We can weaponize fiction, but how do we monetize truth?(modernmythology.net)
modernmythology.net
We can weaponize fiction, but how do we monetize truth?
https://modernmythology.net/we-can-weaponize-fiction-but-how-do-we-monetize-truth-ef9ffb52299e
11 comments
Columbian
I'm surprised the author does not mention prediction markets.
Those encourage people to honestly search truth without over-optimism and politeness. They only work for the part of truth that can be eventually verified and objectively confirmed/disproved but it's a start.
Those encourage people to honestly search truth without over-optimism and politeness. They only work for the part of truth that can be eventually verified and objectively confirmed/disproved but it's a start.
Here's an interesting implementation of that idea, inspired by Phillip Tetlock, who's been an outspoken advocate of holding public pundits and experts accountable:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Judgment_Project
I discovered it reading Tetlock's Superforecasting.
I also put together a more open-ended project that similar to this would use karma instead of currency (I liken it to Reddit with accountability):
http://forekarma.com/
It's probably not ready for prime-time but it was an interesting exercise in thinking about this kind of system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Judgment_Project
I discovered it reading Tetlock's Superforecasting.
I also put together a more open-ended project that similar to this would use karma instead of currency (I liken it to Reddit with accountability):
http://forekarma.com/
It's probably not ready for prime-time but it was an interesting exercise in thinking about this kind of system.
> [Prediction markets] only work for the part of truth that can be eventually verified and objectively confirmed/disproved but it's a start.
Requires an arbiter/judge, otherwise you'll just end up with one of the two sides refusing to sign the multisig payout transaction.
For truly objective determination you could do zkSNARKs and zero-knowledge contingent payments, I guess: https://bitcoincore.org/en/2016/02/26/zero-knowledge-conting...
Requires an arbiter/judge, otherwise you'll just end up with one of the two sides refusing to sign the multisig payout transaction.
For truly objective determination you could do zkSNARKs and zero-knowledge contingent payments, I guess: https://bitcoincore.org/en/2016/02/26/zero-knowledge-conting...
Requiring an arbiter isn't a bad thing. The arbiter should be the person who cares about that particular truth, the one who sponsored the market in the first place.
Say you want to know how long it will take to develop some project (people famously always get this wrong due to optimism bias). You could sponsor a prediction market, ask people to make predictions. Then when the project is or is not finished you will decide who gets the money, since you are the one who will be upset at the people who predicted wrong.
Say you want to know how long it will take to develop some project (people famously always get this wrong due to optimism bias). You could sponsor a prediction market, ask people to make predictions. Then when the project is or is not finished you will decide who gets the money, since you are the one who will be upset at the people who predicted wrong.
> Say you want to know how long it will take to develop some project (people famously always get this wrong due to optimism bias).
Actually, I find that people are, in fact, quite reasonable at predicting projects. If I ask for two points, 50% and 85% probability of completion of task, and then I put everybody's tasks together I get a really remarkably good prediction of the project timeline.
Anybody doing a task for enough time gets a really good feel for schedules. Oddly. Sometimes you even wind up with great heuristics ("2 weeks per engineer per schematic" is one of my favorites).
The problem is that management wants a 95% probability point. Unfortunately, the variance/standard deviation goes flying to the moon, and it is IMPOSSIBLE to convince people that is correct in spite of mountains of evidence both theoretical (really, every statistics book ever) and practical (gee, all of those "late" projects could be the fact that your people are incompetent/liars OR it could be that you are willfully abusing statistics. Things that make you go, "Hmmmmmmm.")
So, that 95% probability point is WAY longer than anybody is willing to agree to. From a political perspective, it's better to play schedule chicken and pray that a lower probability point comes home, that you can blame somebody, or that everybody is now sufficiently invested that they are willing to continue to the real 95% point.
