magnitude higher. If we needed to maintain the 10th century level we would need a fraction of the resources, if it was possible to go back. Less pollution, no need to chop that many trees for heating, more efficient agriculture would require much smaller land use, etc… We can now have the luxury to worry about the environment, the endangered species, and even about possible climate change caused by human activities. Apparently we would worry much less if the climate changes were significant but proven to be entirely from natural causes. We worry about radiation, dust and chemical pollution that can give us health problems decades down the road. Because we have the good chance to live long enough to be affected by those long-term effects. Major killer in the OCED countries are cardio-vascular issues and cancer. Distant third are chronic infections in the old frail people. For people before 40 (or probably even 50) the major causes of death are suicide and accidents.
2100 - lifestyle It is too far in the future to be able to predict with any degree of certainty
But for sure we will able to handle without major issues even 3C degrees of temperature increase, if we don’t kill ourselves with nuclear, nano, bio or AI tech. I am not even sure if we can comprehend the issues that will be mainstream at this time. For sure the global warming will unimportant for one of the following mutually exclusive reasons: human extinction, transition to either matrix-like lifestyle or having nano-fabrication with minimal impact on the environment, the bulk of the economy and production is off-world. The abilities to engineer our climate will be so high that we probably could control the weather, if it turns out to be a good idea…
Posted by: fatcat | October 13, 2017 at 04:17 PM
And here are a few predictions from the top of my head:
2020 Just a couple of years from now. It is quite easy to extrapolate the current trends. Good chance we will see self driving cars being used commercially and not for research or for the sake of novelty. There will be minor improvements in cancer and cardio-vascular-related diseases but nothing ground breaking, Surprisingly, the green-house emissions will be a bit lower mainly because of phasing out coal plants for natural gas or alternative. Nuclear use will be reduced in west, will grow in China. China will have at least 5% PPP growth. US and by extension the north-american countries will have turbulent times, however , without major recession and no major change in the policy. The 10nm chips will be widely used/shipped by apple, Samsung, TSM and Intel, however it will take a lot of time to transition. 7nm will be only in talks and lab demos. The chips will be more energy efficient but about 20% faster than in 2017. The desktop RAM will be 30% cheaper than 2017, nand will depreciate faster, so SSDs will be about 40% cheaper than now. 6-10 GB HDDs will be mainstream in the data centers and office NASes. There will be very few laptop models with spinning disks. All major cell-phones will be shipped without headphone jacks and replaceable batteries. There will be a second attempt of google glass..but still not very successful. Tesla model 3 after numerous delays will reach the promised production numbers. It will not meet the production rate of 5K/week before the mid 2018. They will cost more than 40K, though. VR will find its first killer app in business setting.
Posted by: fatcat | October 13, 2017 at 04:20 PM
As Eitan points out, the existence of natural very long and very short living species indicates that nature has shown it can manipulate the aging mechanism. It's just that nature is not interested in the longevity of the individual, just the survival of the species. So long as the short lived moth is as successful, as a species, as the long lived turtle nature does not give a hoot about how long individuals live. But we humans will not go for that...
We, as humans are about to take control of our evolutional and biological destiny.
So, to bet that we as humans will be unable to discover and manipulate this aging mechanism(s) in a whole future one hundred years of now high irreversible exponential growth seems a losing bet to me.
So, even at the current 4% world growth rate, without even considering the already demonstrated acceleration, GDP per capita goes up fifty (!) fold (=1.04^100) to about $700k per year per capita worldwide!
So, give me
a. $700,000 per year,
b. The ability to buy future unimaginable things that today are not available at any price,
c. A control for the aging mechanism,
...and you can warm up the planet as much as you want.
That is how pathetic the "forward" thinking of climate doom is in light of the ATOM, or whatever one wants to call irreversible high exponential growth.
Posted by: HB | October 13, 2017 at 11:44 PM
The idea that a trace gas doubling in concentration will be more impactful and than all the orbital and solar variations that our Orbiting ball of rock experiences is some what incredulous.
One of the great benifits of the ATOM has been the ease at which counter establishment information can spread. We are seeing it pop the misandry bubble, and the Climate alarmist bubble will be popped by rational minds , away from the mainstream media channels.
A wise man once wrote "The regime that is dependent on restricting access to information always loses to the movement that strengthens with greater information flow." - http://www.singularity2050.com/2011/01/the-time-has-arrived.html
Posted by: Stephen murray | October 14, 2017 at 05:12 AM
The misandry, or whatever one wants to call loss of male social status, will briefly increase as the ATOM reduces even further the already shrinking part men play in reproduction. With women attaining complete monopoly in reproduction, the misandry bubble will intensify. Men will be further reduced to utilitarian status. Those humans (women for now and for some time to come) who hold the keys to reproduction essentially control humanity.
But this peak misandry period will be short. The ATOM will find ways to give men autonomous reproductive capability (e.g. initially perhaps artificial wombs, biological, machine, hybrid bio-machine, surrogate animal etc. ) at which point the (now even more inflated) misandry bubble will pop fast.
BTW, Trump phenomenon is a weak attempt to pop the misandry bubble. But it's just frustration, it lacks fundamentals. The fundamentals will come only when the ATOM eventually enables male reproductive autonomy.
Posted by: HB | October 14, 2017 at 09:47 AM
by 2020 power use per capita in the west will continue to decline due to LED market penetration. Fully 10% of the power plants in business in the U.S. today with be shut down. Supercritical carbon dioxide generators will be proved out, ultimately yeilding another 20% decline in the number of thermal power plants needed. Using this tech, people will realize any source of waste heat can be converted to energy. Natural gas power plants will become even cheaper to operate, dominating all other forms of energy. oil and gas prices will remain low. Electric cars will struggle, proving popular only in major cities.
