A Life Without Progress

– John Robb at Global Guerillas

I was born in 1974, about three weeks before the resignation of Nixon. This is what I think the economy is. This is what I learned by default. This is what I expect. This is normal to me. "Upward mobility", and eighties yuppies, were only on television. Some people think of America as a place you shouldn't expect to get ahead unless you work hard. I grew up thinking of America as a place where you shouldn't expect to get ahead if you work hard. When I dropped out of a University I couldn't afford and entered the workforce full time in the nineties, "Lateral mobility" became the natural catchphrase, where moving from company to company was the only way one would ever advance in pay or benefits. And, ultimately, by the turn of the century, self-employment ended up the only way to actually get what I wanted.

Education, careers, retirement, home ownership, investments and savings - these were all mirages to me. They felt like lies at the time. And now, as the ant's colony crumbles and is stripped bare by the locusts of Wall Street, somewhere, a grasshopper is smiling.

I didn't believe society then. But at that time, it was only a hunch. It is with a rather bittersweet sense of schadenfreude that I now have an entire argument. When the grasshopper begs the ant for food, he may at least be fed. But what is a grasshopper to do when the ant, wiped out and exhausted, comes calling?

Comments –Nato

Not Quite a Distraction

It's true that a big crazy hullaballoo is being manufactured about AIG's bonuses, whose $165 million dollars comprise less than one tenth of one percent of the $170 BILLION. But it's also true that this is a critical fraction, because it is intended as compensation - easily exorbitant, by compensation standards - for the performance of executives who are responsible for destroying, not only their company, but the global economy.

Where was this anger when the law was being drafted? I mean, seriously, what was Congress thinking? They actually believed that they could write check after check to a profit-making enterprise and expect them to change their behavior with no strings attached.

AIG CEO Liddy claims that the company was contractually obligated to pay these bonuses since last year, and this ties his hands. While I take Glenn Greenwald's point that this is sickeningly disingenuous in light of GM's breaking of it's compensation contracts with workers, I still find the appeal of a plutocrat like Liddy to the rule of law a rather refreshing response to the whole mess.

And now, the House has passed a bill to "claw back" 90% of bonuses for any bailed out company that exceeds $250,000 per household.

But what boggles me is why Congress is so incensed to pass new legislation instead calling for actual investigation and enforcement of the laws that are already on the books. You know, things like RICO and fraud statutes. After all, if the real problem is that the compensation incentive system inside the company is not producing the desired results, isn't that what deterrent incentive systems, like criminal law, are for?

Update: Obama on Leno:

Laws? What Laws?

Oh. I see.

Comments –Nato

People's Capitalism

J. Storrs Hall posted something that made some sense. At least, it didn't have me throwing up my arms at the sheer absurdity of plutocratic market fundamentalism that has run our economy government for the past few decades (You're entrepreneurs! What the hell are you doing in government?!). He remains optimistic in the sense that he sees advancing automation and AI as an overall good thing, but at least he's clear enough on the idea that, yes, we're actually going to have to DO something, politically and economically, in order to make it work. In other words, the way our economy is structured now, which pays people for their labor, is not going to provide widespread prosperity when the costs of outright owning automated devices decline at Moore's Law rates.

Furthermore, he introduces me to the work of James Albus, an economist who proposed a response to the automation problem in the 1970's. Entitled People's Capitalism, the idea is that governments create a National Mutual Fund, which invests in businesses and pays out what amounts to a guaranteed income through a citizen's dividend. Everyone owns capital by virtue of citizenship, rather than investment. Thus, everyone becomes a capitalist, rather than depending on their dissolving earning power.

It's obviously not a new idea, but it's one that sounds downright grownup in comparison to the brutality of market fundamentalism. I'd like to see this tried, as (or if) the problem begins to get worse. So I'm glad to see it get some airtime as a credible possibility.

I seem to recall Chomsky warning against people buying into an abusive system, and having something to lose from opposing what they would otherwise think are unethical methods of production. A citizen's dividend would sure as hell mean more skin in the game - but it might be better than total disenfranchisement.

Now THIS is what I'd call a sane debate.

Comments –Nato

The Theory of Political Selection

Considering Congress as a marketplace fails to apprehend the reality of corruption. Campaign contributions in exchange for legislation frames lawmaking as a marketplace, where consenting actors cooperate for mutual gain. But this isn't what's really going on. Naturally, the conception of Congress as a place to strike deals between the wealthy and the powerful would be bad enough, even if it was true. But its worse than even that.

Customarily, government holds the monopoly on the use of coercive force. This license is used in order to exert selective pressure on business, to insure that abusive commercial and industrial practices are eliminated. But the reality is not just different - its the opposite. Because politicians simply cannot run for office without wealth, but must skillfully avoid being caught appearing to have been influenced by money (something that contributors also have an interest in, since a corrupt-looking politician doesn't serve them either), they must come to running for office already convinced of the positions that wealthy contributors favor. Otherwise, they are simply not sponsored.