I actually did this for 2 different large projects where I put the estimates together, ran some random Monte-Carlo modeling of different task chainings, and posted the timeline on my wall. Everybody attacked the schedules--engineering and management. The projects came in at the 62% point and the 75% point. And that was with changes (which always cause schedule extension). Both of these are less than a SINGLE standard deviation late--by quite a bit (Yes, I know I'm horribly abusing the notion of "normal distribution", but I have no hope of explaining anything even slightly more complicated to business types).
Management asked me not to do this for the third project because people were actually paying attention. I left shortly thereafter.
Actually, I find that people are, in fact, quite reasonable at predicting projects. If I ask for two points, 50% and 85% probability of completion of task, and then I put everybody's tasks together I get a really remarkably good prediction of the project timeline.
Anybody doing a task for enough time gets a really good feel for schedules. Oddly. Sometimes you even wind up with great heuristics ("2 weeks per engineer per schematic" is one of my favorites).
The problem is that management wants a 95% probability point. Unfortunately, the variance/standard deviation goes flying to the moon, and it is IMPOSSIBLE to convince people that is correct in spite of mountains of evidence both theoretical (really, every statistics book ever) and practical (gee, all of those "late" projects could be the fact that your people are incompetent/liars OR it could be that you are willfully abusing statistics. Things that make you go, "Hmmmmmmm.")
So, that 95% probability point is WAY longer than anybody is willing to agree to. From a political perspective, it's better to play schedule chicken and pray that a lower probability point comes home, that you can blame somebody, or that everybody is now sufficiently invested that they are willing to continue to the real 95% point.
I actually did this for 2 different large projects where I put the estimates together, ran some random Monte-Carlo modeling of different task chainings, and posted the timeline on my wall. Everybody attacked the schedules--engineering and management. The projects came in at the 62% point and the 75% point. And that was with changes (which always cause schedule extension). Both of these are less than a SINGLE standard deviation late--by quite a bit (Yes, I know I'm horribly abusing the notion of "normal distribution", but I have no hope of explaining anything even slightly more complicated to business types).
Management asked me not to do this for the third project because people were actually paying attention. I left shortly thereafter.
That approach has no defense against people who want to declare something true for ideological reasons.
Yes, so you end up having to select a person that is mutually agreeable between the parties or something, and that person is then responsible for judging the evidence. In my experience the problem has been that finding a mutually agreeable person is quite difficult, especially when one side makes a pre-emptive threat to make false allegations about a judge that rules against them :(. I literally ran into this problem in rbtc: https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/589nlj/someone_asked_m...
(although, again, zk-snarks and formal verification might be workable, but only in situations where all parties can forego making false accusations about who backdoored what or who has secret knowledge about formal verification holes or whatever...)
(although, again, zk-snarks and formal verification might be workable, but only in situations where all parties can forego making false accusations about who backdoored what or who has secret knowledge about formal verification holes or whatever...)
> or who has secret knowledge about [SNARKs vulnerabilities and/or] formal verification holes or whatever
http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/bitcoin/snarks/A%20Note%20on...
http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/bitcoin/snarks/A%20Note%20on...
[deleted]
This is ridiculous. Prediction markets are as susceptible to distortion and lies as any other mechanism. Recall the debacle of Intrade and the 2012 election.
I don't recall, wasn't really into that stuff.
Was the debacle the sort that would have made you a lot of money if you had bet against the consensus? That's the most important part.
Was the debacle the sort that would have made you a lot of money if you had bet against the consensus? That's the most important part.
This was a challenging read -- a bit over-engineered -- but worth the effort.
Goldwater successfully sued a magazine editor for libel after it published a pseudo-psychiatric evaluation of him as he was running for office and just like that, a weaponized media tactic was disarmed. [1] America needs more successful lawsuits like this to stop new tactics. To my knowledge, HRC hasn't pursued anyone yet (please correct me if wrong!). Rather than engage bad actors, she's instead given her party access to the weaponry that they will use in future elections.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldwater_rule
Goldwater successfully sued a magazine editor for libel after it published a pseudo-psychiatric evaluation of him as he was running for office and just like that, a weaponized media tactic was disarmed. [1] America needs more successful lawsuits like this to stop new tactics. To my knowledge, HRC hasn't pursued anyone yet (please correct me if wrong!). Rather than engage bad actors, she's instead given her party access to the weaponry that they will use in future elections.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldwater_rule
Did I miss it after all the build-up, or is the conclusion actually "we must ask ourselves how to monetize truth" unanswered?