In space, Blue Origin will not only achieve orbit, but be landing cargo on the moon, along with SpaceX. SpaceX will land a dragon on mars (unoccupied). Plans will begin for both lunar and mars colonies.
Ultrathin OLED.
Major TV companies and networks will start to collapse as TV move to the internet. The very concept of a network will be eroded - Tv stations will be rebroadcasting content from the internet.
A $2,000 computer will have nearly the processing power of a human brain, but the programming will lag. Mobile devises will have universal translation.
Posted by: Geoman | October 14, 2017 at 01:47 PM
HB and Stephen,
As Eitan points out, the existence of natural very long and very short living species indicates that nature has shown it can manipulate the aging mechanism.
Indeed. Even when we restrict it just to mammals (all mammals have at least 90% DNA matching with humans), the range is wide. A female mouse can have 5 litters in a single year! By contrast, the Bowhead whale supposedly lives to the age of 200 or so.
That said, I don't think human longevity can be extended beyond an average of 100 or so. I will change this opinion after a significant percentage of 100 y/os make it to 110 (at present, barely 0.1% do).
There are four reasons why the current climate doomster talk is irrational :
i) Their predictions have consistently failed to materialize, yet they take no ownership of their predictions, even those with specific dates attached to them ("Florida and Holland will be underwater by 2020!").
ii) They are not happy that US CO2 emissions per capita are at a 60-year low. This is a big tell. Anyone who truly cared should be delighted by this, and shift their focus entirely to China and away from the US, at this point.
iii) They don't hold their own leaders to low carbon footprints (mansions, private jets, etc. for the loudest climate evangelists).
iv) They don't care one iota about other environmental problems that really are man-made (plastic in the ocean, mercury in the ocean, etc.). These are indisputably man-made, but you can't get a climate nut to muster any concern about these, because it is not what their deities told them to memorize.
This exposes the climate-change crowd for the non-thinkers that they are.
Posted by: Kartik Gada | October 14, 2017 at 03:12 PM
The main point is that if nature can control the aging mechanism, then there's a mechanism, perhaps even an evolutionary intentional one, to control longevity. As we discover and then eventually control these mechanisms then we may soon control aging itself, rather than try to simply patch up old bodies and brains. This is a completely different model of longevity. Then a true expansion of life expectancy can happen, based on this new model. Yes I know, the proverbial fountain of youth. But let's not forget that humans could not fly for 99.999% of humanity's existence, until one day fly they did. What the ancients could not grasp is that indeed humans would not fly. They would build "machine" and fly on the machine. But machine, a non living thing that converts energy from one form to another, was unimaginable to the ancients. Similarly, on a smaller scale, computers could never truly decipher human speech, until they did. Machines will never be able to think as well humans...
There's some speculation that telomeres control aging. Seems almost an intentional mechanism to make us and other species die, perhaps because shorter individual lifespans result in an overall more effective species. But, as I said earlier, we selfish humans will not go for that. We will try and likely eventually succeed in defeating aging. I don't know if the telomeres are really the mechanism of aging, seems almost too simplistic, and if there are other components in the whole aging mechanism. But if it is then the twilight of aging may already be in the horizon. If not, I still would not bet against discovering it and manipulating it in the next one hundred years, or sooner, in light of an exponentially growing ATOM.
Almost by definition, at every stage, the ATOM will deliver breakthroughs that are unimaginable to the previous stage. The ATOM can thus take many forms, and a singularity based on the computational power of machines is just one of them. Mind shattering and truly world altering breakthroughs in longevity, merger or life and machines etc could be others. Again, almost by definition, it is unimaginable. All we can do is show the trajectory pointing to the singularity.
In summary, I think it's quite likely that taking control of our genetic destiny may be the next major step in human evolution, perhaps a main component, or even THE main component of the ATOM singularity. Ethicists can do little to block it in any significant way. The stakes are so high that those who see benefit will escape almost anywhere they might be allowed to continue their advancements. Even places like North Korea.
P.S. On a different, but still ATOM related subject, Amazon is looking for new headquarters. Perhaps the enviro-nimby tyranny is coming to an end. Just like petrotyranny.
Posted by: HB | October 15, 2017 at 12:30 PM
HB,
Each general point you make is true, however, the other thing about the ATOM is that if something can be delivered faster from an entirely different paradigm, it will supercede the others.
AI is just more robust than humans. It can explore space at a cost that is thousands or millions of times cheaper, since it does not require air or water. It is more likely that humans give way to AI (or merge with AI, in a form that is 10% human and 90% AI, or something), rather than humans becoming immortal. Humans are not the end-game of evolution, particularly if we think that the end-game involves intelligence colonizing space, or intelligence that is thousands of times more powerful and faster-evolving.
Posted by: Kartik Gada | October 15, 2017 at 01:17 PM
Thank you for this discussion. I needed it to refocus.
The climate shills will try to control the narrative like they do to other smart discussions.
Man made floods, fake climate change environmentalism is exposed by WeatherWar101 on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/user/WeatherWar101/videos?sort=p&flow=grid&view=0
The oppressors want more control, and will try to use fake climate engineering to lie to everyone.
I think the "Stakes are so high" comment is on point.
There was a commentator on one of your previous articles and he said regarding the endpoint of the singularity:
"Infinite intelligence expanding trough space at light speed"
Only thing I will add is: above light speed. Light speed is slow on a galactic scale. See Wallace Thornhill: The Elegant Simplicity of the Electric Universe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mINsiT70OHE
Posted by: Alex IW | October 16, 2017 at 01:40 PM
Oldest person to have lived is 187 years old from Mexico or Peru, I forgot. He died after meeting the president at sea level coming from the mountains.
