Rochambeau

The fact that about half of the population is "living paycheck to paycheck" means there are a great deal of people who do have the option to invest but choose not to. It simply cannot be the case that half the population's non-discretionary expenses exactly match their their earning potential (how could that possibly be the case across the almost continuous variables of pay and spending possible); instead their motivation to work and earn more/spend less creeps up as they go into debt and they let themselves spend more whenever they have a pay increase/as ... (read more)

The interest is offset by getting to keep the asset and its additional gains past when you would have sold it while still accessing a lot of the value; perhaps not worthwhile for some assets, but namely for real estate, people would be foolish to sell any investment property that is cash flowing (if not enough paper losses to offset the capital gains if they were to just sell or without a 1031 exchange).

I am already starting to do it and my fiancée more-so. He pays less in taxes than me (right now mostly due to depreciation) and that is despite making much... (read more)

I enjoyed reading these financial predictions that I haven't seen in so much detail previously, particularly the part about massive default of fixed rate debt which I think makes a lot of sense. What I think is missing is this future world is the impact of massive deflation.

In a world where "a Claude agent can do the work of a $180,000 product manager for $200/month", most white collar workers are moving into blue collar work, those with even a handful of years of savings will be sitting extremely comfortably in a deflationary spiral if they don't have mas... (read more)

Kind of funny the buttermilk interaction hit me with the fact that we have always had access to the equivalent of the best AI models, asking questions about not too niche knowledge to the people around us.

I honestly wouldn't even have considered asking a stranger a cooking related question like that, but at least for myself, I would absolutely love to answer that question if a stranger asked me.

You are the one that made the strong claim "Most successful entrepreneurship is unproductive". Are you saying that claim doesn't need to hold up in the practical details? If so, maybe the post should be titled, "Successful Entrepreneurship Can Be Unproductive".

If the hypotheticals in the post are all potentially not actually cases where successful entrepreneurship was unproductive for society, I am highly skeptical of the claim. 

I understand illustrative hypotheticals, but to call most entrepreneurship unproductive by disregarding one the most importa... (read more)

Tom's business cannot with any confidence be said to be rent seeking behavior: 

• There is value for being closer to customers (as you pointed out)
• Assuming no cartelization, the quantity supplied for car repair and maintenance increases reducing price, society is therefore richer in terms of amount of car repair.
• On the margin Fred may be forced to give more of his surplus to his employees to keep them (potentially enticing a more efficient number of mechanics for optimal allocation of resources that makes society richer as a whole)
• If Fred were to go out

Have you seen the Fantastic Four: First steps? Perhaps that one is more a big instance of "something to protect" instead of involving the relationship between mother and growing child. Still I loved the setting (retro-futuristic world), I loved the shear positivity of the movie. The mother isn't staying away from the action during or after the pregnancy.

A closer example of what you describe is The Incredibles. I maintain that is the best superhero movie ever made. Very large focus on the whole family though perhaps it is more about the mother trying to investigate where her husband is, though in the end the whole family is a team.

It isn't obvious to me that "credit worthiness for sale" is bad on net. There are the high publicity cases of people committing fraud by way of purchasing creditworthiness in some respect, but there are also (and I'd guess more wide-spread less exciting) legitimate purchases of creditworthiness.

For example, it might not optimal for very competent newer investors/inventors/organizations slowly get capital investment or other support. If you think of the marketing campaigns, sponsorships, etc. as a bond to show they believe in their performance, and believe ... (read more)

I think it is much less bogus than you think. Yes, price would change if a large number sell or buy, perhaps that would be more of a statement on liquidity than bogusness.

At anytime, all shareholders are able to sell their shares at the market price, therefore anyone still owning believes the price is at or less than it's true value, likewise anyone has the option to buy at the current price so (barring non-idealities) everyone else thinks the price is potentially higher than its true value, therefore market capitalization is much less bogus as it is the p... (read more)

I agree this would certainly be better than an outright ban on price gouging, though I don't understand the advantage over not treating disasters differently.

The larger the tax base, ceteris peribus, the less distortionary the tax, so if you want more money for the poor during disasters, just raise normal sales/income/or property tax rate an amount to equal the revenue needed to help poorer people in disasters, and then don't have the more heavily distortionary high tax that only applies to disasters. As an added plus, doing it this way avoids a high tax when adherance is lower and may be more popular than an onerous tax when goods are at their most expensive.

This seems like the kind of thing that could be hosted in a place like Próspera. I believe the ZEDE law was very recently repealed, but I have yet to hear that the Próspera project is stopping and the constitutional amendment could be repealed next year. Próspera claims it will be proceeding and international law/treaties and it's 50 year stability agreements protect it. https://prospera.hn/news/press-releases/built-to-last-legal-stability-in-the-zede-framework

It seems too early, but if Próspera survives this most recent political shift in Honduras, then i... (read more)

Policymakers

A scorpion asks a frog to carry it across a river. The frog hesitates, afraid that the scorpion might sting it, but the scorpion promises not to, pointing out that it would drown if it killed the frog in the middle of the river. The frog agrees to transport the scorpion. Midway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog anyway, dooming them both. The dying frog asks the scorpion why it stung despite knowing the consequence, and the scorpion replies: "I am sorry, but I couldn't resist the urge. It's in my nature."

-Fable

We are the frog, and the nature of our future AI scorpions must be figured out or we all may die, or worse.

Also there is a lot of confirmation bias. I don't remember hearing any friends telling me someone they know died of Covid, but I have heard one say someone they know died right after getting the vaccine and another complaining about what they think are symptoms of vaccination and say their PCP has not been treating them seriously.

I bet there have been covid deaths of a friend of a friend, but that is a lot less notable to them or me compared to a potential death due to the vaccine. I wish I had recorded every covid/vax death/problem so I wasn't just relying on my faulty memory.

Similarly what I have seen from by my friends and acquaintances is.

1. Disease breaks out.
2. Public health authorities/pharmaceutical companies push a new vaccine and claim it is X% effective/prevents the spread.
3. Later it is found to be less effective than initially promised/new variants make it less effective and boosters are now announced as needed.
4. People feel lied to, believing they were originally told vaccine was more effective than evidence shows it is/the fact that restrictions are still in place with the vaccine makes reduces its credibility in their eyes.

"I'm a rationalist."

JKJK

Thanks for the explanation.

Someone please correct me if my interpretation of food and reproduction are incorrect as my programing experience is limited.

I see the energy being reduced by 20%, but what is the threshold for death? 

The number of offspring is determined by rolling a number between 0 and 1 rolled 10 * creature energy times, and for each random number  less than 1 / (body size x 10), a baby is created with the same energy as the original creature and no impact on the original creature?

I think I am missing where predator efficiency is accounted for. 

In line 1... (read more)

I have always wondered how high we can push the voltage on transmission lines. Maybe carbon nanotubes being as conductive as copper but lighter and stronger than aluminum could allow significant transmission of electricity across time zones, stretching out the load and allowing solar to power dark areas for some time without increasing storage. Transmission towers would need to get obscenely large, but the lighter lines would a allow for fewer of them.