I thought to myself it's probably more tangible to quantify the costs of falsehood. This usually takes the form of bad policy that enacts unintended consequences, something akin to "The Burden of Bad Ideas" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyEu6bAukJ8. Might be a better concept to define inversely.
It's a chapter excerpt from a book, so there's that.
But it does seem to be a question we haven't successfully answered for ourselves as a society.
But it does seem to be a question we haven't successfully answered for ourselves as a society.
> Surkov is one of President Putin’s advisers, and has helped him maintain his power for 15 years, but he has done it in a very new way. He came originally from the avant-garde art world, and those who have studied his career, say that what Surkov has done, is to import ideas from conceptual art into the very heart of politics.
This guy, Vladislav Surkov, is fascinating. He writes fiction under the pen name Nathan Dubovitsky:
http://grandmotherafrica.com/cloudless-sky-short-story-natha...
This guy, Vladislav Surkov, is fascinating. He writes fiction under the pen name Nathan Dubovitsky:
http://grandmotherafrica.com/cloudless-sky-short-story-natha...
I wonder how many on the left are going to read this and think this is an attack on Trump when in fact its more likely an attack on the left or both sides. Refering to Russiagate as a "red scare" does not sound like an endorsement of that mentality. However, confirmation bias (as the author points out) is going to make those on the left believe its a vindication of their world view anyway, when in fact its the imaginary charicatures of both sides thats the enemy.
It kills me. Write and operate a news organize just like the Financial Times of London. Facts concisely written and priced so the organization can keep it's head above water.
"we must ask ourselves how to monetize truth" WTF does that even mean? "Monetize" "truth"? This just screams BS. Ew ew ew ew ew ew ew
Punish organizations spreading fake bullshit.
Facebook makes a lot of money on the parade of bullshit that they enable and propagate. Sanction them, tie them up in investigations and fines and magically they'll find a way to stop propaganda.
Alex Jones is a snake oil salesman. Aggressively pursue his financial dealings and poof, he goes away.
Facebook makes a lot of money on the parade of bullshit that they enable and propagate. Sanction them, tie them up in investigations and fines and magically they'll find a way to stop propaganda.
Alex Jones is a snake oil salesman. Aggressively pursue his financial dealings and poof, he goes away.
[deleted]
The implications of this idea look a little less attractive when one considers who has the power to impose fines on people and corporations for publishing news they don't agree is true...
This is the best thing about Donald Trump being the President. Perhaps the only good thing. "We should fine people for saying untrue things." "You think it's a good idea to let Donald Trump determine what is true and levy fines against anyone he disagrees with?" I'm trying to turn this into a "thing." If you wouldn't let Donald Trump manage your 401k, maybe we shouldn't give our retirement funds (SS) to the government. How about your health insurance? Want him running that? etc.
> If you wouldn't let Donald Trump manage your 401k, maybe we shouldn't give our retirement funds (SS) to the government.
Yes, obviously we should keep all retirement funds in the private sector, where clearly no one like Donald Trump would ever be in a position of authority.
Yes, obviously we should keep all retirement funds in the private sector, where clearly no one like Donald Trump would ever be in a position of authority.
the point is that you've got choices in the private sector. if you don't want the private sector version of donald trump managing your money, then choose someone else.
That's certainly a point among a number of others one could make, but it wasn't the point of the GP, which was that the risks involved with having the government manage anything are reasonably characterized by a Trump presidency.
If Trump serves as a cautionary example of potential governance issues in the public sector, he serves better as a cautionary example of potential management issues in the private sector, given his long career there.
There are better ones, of course. If we're picking tail events like Trump, one might just as well say the risks of having the private sector manage retirement funds are accurately characterized by the various market failures surrounding the 2008 crash (which were, however private, hard to avoid the effects of even with a surfeit of personal choice).