Your prediction of max 100 years lifespan is incomplete.
The only problem with life extension is not science but the cradle to grave parasite class.
Posted by: Alex IW | October 17, 2017 at 02:39 AM
Warming fears aside, another interesting confirmation:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-11/fed-seeks-answers-to-missing-inflation-in-a-tight-labor-market
and from the video cast:
...global central banks cannot create inflation in this world. And nobody knows why, all of us, including me... And I think it begins to surface now...
Cliff Tan
wow,
Posted by: fatcat | October 17, 2017 at 07:12 AM
Alex IW,
There is no solid evidence of any human living past 122. Claims above that are exaggerated. While it is true that records may not have been kept in some places back in the 19th century, such a society usually correlated with a low average live expectancy anyway (even the US had a life expectancy of just 47 back in 1900).
However, we do know for a fact that just 0.1% of people who cross 100 reach 110. This is solidly proven by data.
Posted by: Kartik Gada | October 17, 2017 at 09:21 AM
Fatcat,
and from the video cast:
...global central banks cannot create inflation in this world. And nobody knows why, all of us, including me... And I think it begins to surface now...
Cliff Tan
wow,
Amazing. They just cannot get it, but aren't accepting my conclusions and evidence either.
Posted by: Kartik Gada | October 17, 2017 at 09:22 AM
I must say, the climate craze has gone from amusing to annoying. Purely based on verifiable data, their predictions have been consistently wrong. But that doesn't seem to deter them a single iota. It has become very cult like.
The other day I had an argument with an otherwise intelligent friend about sea level rise. Forget the fact that sea level was rising long before carbon dioxide concentrations increased, I asked him what he thought was the rate of change? He said in 10 years coastal cities would be flooded. My response was the actual measured rate of rise was 2-3 mm per year, meaning we need 10 years for even an inch of rise. And the seas have already risen 11 inches since 1900 without serious adverse consequences. So we have, likely, many decades before this is a problem. In fact the increase is so slow we can easily adapt to it.
He flat out denied I was right. I couldn't possibly be right. He got quite flustered and angry. It is an exceedingly strange response - if the data doesn't match your theory, then the theory must be wrong. It's nothing personal.
I see the same thing with inflation. Economists "know" that easing rates makes more inflation. That low unemployment makes inflation. Problem is - the theory doesn't match the data, and hasn't for quite some time. We've had rock bottom rates and high levels of employment and....nothing. Not a smidge of inflation. They keep making excuses - imports from China, low labor force participation, recovery from recession, but bottom line - the world is telling them their theories are not working. yet they persist with them despite mounting evidence something is wrong.
Posted by: Geoman | October 17, 2017 at 09:53 AM
Kartik
How will the crypto currency explosion impact the scenario of money printing by the fed that you postulated. Will the boom in crypto still allow for the money printing, won't it make people lose faith in the dollar if the money printing begins to the scale you wanted to talk about, especially now that crypto is an alternative.
I really like how Fatcat always brings the discussion to the here and now and tangible topics. So expanding on that point that he raised and you responded to, at what point do you think the signs for the recession become imminent. Because Roubini of all people just came out and said the Global Economy was in a sweet spot.
Posted by: Sunny | October 17, 2017 at 10:25 AM
Geoman,
He flat out denied I was right. I couldn't possibly be right. He got quite flustered and angry. It is an exceedingly strange response - if the data doesn't match your theory, then the theory must be wrong. It's nothing personal.
Left-wing politics is fused into a form of virtue-signalling/herd approval that is very innate to the ego of the leftist in question. It is part of their identity and sense of self-worth, rather than just a detached discussion about a subject.
Read this, even if it is from 2004 : http://ace.mu.nu/archives/179368.php
Posted by: Kartik Gada | October 17, 2017 at 11:40 AM
I suppose that is correct. But it didn't used to be that way. I Guess it is the transition from liberal to leftist. And the transition from religion of scientism. Very sad.
I get asked if I favor the right or the left, and my response is always the same - I favor whatever the data says is the correct solution. Left or right - who cares? Why are we still referencing back to the banks of the Seine river in France?
Posted by: Geoman | October 17, 2017 at 12:41 PM
Geoman - any good sources for the incorrect predictions CC alarmists have have made ? I would like to see how wrong they are, I too am tired of the doom and hype
Posted by: Stephen murray | October 17, 2017 at 01:46 PM
Hi HB,
...if
nature can control the aging mechanism, then there's a mechanism, perhaps even an evolutionary intentional one, to control longevity
I personally subscribe to the following hypothesis:
The humans are relatively rapidly needing breeding species. For the most of the human history the sexual maturity was from around 13 years. With huge child mortality and good chance to die from infections, famine, predation or fellow humans every year. And if a longevity Gene bears some cost in the first 30 years it will be selected against. So there is no magical kill switch. Just many complex systems that are never meant to list too long. They have to be good enough the first 30-45 years. And on some , albeit extreme, cases they last up to 120.
The challenge is huge but there are a few possible low having fruits. Since each system or metabolic pathway can fail at different age you can concentrate on the most immediate ones. There might be some synergetic effects which are there because when one system fails it increases the wear and tear on the rest of the body and if you repair that specific system you are buying more time for the rest too. Also the human body has , alas imperfect, repair and regenerative mechanisms, which are important subsystems themselves. Of course the progress is frustratingly slow and there is not much perceived need to invest in such topic. SENS makes sense. Of course the moment you can monetize a working therapy it will become a huge industry. After all, how much would you pay to become 10 years younger or even havlce the effective aging rate?