Politicians don't coercively regulate wealth; wealth coercively regulates politicians.

Money doesn't change a politician's mind; it simply pre-determines who may run for and win office. It's not adaptation - it's natural selection.

Comments –Nato

Monomaniacal Mutterings

As a follow up to my post re: Stross on the Singularity, MichaelAnissimov takes offense. His original post went overboard in places, and was heavily edited in response to some points raised by folks in the comment thread (myself included). I know - I have the original post in my email (Go rss2email!).

In Dimitry Orlov's excellent piece on the Collapse Gap between the US and the Soviet Union, he suggests that we actually refrain from ridiculing politicians, regardless of the temptation. Paying attention makes them - and everyone else - think they can do something productive, when they can't. Ignoring them, Orlov says, will make them go away faster.

This is reminiscent of my mangling of one Ghandi's favorite quotes. My version, which I originally deployed to describe how Democrats should handle Republicans now that they hold majorities in government, goes thusly: "First, you win. Then you fight them. Then you laugh at them. Then you ignore them."

I wonder if the same strategy should be applied to singularitarians? In my time online, I have learned that attention is the oxygen of the troll. Fail to respond, and you snuff out the flame war. But more recently, watching Jon Stewart and reading Dale Carrico have both revived my appreciation of ridiculing the ridiculous, when done well.

Look, software and neuroengineering techniques will be wanted and unwanted, powerful and inconsequential, all depending, not on their own inherent capabilities, but on how we use them, or restrict their use. Until such techniques actually show up (as more than a theory) and actually tango with what the broad diversity of people we share the world with can conceive of as possible, desirable, and undesirable, very little that's truly useful can be generalized about whether we, as a species, will welcome or reject any given hypothetical technique.

It doesn't even make sense to me to be trying to put a whole bunch of different possibilities into one basket, and insist that we, collectively, advocate or reject them, collectively, before they've even been delivered. Never mind the divisive "us vs them" bickering I see partisans like Anissimov doing here.

Comments –Nato

–Charles Stross, on the Singularity

Singularity Syndrome: the derangement in public policy discussions that occurs when one rationally considers the possibilities of uncertain future developments happening all at once, rather than over time.

It bears a resemblance to phenomenon observed in the policy discussion regarding the "War On Terror", climate change, and, more recently, the Large Hadron Collider, wherein partisans make up for a lack of the probability that pet risk will occur by simply inflating the stakes.

When it comes to emerging technologies, one considers several possibilities: the possibility that a technical capability will emerge sooner, or later, by degrees. The further away in the futures some contingency is, not only is it that much less necessary to prepare for, but it is also that much less possible to prepare for.

Thus, the only reasonable output any policy discussion or think-tank can produce is in preparation for near-term contingencies, however unlikely they may be. Because little useful attention can be paid to likelier scenarios due to their distance from the present, no useful recommendations can be made. As a result, all of the attention is focused on unlikely outcomes, giving the work an absurd an alarmist character, regardless of how well-meaning, mature, or rational the process or practitioners used to undertake the assessment.

When confronted with parents anxious about their kids getting involved with playing Dungeons and Dragons, there's a turn of phrase that I have found succinct and useful: "Don't worry. Role playing games don't make kids weird; they just attract weird kids."

In this case, discussions of emerging technologies before the fact of their arrival actually seems to have the opposite effect. The singularity not only attracts weird people - but it actually actively deranges otherwise perfectly rational participants by forcing them to take highly uncertain possibilities seriously.

Lexicon

Comments –Nato

Imagine a Cow Driving a Tractor

Ray Kurzweil has argued against concerns about automation creating unemployment by pointing out that, at the turn of the 20th century, workers simply couldn't have imagined the jobs in IT administration, software development, and web design, that we're all doing now instead of raising crops (except for those of us who work at Walmart. But let's humor him for the time being). So we shouldn't worry about what jobs we'll do in the future as existing ones are claimed by automation (a claim he doesn't dispute). We just haven't invented them yet - but we will!

The predictive-event-horizon singularity to the rescue! We can't imagine the jobs we'll be doing in the future, and they were there when we couldn't imagine them before, THEREFORE they must be there now! Ignorance is bliss. Yeah. Some answer. Make your reputation as a futurist by pushing all kinds of predictions, and then use ignorance to justify your predictions when convenient. Brilliant.

Aside from that however, have you ever seen a cow driving a tractor, never mind pulling a plow? Because that's the equivalent of what you're saying when you continuously insist that humans will never be economically obsolete.

That's not an economy. It's a Gary Larsen cartoon:

Comments –Nato

What's a Job Worth - Part II

Paul Krugman in Rolling Stone:

From what I can decipher from Bureau of Labor Statistics data, one percent of the unemployment rate represents approximately 1.54 million absolute jobs. So if, as Krugman estimates, $200 billion creates 1.54 million jobs, each job results from $129,870 in government spending.

That's less than half of what Bush proposed on a job creation program in 2003, but still. And that's "per year" spending.