On top of that, since you wanted to talk about personal choice... of course there's choice and accountability in public institutions, it just works differently: you have to select management cooperatively, and the collective decision might be different than your choice. That really has a fair bit in common with a number of private sector retirement vehicles (which are likely enough selected by your private employer), but there are others which are more individual and it's nice to be able to take your ball and go elsewhere. But even there, you don't necessarily get a clear signal when someone whose competence is as limited or anyone whose incentives are as misaligned with yours as Trump's are gets involved with your retirement fund's management. In fact, I'd go so far as to say in most cases you'd have less scrutiny and fewer journalistic resources to turn to in order to make that assessment than you would in the typical selection process for public office.
Now what you often would have are claimed/recorded rates of return. But since we're thinking about that question, maybe we should talk about how a typical 401k compares to returns for Social Security:
http://www.jameswrussell.com/?p=81
If Trump serves as a cautionary example of potential governance issues in the public sector, he serves better as a cautionary example of potential management issues in the private sector, given his long career there.
There are better ones, of course. If we're picking tail events like Trump, one might just as well say the risks of having the private sector manage retirement funds are accurately characterized by the various market failures surrounding the 2008 crash (which were, however private, hard to avoid the effects of even with a surfeit of personal choice).
On top of that, since you wanted to talk about personal choice... of course there's choice and accountability in public institutions, it just works differently: you have to select management cooperatively, and the collective decision might be different than your choice. That really has a fair bit in common with a number of private sector retirement vehicles (which are likely enough selected by your private employer), but there are others which are more individual and it's nice to be able to take your ball and go elsewhere. But even there, you don't necessarily get a clear signal when someone whose competence is as limited or anyone whose incentives are as misaligned with yours as Trump's are gets involved with your retirement fund's management. In fact, I'd go so far as to say in most cases you'd have less scrutiny and fewer journalistic resources to turn to in order to make that assessment than you would in the typical selection process for public office.
Now what you often would have are claimed/recorded rates of return. But since we're thinking about that question, maybe we should talk about how a typical 401k compares to returns for Social Security:
http://www.jameswrussell.com/?p=81
>Now what you often would have are claimed/recorded rates of return. But since we're thinking about that question, maybe we should talk about how a typical 401k compares to returns for Social Security:
Social security is a regressive program that redistributes wealth from the poor to upper middle class. The poor tend not to go to college, so they start paying earlier. They also work hard labor so they die earlier, meaning they collect for fewer years. Want to know who lives a really long time? Upper middle class and upper class white women. Want to know who dies early? Poor black men. Yes, a person who lives to be 90 years old will do pretty well. But a person who lives to be 62 will have a -100% return on investment and have nothing to pass on to their children, harming the potential for the poor to create generational wealth.
Social security is a regressive program that redistributes wealth from the poor to upper middle class. The poor tend not to go to college, so they start paying earlier. They also work hard labor so they die earlier, meaning they collect for fewer years. Want to know who lives a really long time? Upper middle class and upper class white women. Want to know who dies early? Poor black men. Yes, a person who lives to be 90 years old will do pretty well. But a person who lives to be 62 will have a -100% return on investment and have nothing to pass on to their children, harming the potential for the poor to create generational wealth.
> The poor tend not to go to college, so they start paying earlier. They also work hard labor so they die earlier, meaning they collect for fewer years.
Both of these issues would exist with any retirement vehicle, public or private, so singling out a public retirement vehicle for criticism doesn't make much sense.
(The astute might even notice that singling out the problems in public institutions without considering their private analog was the same blind spot in your original comment.)
That said, it is worth noting that as a flat tax (with a ceiling), FICA taxes are in fact a regressive tax scheme (as are sales taxes) -- something to keep in mind the next time flat taxes are floated as a good idea for income taxes in general. Whether that means the overall tax burden (vs program benefits) is regressive is less clear, given the somewhat progressive nature of the rest of the income tax structure. But I might well agree that problems with a public retirement vehicle would be worth addressing in public policy, so to the extent that it can be established that the overall burden is regressive, sure, I'd be supportive of changes that would make it more progressive.