An interesting scenario is what would happen if suddenly there was a cure for cancer that is as easy, universal and good as the antibiotics are for the bacterial infections. Without age reversal, just pure cancer cure. I guess suddenly there will be no fear of the nuclear energy. Asbestos might have a comeback... Or even heaving a project Orion nuclear explosion space launch
Posted by: Fatcat | October 17, 2017 at 09:41 PM
Hi Kartik,
Their predictions have consistently failed to materialize, yet they take no ownership of their predictions, even those with specific dates attached to them ("Florida and Holland will be underwater by 2020!")
Just to play the devil's advocate.
Technically they are under whater now. Florida due to hurricanes , and Holland is below the sea level anyway.
...That said, I don't think human longevity can be extended beyond an average of 100 or so. I will change this opinion after a significant percentage of 100 y/os make it to 110 (at present, barely 0.1% do).
That's a very safe bet. And to get to that point you would need to have working improvements right now... But even though we have small number of supercentarians they are the living proof that it is possible. There is no physical law precluding us from reaching 100 years. It is just that we have been designed with a "producer's warranty" of 25-33 years in mind. If more than x percent survive the covered period it brings no advantage to improve the quality... To extend the analogy, a typical smartphone has 1 year warranty, and most last 2-3 years but then your battery goes bad, no more software updates, and the screen fades... And we have life expectancy from 66 to 86 depending on the country and lifestyle...
But if you slowly put a selective pressure to favor longevity (don't have children before 20 , 30, and 40). The modern developed economy societies already provide such a pressure. Of course this trend will take at least dozens of generations to make the 90 the new forties... And that is without of any medical breakthrough...
Posted by: Fatcat | October 17, 2017 at 09:48 PM
Hi Geoman,
..a $2,000 computer will have nearly the processing power of a human brain, but the programming will lag. Mobile devises will have universal translation.
Well, that's a very large topic. And also depends on how you measure the comparable performance. For the things the computers excel at even a microcontroller SOC can run circles around a crowd of humans. And we are talking about chips that cost pennies.
But let's say that we want to simulate an uploaded mind...
We would need to store the mind somewhere. We don't need to keep all of it in the main RAM, most of it probably can live on a harddrive
Memory size
For example, if we assume that all the memory is stored in the synapse weights, without any other storagw in the neurons (no use of metilation for memory, astrocytes don't contribute neither to memory, nor processing, only housekeeping - and other long reaching assumptions like that). To store the weights in some kind of matrix or a graph without compression it would require 100B neurons x 10k synopses per neuron x 2 bytes to store the weight ( 0 to ~60k range) we will need 100e9 x 10e3x2=2000e12 or 2 Petabytes. Today you can probably get 20TB for a $1000 , if we consider only the disk S themselves without the related cost of RAIDs and NASes. So no chance to get hundred-fold improvement.
On the other hand the pure processing as number of operations ironically has been reached. If we think of each neuron spike as a floating point operation (which might be too generous because it is more like sending a single bit or even less over the wire ) it turns that most of the neurons are silent. I don't have the estimate link handy but it is about 4 billion times a second for the whole brain. And 4B/s is 4GHz, which was the CPU frequency reached ten years ago. So even a modest modern CPU can do that, if you knew exactly which spijes should you emulate and if you could feed them efficiently to the CPU pipeline.
Posted by: Fatcat | October 17, 2017 at 09:53 PM
"It is more likely that humans give way to AI ...rather than humans becoming immortal."
Thanks for the insight Kartik.
That raises the investigation of another extreme coincidence: How come in thirteen billion years in the universe, this intelligence has not yet reached us from some other originating location in the universe.
Which raises another existential paradox, another extreme coincidence that must somehow be explained: In three billion years of terrestrial (let's just limit it to terrestrial) life, at some point life develops what we may call "a conscience". It does not exactly matter what one considers the threshold of "conscience", let's say it's that uniquely human trait that distinguishes us from animals. How old is that conscience? 20-50-500 thousand years old? The ability to ask that very question of "Why?"
Isn't it an extreme coincidence that in three billion years of life we are born so soon after the "conscience" event ? I mean so soon after and not a lot after? Because pondering why we are not born before makes no sense since we would have not been able to even answer the question.
Even more than extreme the time coincidence to the ATOM: Why are we born so close to the ATOM? And not after? (again being born much before makes no sense since the concept did not exist so we could not even ask the question). There are many ways to solve this last paradox, one being that humans in their current form cease to exist after the singularity.
In general, although extreme coincidences can occasionally be explained by sheer luck, much more often than not what appears as an extreme coincidence points to an unknown underlying cause. Often in retrospect.
Posted by: HB | October 18, 2017 at 09:18 AM
HB,
That raises the investigation of another extreme coincidence: How come in thirteen billion years in the universe, this intelligence has not yet reached us from some other originating location in the universe.
Yes. Thanks for bringing that point up.
Read what I wrote in 2009 :
http://www.singularity2050.com/2009/05/seti-and-the-singularity.html
The accelerating rate of change actually makes it less likely that there are thousands of civilizations in our galaxy. There is a decent chance that we are the first to get this far (at least in this galaxy). If we still don't find anything by 2030 (which is now just 13 years away, even if it was 21 years away when I wrote that article), then 'we are the first in this galaxy' becomes the most probable assessment.
There may be many that are behind us, but it is getting harder for there to be one more advanced than us, that has managed to avoid detection. Telescope power is rising 26%/year (square root of Moore's Law).