Screw the job, man - I'll take a check.

Unfalsifiable Fictitious Object

Wait a minute. This wasn't supposed to happen. I got into this movement because I wanted money and fame, not truth or justice. This whole thing was supposed to be just a shtick - a fantasy that was so ludicrous as to be incredible, but so mysterious as to be unfalsifiable. It used to be a brilliant idea. So brilliant, it often pained me that I could never let anybody in on the joke.

But there it was, flittering away, right before my eyes. Suddenly, the joke wouldn't be funny - not because I'd told it too many times, but because I hadn't told it at all.

Had I gone mad? Was I seeing things? After all, I was the one that lead all these people here; I was the one that scraped and pitched this project just to have something to do. I was the one who pleaded with well-heeled benefactors to give us just one more chance. But though every shred of credibility I could possibly have received depended on that thing showing up at just that moment, when it happened, all I could do was wince and deny it, stunned, like anybody would. Anybody, that is, except my brother Ted. You see, it took Ted to actually point it out and get everyone one else to give it a thorough photographing before it turned, like a coy fashion model, and shrank away into the sunset.

"There it was!" Ted gasped, later. He was pacing the length of the hotel room, still charged by the evidence we'd seen. And photographed. And - Oh God - video? Why did there have to be video? Why couldn't the thing have just bounced around for a few seconds, done a passable impression of a lens artifact, and vanish, like a good UFO?

If I had anybody to brag to, I might try to convince them that my silence at that moment was purposeful, that I was just mentally nimble enough to realize how bad the implications of it were, and that I was just stalling until the thing went away, so I could go back to being an ordinary work-a-day conspiracy theorist and cult leader. But, no. There was no way Ted was going to let that happen, anyway. Letting it get away, that is.

"You know, Doug, I ... I have a confession to make." Ted had stopped pacing, indicating that he was thinking about people again, finally. Time to put on my game face. "There have been times when..." He stammered to a stop, worried. He chanced a sidelong glance at me, now that he'd gotten my attention. I had spent most of the last fifteen minutes speechless, my head in my hands, silently trying push apart the jaws of the trap that had just sprung on my brain.

It was refreshing to consider someone else's problem, for a moment. "It's alright, man. What is it?"

Ted sat down on the second bed. "You know, sometimes, over the last few years, through all that shit with the organization, watching you pitch donors, and sifting through all that declassified data at night, I would just sit there and... it would be really hard for me to believe you."

Ted looked deep into my face - my frozen, bewildered, blind-sided expression, hoping to glimpse a glimmer of forgiveness in me, when the rollercoaster behind my eyes had just set sail on a long trip to lala land. And there was Ted, holding the mooring line, smiling, and waving goodbye, utterly oblivious. I'd been lying to own brother all this time, but suddenly, I was the poor bastard.

I managed not to crack - not that Ted would suspect if I had. "It's alright, Ted," I assured him. I grinned, more slyly than he knew, as I added, "You know, there have been times where I wasn't sure I believed myself, either." I got up and turned away to enjoy the joke in pitiable solitude.

And that began my long journey into the theretofore-unknown land of understatement.

Comments –Nato

The Parable of the Supergenius

Originally written 2007-06-27

Today was the day.

The excitement in the Senate chamber was palpable. Alvin Rogers about to present the nation with his recommendations for solving the poverty of the entire human race, and almost everyone knew that his recommendations were sure to knock our socks off.

You see, Rogers was no ordinary pundit; he was the first subject of an experimental intelligence enhancement procedure; one whose success had been nothing less than spectacular. Rogers had become so smart, he was solving ancient math problems, solving new puzzles in moments, and inventing whole fields of knowledge singlehandedly, as fast as he could take in the requisite background material.

And now, he was applying himself to the ancient ethical mysteries of the human condition. After much discussion and deliberation, he told the world he was ready to propose what he claimed was an ideal solution. Finally, after all these years, we may have the missing piece to alleviate all human economic suffering.

But the announcement, when it came, was anything but satisfying. It was downright anticlimactic.

Rogers said, simply "According to my calculations, we have plenty for everyone. Tax the rich, and give it to the poor."

The applause was slow to come, but it did. But when it did, it was something less than the raucous cheer that everyone present had been hoping for.

It was easy to feel more than a little swindled - didn't we already know that we could do that? Wasn't the idea of having a genius tackle this problem was so that we wouldn't HAVE to tax the rich?

Over the course of the next few hours, the sour feeling of let down only grew heavier. On the news, the next day, people began to question exactly how smart this Alvin Rogers guy really was, and, even if he was as smart as they said, why people should listen to him. After all, it wouldn't make a difference how smart a guy is, if he doesn't properly represent your interests. And raising taxes was most definitely not an interest of the wealthy people of the nation.

Thus, Alvin Rogers faded from the mediasphere in a whimper of controversy and uncertainty. His fifteen minutes of fame had been spent.

The poor would simply have to wait for someone even smarter to come along and solve their problem.

Comments –Nato