Maybe we could look at capital gains tax rates, which I'm sure you're also concerned about, given how important regressive redistribution is to you.
Both of these issues would exist with any retirement vehicle, public or private, so singling out a public retirement vehicle for criticism doesn't make much sense.
(The astute might even notice that singling out the problems in public institutions without considering their private analog was the same blind spot in your original comment.)
That said, it is worth noting that as a flat tax (with a ceiling), FICA taxes are in fact a regressive tax scheme (as are sales taxes) -- something to keep in mind the next time flat taxes are floated as a good idea for income taxes in general. Whether that means the overall tax burden (vs program benefits) is regressive is less clear, given the somewhat progressive nature of the rest of the income tax structure. But I might well agree that problems with a public retirement vehicle would be worth addressing in public policy, so to the extent that it can be established that the overall burden is regressive, sure, I'd be supportive of changes that would make it more progressive.
Maybe we could look at capital gains tax rates, which I'm sure you're also concerned about, given how important regressive redistribution is to you.
>Both of these issues would exist with any retirement vehicle, public or private
In a private system they have the capability of accumulating generational wealth. In the public system they do not.
> sure, I'd be supportive of changes that would make it more progressive.
Are you going to be supportive of the types of changes that would allow poor people to accumulate private wealth that they could pass onto their children so that their children are less likely to follow the same fate of hard labor and early death? Or is your goal to keep them under your thumb, poor, and beholden to the state?
>Maybe we could look at capital gains tax rates, which I'm sure you're also concerned about, given how important regressive redistribution is to you.
Short term capital gains tax rates are the same as income tax rates. You just don't pay FICA (SS, Medicare). My preference would be to remove the FICA from the rest of your income, bringing income taxes and capital gains taxes into parity. Long term capital gains are lower. I'm open to bringing that into parity with short term capital gains and regular income tax. The result of that would likely be more retail stock speculation by the relatively uneducated investor. But I'm not particularly concerned about that.
In a private system they have the capability of accumulating generational wealth. In the public system they do not.
> sure, I'd be supportive of changes that would make it more progressive.
Are you going to be supportive of the types of changes that would allow poor people to accumulate private wealth that they could pass onto their children so that their children are less likely to follow the same fate of hard labor and early death? Or is your goal to keep them under your thumb, poor, and beholden to the state?
>Maybe we could look at capital gains tax rates, which I'm sure you're also concerned about, given how important regressive redistribution is to you.
Short term capital gains tax rates are the same as income tax rates. You just don't pay FICA (SS, Medicare). My preference would be to remove the FICA from the rest of your income, bringing income taxes and capital gains taxes into parity. Long term capital gains are lower. I'm open to bringing that into parity with short term capital gains and regular income tax. The result of that would likely be more retail stock speculation by the relatively uneducated investor. But I'm not particularly concerned about that.
> In a private system they have the capability of accumulating generational wealth. In the public system they do not.
How sure are you about this?
"Social Security already provides an inheritance benefit in the form of survivors benefits, which account for nearly one-fifth of all benefits that Social Security pays. When a worker dies, Social Security pays survivors benefits for a number of years to the worker’s minor children as well as to the worker’s spouse if the spouse is raising children who are under 16 or the spouse is 60 or older.[1] The Social Security actuaries have reported that for a typical family with two young children in which a worker dies before reaching retirement age, the survivors benefits can be the equivalent of inheriting $400,000, a much larger sum than most workers could accumulate in a private account."
https://www.cbpp.org/research/social-security-and-inheritanc...
> Or is your goal to keep them under your thumb, poor, and beholden to the state?
Do you really want to bring questions about our motives into the scope of discussion? I don't usually find that a productive line of conversation. And at this point, looking back over the discussion, what do you think a perceptive audience is more likely to believe: that my goal is sinister enslavement via social security check, or that your championing of an entirely privatized retirement system owes more to some other motive than concern for the struggles of manual laborers?