Posted by: Kartik Gada | October 18, 2017 at 10:14 AM
While you are busy talking about the climate and the future.
Here's something closer to the Atom in the here and now: http://www.businessinsider.com/stockton-california-launching-the-first-us-experiment-in-basic-income-2017-10.
Posted by: Sunny | October 18, 2017 at 03:58 PM
"Geoman - any good sources for the incorrect predictions CC alarmists have have made ? I would like to see how wrong they are, I too am tired of the doom and hype."
No. I usually go to a reputable source of data, look up the actual number, and do the math. In this case NOAA maintains tidal gauges all over the world. At about 3 mm rise a year, that is 0.11 inches, meaning about an inch every 10 years, and 100 years or so to get a foot. So yeah - it would be better if it was zero. On the other hand, 100 years? My guess - we'll run out of carbon or a need to burn it long before sea level rise is much of a problem.
Interestingly, NASA Goddard flight center says sea level rise stopped in July 2015. Not sure what that means, the pause is not long enough to signal a trend, and there have been previous pauses, but it is interesting. It is not a linear response to warming. Circulation patterns in the Atlantic and Pacific suggest a colder winter. So the pause may well persist.
I don't like giving out links to people simply because they should do their own research/math. Better to calculate it yourself and make up your own mind. That said, I find Matt Ridley's the Rational Optimist blog interesting. I think he's right about most things he weighs in on, hyperbole and all. But hey, he's a biologist. I never completely trust those bugs and bunny guys.
I should say lastly, I am no more of a skeptic on global warming than I am about everything else. I think it is a problem, and I think it can get solved, but I don't get the fuss - we are well on our way to solving it (global carbon dioxide emissions have been flat for three years running - mostly because U.S. emissions are declining). One thing strange is how people equate "belief" in global warming with belief in all the cataclysmic impacts of global warming, not realizing they are often discussing a prediction based on a prediction, based on a prediction... Nothing in climate change theory demands catastrophic sea level rise for example, it is just a possible consequence. And the data so far says - not happening.
Posted by: Geoman | October 18, 2017 at 05:15 PM
Sunny
i think the correct link is this (without the dot):
http://www.businessinsider.com/stockton-california-launching-the-first-us-experiment-in-basic-income-2017-10
Posted by: fatcat | October 19, 2017 at 09:16 AM
Thanks fatcat, must have added the period/dot accidentally.
I just thought it was interesting that while all this talk about the future is happening. No one seems to be paying attention to the core part of the ATOM, happening here and now. Looks like you were :).
The more I think about this, fatcat. The more I feel they/the fed are just not going to let Kartik's scenario play out. Because then they lose the plot. So I think the market will keep going up because the FED is allowing or encouraging (albeit I think indirectly) things like this story. Kartik may well be right fundamentally. But I think we are way beyond fundamentals, to where this really is a new paradigm. So I think what they/the Fed are doing is proactively experimenting with the solutions put forth in the Atom and not allowing the crash scenarios that Kartik mentions, to happen to begin with. It will be interesting to see if the crash happens this quarter or not. Nouriel Roubini, just came out with a fairly rosy outcome for the global economy.
Posted by: Sunny | October 19, 2017 at 09:47 AM
I fixed the period in Sunny's hyperlink.
Sunny,
Remember that in the ATOM, I say that the 2017 scenario will happen *unless* central banks take actions to mitigate it. If they are, then they are avoiding 2017. This is what we *want* them to do.
But I don't think that they are, since they are raising rates and unwinding the balance sheet. China's may be printing more, though.
That said, a ^vix that is around 10 for 6 months now, is often a huge top indicator. We shall see.
Posted by: Kartik Gada | October 19, 2017 at 12:24 PM
Hi Sunny,
Posted by: fatcat | October 19, 2017 at 12:34 PM
Hi Kartik ,
I think you can delete my post as it is quite off-topic. Btw , the commenting is painfully slow and the expiring form part discourages lengthy posts or even proofreading. There might be a couple of valuable comments missed here and there.
Posted by: fatcat | October 19, 2017 at 12:38 PM
As I read more of the ATOM, I'm starting to wonder:
What is the incentive to work under an expectation of exponentially rising guaranteed income?
I see this as a strong disincentive to work, ironically a disincentive to participate in the ATOM itself. Now, the ATOM rising exponentially will quickly create virtually infinite prosperity whether one percent of the population participates or ten percent or fifty percent. Yet, there is still a difference in exponents, so jurisdictions where thirty percent of the population are main ATOM drivers will grow at a higher exponent than a jurisdiction where only ten percent of the population are active ATOM drivers. With different exponents, the prosperity divergence between the two jurisdictions also grows exponentially. As we approach the singularity, minor differences and divergences become infinite, leading to logic difficulties in trying to comprehend and predict.
The guaranteed income disincentive then also seems to progress exponentially as guaranteed income also rises exponentially. What is the incentive to work when in a mere decade the guaranteed income will equal today's entrepreneurial compensation? A little longer term, why steer your toddler children towards the hard path of eventual entrepreneurship if by 2030 guaranteed income will top $100k then rising to perhaps half a million or more in another decade or so?
In other words, if the ATOM distributes (and also re-distributes through guaranteed income) its benefits so quickly, then why rush? Let the ATOM drivers get the ulcers, while you relax fishing at the lake and wait for the ATOM benefits to reach you soon after at rock bottom prices. As things progress exponentially you will be enjoying the same rewards as the ATOM drivers themselves, albeit with a ten, five then three, then two year delay and exponentially shrinking. Why sweat and rush to contribute?
