Economic Devastation

[CoinCube]

Also he was very specific in his weather prediction and his specificity (both the prediction for violent storms and the prediction for volatility in both directions...how much more specific do you  realistically expect?) was met precisely by the outcome in California (as well the abnormal reduction in tornados in the Midwest). You are choosing to erect strawman arguments because you don't want a model with many bottom-up, onion layers (a fractal and high entropy), rather you want a flat earth with hierarchical, top-down structure (low entropy guaranteed failure and implausible).

Confirmation bias , also called myside bias, is the tendency to search for, interpret, or recall information in a way that confirms one's beliefs or hypotheses. It is a type of cognitive bias and a systematic error of inductive reasoning. People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs. People also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position. Biased search, interpretation and memory have been invoked to explain attitude polarization (when a disagreement becomes more extreme even though the different parties are exposed to the same evidence), belief perseverance (when beliefs persist after the evidence for them is shown to be false), the irrational primacy effect (a greater reliance on information encountered early in a series) and illusory correlation (when people falsely perceive an association between two events or situations).
 
A series of experiments in the 1960s suggested that people are biased toward confirming their existing beliefs. Later work re-interpreted these results as a tendency to test ideas in a one-sided way, focusing on one possibility and ignoring alternatives. In certain situations, this tendency can bias people's conclusions. Explanations for the observed biases include wishful thinking and the limited human capacity to process information. Another explanation is that people show confirmation bias because they are weighing up the costs of being wrong, rather than investigating in a neutral, scientific way.
 
Confirmation biases contribute to overconfidence in personal beliefs and can maintain or strengthen beliefs in the face of contrary evidence. Poor decisions due to these biases have been found in political and organizational contexts.

I think further narrow discussion about Armstrong's weather prediction in 2013 is a low utility exercise. I am going bow out on further debate until I can get more up to speed on Armstrong overall. I am curious to see if my interpretation of Armstrong differs substantially from yours or if I reach the same conclusions. I suspect that will make for a much more interesting back and forth.

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[iamback]

CoinCube, how can a correct prediction be confirmation bias? You go on your merry way of delusion.

AcademicCathedralPompousPussyPossum577, you cry baby. Do you always need to be spoon fed?

[Possum577]

CoinCube, I have a question about Finance Part I:

In the most basic terms a bank can't lend money unless it has money to lend, they need to physically have the cash to give to me (for example) for a car, home, etc. So how can those funds be spent if they're made (out of thin air or accounting wizardry) as a deposit in my account upon their grant of the loan? I take that deposit, give it to the person I'm buying the car from and the bank has to payout that payment.

I'll keep reading, but I'm sure you've had questions like this before.

Edit: It's because banks can borrow too, isn't it? They can put a deposit in my account for an amount they can't cover today because they can borrow that amount tomorrow. Do I have it correct? And if so, what keeps Coinbase from doing the same thing with bitcoin, The public ledger?

[Possum577]

AcademicCathedralPompousPussyPossum577, you cry baby. Do you always need to be spoon fed?

iamback, How are you calling me out? For what? This is hilarious, because here you're calling me an "Academic Cathedral Pompous Pussy" but on another thread we're basically having a civil conversation.

Just because you believe what you're told, like a child, doesn't mean us adults do. I subscribe to facts and logic, if those are only available in spoon size portions I'll only be consuming one spoon at a time.

Don't be an ass. If you don't like what I have to say ignore me or mind your own fucking business.

Grow up little kid.

[CoinCube]

Possum577 I would not take insults from AnonyMint iamback too seriously. He tends to throw them around liberally at pretty much everyone. He is a very smart guy, however, and once you wade through the noise he almost always has something interesting to say you just need a strong filter.

I no longer view you as a rational and sane person..

Hey you myopic dimwits:

You all are insane.

AnonyMint I greatly respect your intellect (I started this post to explore your ideas after all). Noise, however, while very provocative and often amusing is nevertheless fundamentally just noise.

This is not a moderated thread and thus all parties are free to post anything they want. However, as noise tends to lower the overall quality of the conversation I do kindly ask all parties try and keep it to a minimum.

The more things change the more they stay the same    

[CoinCube]

CoinCube, I have a question about Finance Part I:

In the most basic terms a bank can't lend money unless it has money to lend, they need to physically have the cash to give to me (for example) for a car, home, etc. So how can those funds be spent if they're made (out of thin air or accounting wizardry) as a deposit in my account upon their grant of the loan? I take that deposit, give it to the person I'm buying the car from and the bank has to payout that payment.