> My preference would be to remove the FICA from the rest of your income, bringing income taxes and capital gains taxes into parity.
FICA taxes don't have to be gospel. The question is how you're going to replace the revenue they provide for Social Security and Medicare, or if not that, with the opportunity that revenue funds. Perhaps you could do it by raising long term capital gains taxes. But if the line of discussion points towards elimination of those programs, well, so far, I haven't seen any credible evidence or argument that if we eliminate SS+MC, the people for whom those specific taxes turn out to be regressive would have the opportunity to get a hold of a vehicle that would provide better benefits/returns, not to mention the balance of incentives to put money into it.
I think it's likely enough concerns about any regressive side to those taxes are better addressed by considering how the rest of the income tax code is (or might be) progressive and in the quality of the public benefits. Or bringing the bracket system to that side. Or holidays like the one in Tax Relief Act of 2010. Really, there's a lot of tools in the box.
How sure are you about this?
"Social Security already provides an inheritance benefit in the form of survivors benefits, which account for nearly one-fifth of all benefits that Social Security pays. When a worker dies, Social Security pays survivors benefits for a number of years to the worker’s minor children as well as to the worker’s spouse if the spouse is raising children who are under 16 or the spouse is 60 or older.[1] The Social Security actuaries have reported that for a typical family with two young children in which a worker dies before reaching retirement age, the survivors benefits can be the equivalent of inheriting $400,000, a much larger sum than most workers could accumulate in a private account."
https://www.cbpp.org/research/social-security-and-inheritanc...
> Or is your goal to keep them under your thumb, poor, and beholden to the state?
Do you really want to bring questions about our motives into the scope of discussion? I don't usually find that a productive line of conversation. And at this point, looking back over the discussion, what do you think a perceptive audience is more likely to believe: that my goal is sinister enslavement via social security check, or that your championing of an entirely privatized retirement system owes more to some other motive than concern for the struggles of manual laborers?
> My preference would be to remove the FICA from the rest of your income, bringing income taxes and capital gains taxes into parity.
FICA taxes don't have to be gospel. The question is how you're going to replace the revenue they provide for Social Security and Medicare, or if not that, with the opportunity that revenue funds. Perhaps you could do it by raising long term capital gains taxes. But if the line of discussion points towards elimination of those programs, well, so far, I haven't seen any credible evidence or argument that if we eliminate SS+MC, the people for whom those specific taxes turn out to be regressive would have the opportunity to get a hold of a vehicle that would provide better benefits/returns, not to mention the balance of incentives to put money into it.
I think it's likely enough concerns about any regressive side to those taxes are better addressed by considering how the rest of the income tax code is (or might be) progressive and in the quality of the public benefits. Or bringing the bracket system to that side. Or holidays like the one in Tax Relief Act of 2010. Really, there's a lot of tools in the box.
Social security pays survivor's benefits to your minor children... How many 65+ year olds have minor children? Basically none. And the other straw man your article argues against is private account plans that are basically loans taken against your future social security benefits. I'm talking about not participating in social security at all.
>that my goal is sinister enslavement via social security check, or that your championing of an entirely privatized retirement system owes more to some other motive than concern for the struggles of manual laborers?
How a reader is biased before coming into the conversation is irrelevant. I'll ask again, since you dodged it. Are you open to plans that would allow the poor to accumulate private wealth that they can pass onto their children? I'll give you a pass that you probably don't think your actions are part of what's keeping them poor. However, keeping them under your thumb and beholden to the state is simply an objective fact of the system if you won't allow them to opt out.
>The question is how you're going to replace the revenue they provide for Social Security and Medicare
Why would I want to replace the revenue? There's lots of ways to handle phasing out the program, but you could simply freeze the nominal value of the payouts and let inflation eat away at it until it's cheap to just pay off any remaining outstanding benefits and shut it down. While that's going on you can issue a dividend refund for however much excess the program collects.