I have always perceived the exponential nature of human development and the many fold increase in prosperity we are now experiencing over single lifetimes, and accelerating, and I'm thankful to Kartik for rationalizing it into a framework. However I think that this idea of guaranteed income is still indirect redistribution under another mechanism, and I feel it has essentially a disincentivising effect, just as current worldwide redistribution schemes do.
Posted by: HB | October 19, 2017 at 01:11 PM
HB,
I see this as a strong disincentive to work, ironically a disincentive to participate in the ATOM itself.
See Chapter 8 as well as the FAQs :
http://atom.singularity2050.com/8-the-atom-transformation-of-specific-industries-and-communities.html
http://atom.singularity2050.com/faqs.html
Three key points :
i) The 'people won't work with ATOM-DUES' concern is mutually exclusive with a concern that automation is taking jobs, and that healthcare costs are too high.
ii) Almost never does a self-made wealthy person retire after they achieve X wealth.
iii) The prosperity level that the ATOM-DUES will enable by 2033 ($100K/year) may seem high by today's standard, but many things about today's prosperity would already seem unimaginable to 19th century people, such as :
Unlimited photography (the original topic of this article).
Unlimited, nearly free light at night, which enables reading and hence almost total literacy.
Unlimited, nearly free access to high-quality music.
An inexpensive vehicle that can cruise at 70 mph for hours without interruption, carrying four or five people.
Crossing an ocean in hours costs only a few hours of the median wage.
Basic clothing and footwear are almost free. What is discarded today is better than what people could buy then.
Hundreds of choices of foods (most people in the 19th century had only 4-5 food choices at any given time).
Refrigeration and freezing available to almost all Americans.
Unlimited, free voice and even video communication across continents (which was not cheap even in 2001).
New materials like plastic and rubber are often nearly free.
Paper and ball-point pens are nearly free (ball-point pens were very expensive even as recently as 1960).
Barely 1% of all children under 5 die in prosperous countries (it used to be 50%).
I could list over a hundred such examples.
Posted by: Kartik Gada | October 19, 2017 at 02:18 PM
Hi HB,
Even now you can one can arrange their lifestyle and work patterns to love a more or less70s level of comfort.
But people decide not to. In fact , the progressive tax rate encourages less - middle class income for the same marginal improvement.
And there is a whole subculture within the millennials that semi-subconciousely choose to live with their parents or don't bother persuing ambitious career paths. We have a lot of perverse incentives:
Taxing the productive economic behavior, because that's where the money is,
and effectively paying people not to work or they will lose the eligibility for the various welfare programs.
So a non strings attached UBI or some government rent looks more efficient and leads to less perverse incentives.
Whoever is a lasy bum finds ways even now.
Or take the e exanple of a single mom living on welfare. The day Care is sponsored or covered by some form of local, state or federal government, or she stays home with the kids. She has some dental and medical insurance, again provided by the government. Now she has the option to start working for a minimal salary. She will have to arrange for the kids to be kept during the working hours+commute+some extra errands. She will lose the benefits, the insurance and such. She would be way worse if she was foolish enough to take that job...
Now if the benefits were guaranteed with no strings attached then she might try ing some job or business without fear of losing the benefits.
Posted by: Fatcat | October 20, 2017 at 07:07 AM
Fatcat,
She will lose the benefits, the insurance and such. She would be way worse if she was foolish enough to take that job...
This is the main problem. In California, plenty of people who could work at $40,000/year jobs choose not to, due to the perverse incentives of all the weird welfare programs.
ATOM-DUES is vastly better for this reason alone.
Posted by: Kartik Gada | October 20, 2017 at 12:10 PM
Disincentives exist in every country. The pivotal point is which country has less of these disincentives. That is how divergences in (exponential of course) growth rates arise and quickly compound to huge differences (and thus to an ever gaping divergence as the exponent accelerates under ATOM. As in the iconic tiger joke "...I don't have to outrun the tiger, I just have to outrun you".
Indeed, if the overall level of redistribution were to remain the same then universal income replacing current redistribution schemes may be a more efficient and less disincentivising way to redistribute compared to current mechanisms.
However, how likely is it that universal income will mean the automatic termination of all other redistribution programs? How likely is that universal income levels will follow the ATOM's rational technocratic schedule?
There will be hordes of people for whom the current redistribution is more advantageous. There will be hordes of voters employed in the redistribution bureaucracies who will fight tooth and nail strike and placard to keep their jobs. Fights against established bureaucracies have a poor overall track record of long term success.
There will also be hordes of people who instead of using the guaranteed income to rationalize their finances and habits, will simply buy primarily toys and then find themselves again in trouble, risking eviction, without medical insurance etc. No politician will be found to pander salvation to these people and build a winning "yes we can! [add back the old welfare programs and also keep the guaranteed income]" electoral coalition?
Once the guaranteed income becomes a significant proportion of earnings for a majority of voters, isn't it almost guaranteed that a supermajority political coalition will form around the cause of accelerating the guaranteed income increases beyond the ATOM's rational technocratic time schedule.
Even if somehow by political miracle the country managed to completely replace all current redistribution mechanisms with guaranteed income, the existing mechanisms will in all likelihood return, quickly, at which point you would have both the welfare redistributions and the guaranteed income on top, which you will not be able to get rid of. The effort reward curve will flatten, and other jurisdictions with steeper effort/compensation curves, and thus a more motivated populace will beat you to the ATOM.
Exactly because of the singularity, even small delays in reaching the singularity assume enormous proportions.
Posted by: HB | October 20, 2017 at 12:29 PM
HB,
However, how likely is it that universal income will mean the automatic termination of all other redistribution programs?