I'll keep reading, but I'm sure you've had questions like this before.

Edit: It's because banks can borrow too, isn't it? They can put a deposit in my account for an amount they can't cover today because they can borrow that amount tomorrow. Do I have it correct? And if so, what keeps Coinbase from doing the same thing with bitcoin, The public ledger?

Possum577 you are more or less correct. The money banks create goes by default into other banks. Thus even if the bank does not attract deposits they can borrow money from their neighbor banks. This is not free and the cost to do this is artificially set (in the US) by the FED. It is this cost that is the true limiting factor on how much money a bank can create.
This interbank lending rate is called the Federal Funds Rate.

Nothing prevents Coinbase from doing fractional reserve off chain lending. The underlying asset cryptocurrency, however, is fixed and limited in supply. Thus if when Coinbase starts doing this it will be operating much like the fractional reserve banking system did when we were on a gold standard.

The key to understanding the scam is the realization that bank lending is not limited by their deposits. Rather they create they money and in the process debase/devalue the currency of everyone else.

When a bank makes a loan it must be paid back with interest. This interest must be drawn from the larger economy.  Every time a bank creates a loan it creates more debt than currency and the overall debt burden relative to currency grows. How is this debt paid? It can only be paid via two mechanisms. Someone somewhere in the economy must take out even more debt to pay the initial loan (delay), or debt must go into default and the underlying collateral seized (eventual guaranteed outcome).

Selling assets to pay debt does not change this. A specific individual debt may be satisfied, but that money is then removed from circulation resulting in even less money to pay other debts. Banks create a false boom via sustained periods of money printing. This results in an unstable and volatile imbalance between saving and investment. Low interest rates by a central bank stimulate the creation of money by the banking system. This leads to increased capital spending funded by newly issued bank credit. This debt induced boom results in widespread malinvestment. When credit is cut off there is a massive bust as assets are liquidated at fire sale prices in an attempt to service an ultimately unserviceable debt burden. Rinse wash and repeat and you have a parasitic cycle.

[coinits]

This video is good. |-|erc may not like it but it is very informative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFDe5kUUyT0

[coinits]

This video is good. |-|erc may not like it but it is very informative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFDe5kUUyT0

And here is Mikes solution.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijwcDMf1HFs&list=UUThv5tYUVaG4ZPA3p6EXZbQ

[iamback]

What part of "spoon feed" do you not understand?

If ever one of the 63,000 readers can't just go read the essays in the OP and read the thread, and instead has to burden the thread with their personal demands, is that realistic? I don't think you are being civil with that attitude. You are being a whining spoiled brat.

Also CoinCube's formal training in economics is mostly irrelevant. Beyond Economics 101, most of what you learn from theory is wrong. For you to imply that is a requirement for you to read this thread, is way over the top (bringing that snotty academic cathedral attitude into a Bitcoin forum).

CoinCube, you are correct I don't give a shit about politics, because having the correct ideas and knowledge is what matters. Nothing is accomplished if decision making is done groupwise. Am I going to have to prove that, when I single-handedly have to write the crypto-currency we need?

I am tired of begging Skycoin, Monero, etc to work on what we need.

Leaders lead by doing. Followers talk, waste time, and eventually adopt what the leaders did successfully.

[CoinCube]

Also CoinCube's formal training in economics is mostly irrelevant. Beyond Economics 101, most of what you learn from theory is wrong. For you to imply that is a requirement for you to read this thread, is way over the top (bringing that snotty academic cathedral attitude into a Bitcoin forum).

CoinCube, you are correct I don't give a shit about politics, because having the correct ideas and knowledge is what matters. Nothing is accomplished if decision making is done groupwise. Am I going to have to prove that, when I single-handedly have to write the crypto-currency we need?

I am tired of begging Skycoin, Monero, etc to work on what we need.

Leaders lead by doing. Followers talk, waste time, and eventually adopt what the leaders did successfully.

For my doing action today I downloaded Armstrongs prison writings. Holy smokes 2000+ typed pages. I did not realize the size of the project I have committed myself too. When I said that I was going to report back in a week... well that date looks likely to slip.

I don't want to mislead anyone about the extent of my economics training. I was an undergraduate economics major for one year before changing career paths eventually obtaining a doctorate in an unrelated field. I have long had an interest in economics but I do not by any stretch of the imagination claim to be an expert in the field. I do not believe any formal economics training is required to read and understand the concepts in this thread.

[iamback]

I would not take insults from AnonyMint iamback too seriously. He tends to throw them around liberally at pretty much everyone.