Of course this is impossible at the moment. That is why I say that the US will not be among the first few countries to do this. Canada, Switzerland, Singapore, and Hong Kong are the best candidates.
Small countries have to be first. Only then will bigger countries feel the pressure as these smaller countries shoot ahead and achieve extremely fast growth rates. Imagine if Canada of Switzerland started to see 7%/year real GDP growth on a sustained basis.
Once the guaranteed income becomes a significant proportion of earnings for a majority of voters, isn't it almost guaranteed that a supermajority political coalition will form around the cause of accelerating the guaranteed income increases beyond the ATOM's rational technocratic time schedule.
I don't think this will be a problem. The vote-bank socialism of 2017 America is already far worse, and leads to 40% wastage of taxpayer monies. Today, 30-40% of adults mostly subsist on government handouts. This proportion will be less under ATOM-DUES, even when the DUES payout is $100K/year for the US.
I think it is more likely that most people become similar to the hard-working rich that we see today. $100K of ATOM-DUES is not a lot when tons of $400K/year jobs still go unfilled, which is a 2033 scenario that I envision. For those who just don't have skills of value in the future economy, let them take their DUES and be a leisure class. Most members of this group will move out of expensive cities to rural areas (or cheaper countries) anyway, injecting new capital into those locations.
Posted by: Kartik Gada | October 20, 2017 at 01:19 PM
Hi Kartik
Is 40K a livable wage in caly or it is borderline poor?
Posted by: fatcat | October 20, 2017 at 01:52 PM
Hello HB
welcome the the basic universal income principle. Btw, Alaska has something similar (Alaska Permanent Fund) which is in addition to all other programs. And overall it seems as a positive example
And that's how you can get support for UBI/DUES from the right/conservative spectrum. Because you reduce if not ourtight eliminate government burocracy. The left spectrum can be won with the virtue of social justice and social benefits.There are a lot of homeless people that cannot be coherent enough to keep a permanent address to be able to collect the benefits and have difficulties navigating the byzantine paperwork to get sponsored housing. But the phase-in will be gradual. The point is to have foothold of the concept. That's a very possible solutoin. You can err on both sides. Either not enough QE or too much inflation. But as long as the ATOM growth is exponential it will be easier to convince the population to wait a couple of years than killing rhather than risk killing the goldedn goose.
There are a few main goals for DUES.
Posted by: fatcat | October 20, 2017 at 02:02 PM
Is 40K a livable wage in caly or it is borderline poor?
It is poor in the Bay Area, but livable in most other parts of the state, including many parts of the LA metro.
Remember that many on welfare in CA would otherwise happily leave the state to earn $40K in NV, AZ, and TX as well. But the CA welfare keeps them in CA, when then is like a drug that creates dependency as their skills erode.
Posted by: Kartik Gada | October 20, 2017 at 02:36 PM
HB,
The effort reward curve will flatten, and other jurisdictions with steeper effort/compensation curves, and thus a more motivated populace will beat you to the ATOM.
AS THEY SHOULD.
Remember, part of the ATOM program is that competition between nation states will finally manifest, and the better-managed states should see greater/faster/more precise benefits vs. the poorly-managed ones. This will force improvements in almost all nation-states, much like we see among private-sector firms in industries that have not been tainted by government meddling.
Posted by: Kartik Gada | October 20, 2017 at 03:43 PM
In the meanwhile,
http://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-news-sp-500-record-streak-decline-2017-10
The market volatility is low for another month....
There are several reasons why volatility — at least to the downside — has remained so low. Many economies across the world are growing, there are few signs of recession in the US, and companies are reporting earnings growth. A s Bank of America Merrill Lynch's Michael Hartnett recently put it, the "best reason to be bearish in Q4 is there is no reason to be bearish."
....
"Almost everything [in markets] has been great in 2017,” said Michael Jones, the chief investment officer of RiverFront, at a BlackRock press briefing on Friday. " The basic risk backdrop has changed dramatically. Last year the market would wig out and go through periods of volatility, and this year, the market has kind of ignored all that."
Posted by: fatcat | October 23, 2017 at 02:53 PM
fatcat,
Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve has begun to unwind the balance sheet (i.e. undoing QE). It is starting at just $10B/month now, but will ramp up by another $10B/month every 3 months, so that it is $50B/month by Q42018.
At the same time, it is possible that China is printing enough to offset a lot.
But under ATOM calculations, the world has to be doing $400B/month by late 2018 just to offset deflation. At the current rate, it will be down to $100B/Month + China by then, partly due to the Fed undoing other QE.
Posted by: Kartik Gada | October 23, 2017 at 03:40 PM
Hi Kartik,
exactly we have the "market complacency" of low volatility , which on its own could be interpreted as a reaction to the QE (after all we see low average VIX since the QE has begun ) And unwinding the QE and increasing the base rate for sure will reduce the liquidity on the market. Of course, even though you have got the trend correctly there could be a few paradoxical bumps and hiccups in either direction. I wouldn't be surprised if the reduction in liquidity brings some temporary inflation due to market adjustments. That would be unfortunate as it will reduce the QE even more...
Posted by: fatcat | October 23, 2017 at 09:25 PM
Fatcat,
Indeed. The fact that the predicted 2017 crisis is delayed for the reasons you mentioned merely accrues greater severity later. The next crisis, while a bit later than anticipated, will surely involve an opening salvo of several $Trillion printed, with relatively minor improvement from that due to the non-diffuse nature of US printing.
China and Japan will have to save the world.
But ^vix being this low for this long is almost certainly a precursor to rough waters in the next 12-36 months.
Posted by: Kartik Gada | October 24, 2017 at 10:48 AM
Hi Kartik
I re-read the Atom over the weekend, just so I can understand future trends beyond the 2017 time frame (per what you have mentioned before).