I also commend people who write astute and smart posts. You can find many, many, many examples of that.

an expert in the field.

Armstrong has correctly stated that the experts learned by doing, not from theory and academic cathedrals.

Thus there are very few experts (at least amongst those who speak out in public or publish). Most of the talking heads or those who publish research are just spouting delusion.

[iamback]

The money banks create goes by default into other banks. Thus even if the bank does not attract deposits they can borrow money from their neighbor banks. This is not free and the cost to do this is artificially set (in the US) by the FED. It is this cost that is the true limiting factor on how much money a bank can create.
This interbank lending rate is called the Federal Funds Rate.

Nothing prevents Coinbase from doing fractional reserve off chain lending. The underlying asset cryptocurrency, however, is fixed and limited in supply. Thus if when Coinbase starts doing this it will be operating much like the fractional reserve banking system did when we were on a gold standard.

The key to understanding the scam is the realization that bank lending is not limited by their deposits. Rather they create they money and in the process debase/devalue the currency of everyone else.

Correct if there is no Central Bank to print more fractional reserve receipts to bailout bank runs, then the banks fail from fractional reserve lending (which creates money out of thin air). The scam of Central Banking is the people agree to collectivize the debasement over the entire banking and financial system. This delays the defaults (in our case for the past 80+ years), which ends up making the default a global abyss of epic proportions as what we will see over the next 7 years starting 2015.75.

The reason we ended up with a Central Bank in the USA in 1913, was because the monetary system was so dysfunctional towards the end of the 19th century, we were having bank runs and depressions often.

Fractional reserve banking is a natural free market result. It can't be stopped with regulation (because the political system will always be captured by the banksters).

The only solution is the one I am writing about in my new thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=985481.0

As usual, I don't expect most readers to understand my point.

[iamback]

More correct Armstrong predictions.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2015/03/11/gold-the-downside/

The Gold “POP” our computer pinpointed was right on schedule. We even managed to get the day of the high. Now gold has fallen to 1146 intraday and this is interesting. Our Daily Bearish Reversals are at 1146 and 1141 followed by 1130. Resistance now stands at the 1208-1215 level.

[CoinCube]

I also commend people who write astute and smart posts. You can find many, many, many examples of that.
...
Armstrong has correctly stated that the experts learned by doing, not from theory and academic cathedrals.

Thus there are very few experts (at least amongst those who speak out in public or publish). Most of the talking heads or those who publish research are just spouting delusion.

I agree on all counts

I have praised the genius of proof-of-work.

your recent posts have been very impressive

That is an excellent (astute, perceptive, efficiently summarized) high-level perspective

I wonder how much freedom those in academics truly have to explore nontraditional non approved economic models. Academics is a publish or perish profession. If you cannot get your research published in good journals (which requires the approval of today's leading economists) your career stagnates. Unorthodox ideas that reject the modern economic thought are probably much more difficult to publish.

Just look at the case of Ludwig-Von-Mises essentially the founder of the Austrian school of economics. However, he was arguing against the status quo.

http://mises.org/library/ludwig-von-mises-scholar-who-would-not-compromise

Mises never obtained a full professorship in Vienna or in any German university; nor later did he obtain one
at any of the prestigious American universities when he moved to the US. The best he achieved during his long career in which he published 47 books was the rank of a poorly paid visiting professor.

Perhaps it is a very good thing that I abandoned the field of economics. I do not think I would have been a big status quo supporter.

[OROBTC]

...

I studied some Economics in college as well, not enough for a major, but several classes (+/- 8 semester-classes).  I would agree that other than the very basics, most economics as practiced today is just voodoo...

(Looking back on it, perhaps I should have studied Materials Science rather than Geology and Business.  Not programming (FORTRAN) though, that disagreed with me)

iamback and CoinCube are looking at reality, and that is to be commended.

*   *   *

I read about 10 - 15 (it's been a while, I printed them out on something called "paper" and "read" them on weekends at coffee shops, etc.) or so of Armstrong's "Prison Pieces".  Many of them were very impressive, and introduced new ideas to me.  I could not find anything wrong with any of his ideas, but I am less of an expert than just about anyone here who reads my post.

I think that he is on to some important truths.  His documentation of the Romans taking the silver out of their denarius (IIRC), the STANDARD at that time was a real eye-opener.

I have only skim-read much of his blog.  I have also read (elsewhere) that many are unsatisfied with his work "post-prison".  But, I will be watching for the run-up to 2015.75...  And doing what I feel is best until then.