And based on what I am seeing and hearing. I don't think the 40-50% drop you mention is going to happen. There is no way the Fed is going to allow the market to drop beyond 5 %, before stepping in. There are already rumors that the so called plunge protection team will step in if the market drops beyond 5%. And considering that the fed is on record for proposing a direct buy of equities then really all projections of a 40-50% is not going to materialize . And since this is at the core of the ATOM, with remedies to the resulting crisis being dictated by a response to the massive drop. I think either you will have to modify your timeline or at the least modify the various scenarios. I think you are absolutely correct, in that DUES will begin in a smaller country and the U.S will be one of the last to implement it (despite the few experiments). I would also argue that DUES when they formally arrive in our country (to your credit, you have already stated a significant part of the budget is already going towards reimbursement to the public either through welfare or other means - so essentially an informal DUES is already happening) will be an expansion of the current program to include additional people classes (say through salary levels, for instance an expansion of the earned income credit to a higher range) then outright UBI.
Posted by: Sunny | October 24, 2017 at 12:23 PM
Sunny,
I don't think the 40-50% drop you mention is going to happen.
Never? Really? Despite the fact that almost every recession features this? You are effectively saying there will never be a recession.
And considering that the fed is on record for proposing a direct buy of equities then really all projections of a 40-50% is not going to materialize .
The Fed is not permitted to do that, as their charter is decided by Congress.
Posted by: Kartik Gada | October 24, 2017 at 12:40 PM
I want to agree with you Kartik. I have said many times that I am a believer in the ATOM. But the evidence just isn't there. The whole paradigm has shifted. I think this thing carries on even in a recession. I mean don't you buy that there really hasn't been a true recovery and that despite the wages going down the market keeps going up.
Posted by: Sunny | October 24, 2017 at 12:47 PM
But the evidence just isn't there. The whole paradigm has shifted.
What evidence is there of this? You have to provide much more detail than that.
The US Fed is UNWINDING the balance sheet. They absolutely will not buy equities directly (and are not allowed to by law).
You are effectively arguing that there will be no recession ever again. This itself is an indicator of choppy waters ahead.
Now, if the US Fed did a full reversal, and lowered rates, stopped unwinding the balance sheet, and had congressional authorization to buy other asset classes, then that would be a change. But that is not happened (quite the opposite in fact).
Remember that a good Futurist is one where 75% think he is too optimistic, and 25% think he is too pessimistic (whether short or long term). Too much deviation from this ratio tends to lead to inaccurate predictions.
Posted by: Kartik Gada | October 24, 2017 at 12:49 PM
Do what is it, in your view(s), that our one size fits all dirigistic economic masters either don't get or disagree with?
Is it the fact that irreversibly rapid technological advancement causes deflation? Is it just a miscalculation of the amount of deflation it causes? Or is it just public choice theory that biases the economic bureaucrats we have delegated our coercively collectivist economic future to who simply want to maintain their bureaucratic positions?
Posted by: HB | October 24, 2017 at 08:39 PM
HB,
Is it the fact that irreversibly rapid technological advancement causes deflation?
Yes.
Is it just a miscalculation of the amount of deflation it causes?
They cannot even grasp that this causes deflation, so they are far from measuring it at all.
Or is it just public choice theory that biases the economic bureaucrats we have delegated our coercively collectivist economic future to who simply want to maintain their bureaucratic positions?
That is part of it. The main thing is that they face no consequences or costs for being wrong again and again.
Posted by: Kartik Gada | October 24, 2017 at 08:47 PM
It is a new world, and it is difficult to adjust one's thinking to it. It also has the same drawback I have seen in many major sciences - sciences are merging together, and there are more and more cross-disciplinary problems facing us.
I've spent some time working on problems with mercury bioaccumulation in the environment. The biggest problem is our perception of the problem - the issue crosses over from chemistry to biology, geology, limnology, botany, air, climate, power generation, etc. Experts in one field don't understand another, and therefore come to poor conclusions regarding what is happening and how to prevent it.
In a similar way, economists know quite a bit about economics, but the singularity is just not something they can fully fathom. Endless deflation? How is that possible? And, unfortunately the scientists who might understand the singularity, its concepts and predictions, are stuck on the wonders of coming technology, not on the freight train economic impact of such technology.
Posted by: Geoman | October 31, 2017 at 03:03 PM
Geoman,
In a similar way, economists know quite a bit about economics, but the singularity is just not something they can fully fathom. Endless deflation? How is that possible? And, unfortunately the scientists who might understand the singularity, its concepts and predictions, are stuck on the wonders of coming technology, not on the freight train economic impact of such technology.
Very well put.
We stand alone at present. Hopefully others can get with the program sooner rather than later.
Posted by: Kartik Gada | October 31, 2017 at 03:16 PM
Well I always agree that you have a good point, even when I might not agree specifically and completely with that point. Certainly your ideas deserve to get some additional outside analyses and discussion.
Ever think of writing a book? heck - just expand some of the posts into chapters.
Posted by: Geoman | November 01, 2017 at 03:45 PM
Geoman,
The ATOM does exist as a published, hardcopy book :
https://www.amazon.com/Accelerating-TechnOnomic-Medium-ATOM-Upgrade-ebook/dp/B072K3JL29/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1509577962&sr=8-1&keywords=kartik+gada
But since I give it away for free online (which I have to in order to get some chance of viral exposure), that is little-known.
Not to mention that the hardcopy loses the color of images, clickable links, and comment sections.
Posted by: Kartik Gada | November 01, 2017 at 04:13 PM