*   *   *

History, b!+chez.  Human nature has not changed.  Preparation "just in case" is essential.  But, I disagree with iamback on any one route or any one teacher.  Even if we have a BIG DEPOPULATION (flu epidemic, war), being better prepared than most others raises the odds of survival, perhaps even to thrive thereafter.

[iamback]

I have also read (elsewhere) that many are unsatisfied with his work "post-prison".

Probably the goldbugs who are pissed that he doesn't agree that gold is manipulated, which he has revealed extensively in his blog post-prison.

Even if we have a BIG DEPOPULATION (flu epidemic, war), being better prepared than most others raises the odds of survival, perhaps even to thrive thereafter.

You will never have enough ammo to hold off the hoardes of waves of humanity attacking you, if ever we reach the point where you need to have a firefight in the first place.

Bunker mentality is a battle of attrition. It isn't realistic. A true survivalist would be able to survive with nothing but a knife.

I didn't mention that I've carried 50kg 12 foot long 6" x 6" chainsaw cut hardwood (Mahogany?) logs on my head over the mountains and valleys with the natives here in the Philippines. I know how to survive on digging camote (sweet potato) out of the ground. I can run long distances.

But that is only an insurance policy. I would much rather find a crypto solution for my well being in a modern, productive, prosperous world.

The life in the wild is harsh. Lime disease from ticks any one?

[OROBTC]

...

We are not going to go living in the wild.  I already know that will not work for us, we are too old for that crap.  Nor are we trained up to be farmers.

Ferfal's comments about rural living in dangerous Argentina are almost surely correct.  I have read about similar problems in Uruguay.  In Texas, there are problems like that (violent robberies and assaults in rural counties).  Zero Hedge just tonight had a story on problems in the oil boomtowns in ND and MT.  Rural farms != bucolic paradise, I get that.

So our plans are to stay in place.  "Plan B" (ONLY if we feel forced to leave by an "overly aggressive" US .gov) is Lima, Peru, where we have a business, ample in-laws and a city that can operate without an Internet, even without electricity (albeit uncomfortably).  But, timing would make such a decision tough to make...  We are more likely to just stay.

"Economic Devastation" does not mean TEOTWAWKI.  There is a huge spectrum of outcomes.  Most are not The End.  "The End" scenarios, perhaps, are among the least probable.

[r0ach]

Can't believe this post is still going.  I can't remember, was the Anonymint age of knowledge thing supposed to inevitably lead to the creation of AI or not?  I was thinking about AI the other day and don't think true AI is possible unless the digital intelligence was able and allowed to rewrite it's own debug and error checking systems, then the consequences of doing so talked about at the end of the post:

http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=962235.msg10576073#msg10576073

I've never really seen anyone on earth bring up these numerous points about AI that I talk about for some reason.

[iamback]

I can't remember, was the Anonymint age of knowledge thing supposed to inevitably lead to the creation of AI or not?

Absolutely not!

My seminal blog was about how Kurzweil's Singularity is nonsense; and where I had already made the points you are making about A.I..

Go read this new thread of mine to understand in one page my thesis on everything talked about in this 45 page thread.

[r0ach]

I can't remember, was the Anonymint age of knowledge thing supposed to inevitably lead to the creation of AI or not?

Absolutely not!

My seminal blog was about how Kurzweil's Singularity is nonsense; and where I had already made the points you are making about A.I..

Go read this new thread of mine to understand in one page my thesis on everything talked about in this 45 page thread.

Your post for debunking Kurzweil doesn't really address what I was talking about.  I made the statement that real AI isn't really possible because the debug and error checking system of the AI would be entirely human designed, and this component of the system would define just about everything that the AI was doing at any given time.  An example would be if the AI tried to count all the photons in it's vicinity and got hard locked at 100% CPU usage forever accomplishing basically nothing.  Without the human designed element, it might think this task is important, or that it will eventually reach a finite number and can stop, but never does.

The exception to this rule is, if the AI can, or is allowed, to rewrite it's own error checking and debug software, this doesn't necessarily mean the original version ceases to exist.  If both versions continue to exist, you have recreated evolution (asexual reproduction), and your argument about "every human brain is unique and machines aren't" probably goes out the window.  Literally hordes of physical representations of each version would arise and probably compete with each other for resources just like real animals do.  Some versions would be completely useless and just stand there counting photons, other versions, being in a different environment with different external variables, might run into other AI and try to compete with it for resources and turn into predators developing weapons for the task.

The summary is, the possibilities I see is that AI is probably either not going to happen or work at all, or it's going to mirror biological evolution.