>I haven't seen any credible evidence or argument that if we eliminate SS+MC, the people for whom those specific taxes turn out to be regressive would have the opportunity to get a hold of a vehicle that would provide better benefits/returns, not to mention the balance of incentives to put money into it.
Buying a bunch of useless shit that your kids sell at a yard sale after you die that makes a few hundred bucks is a better return on investment than the 100% loss many of the poor get today because they die too early to receive any benefits at all. Your answer to that was that if the 60-year old who dies has a 5 year old they'll get a payout... I mean seriously...
A person/family making $35k/yr from 21 to 65 needs to only put away 6% of their income and earn the historical 401k average of 5% to have 100% of their working years annual income in retirement income to the age of 80. The bottom 40% of US income has a life expectancy of 80 or less. And that's putting under half their current FICA (15%) into a retirement account. Also incidentally, that's nearly 50% better than than the SS payout in your James Russel article.
Will there be some unfortunate people who were disabled or spent an inordinate amount of time with a household income of less than 2/3 the median household income? Or perhaps some low income people who beat the odds and live to 90? Absolutely. If 90% of us want to pitch in to help the bottom 10%, I'm happy to do so.
>that my goal is sinister enslavement via social security check, or that your championing of an entirely privatized retirement system owes more to some other motive than concern for the struggles of manual laborers?
How a reader is biased before coming into the conversation is irrelevant. I'll ask again, since you dodged it. Are you open to plans that would allow the poor to accumulate private wealth that they can pass onto their children? I'll give you a pass that you probably don't think your actions are part of what's keeping them poor. However, keeping them under your thumb and beholden to the state is simply an objective fact of the system if you won't allow them to opt out.
>The question is how you're going to replace the revenue they provide for Social Security and Medicare
Why would I want to replace the revenue? There's lots of ways to handle phasing out the program, but you could simply freeze the nominal value of the payouts and let inflation eat away at it until it's cheap to just pay off any remaining outstanding benefits and shut it down. While that's going on you can issue a dividend refund for however much excess the program collects.
>I haven't seen any credible evidence or argument that if we eliminate SS+MC, the people for whom those specific taxes turn out to be regressive would have the opportunity to get a hold of a vehicle that would provide better benefits/returns, not to mention the balance of incentives to put money into it.
Buying a bunch of useless shit that your kids sell at a yard sale after you die that makes a few hundred bucks is a better return on investment than the 100% loss many of the poor get today because they die too early to receive any benefits at all. Your answer to that was that if the 60-year old who dies has a 5 year old they'll get a payout... I mean seriously...
A person/family making $35k/yr from 21 to 65 needs to only put away 6% of their income and earn the historical 401k average of 5% to have 100% of their working years annual income in retirement income to the age of 80. The bottom 40% of US income has a life expectancy of 80 or less. And that's putting under half their current FICA (15%) into a retirement account. Also incidentally, that's nearly 50% better than than the SS payout in your James Russel article.
Will there be some unfortunate people who were disabled or spent an inordinate amount of time with a household income of less than 2/3 the median household income? Or perhaps some low income people who beat the odds and live to 90? Absolutely. If 90% of us want to pitch in to help the bottom 10%, I'm happy to do so.
By the time you find out that your preferred choice of the private sector was another "Donald Trump," it's already too late. Your retirement money is gone.
The US has $60k in debt per citizen and $377k in unfunded liabilities per person. Your retirement is already gone. Money is fungible though, so they'll just keep taking more of your money out of your left pocket to put it back into your right pocket, with a little shaved off the top of course.
Of course that really only works out for you if you happen to be a relatively wealthy white person. You see, the poor tend not to go to college so they pay into SS for longer. They also tend to die earlier so they don't collect for as many years. So the poor black person who dies in their early 60s gets a -100% return on their investment. But an upper middle class white person who lives to be 90 will do alright. Oh, and of course the poor black person was robbed of their potential to create generational wealth, further exacerbating that issue.
Of course that really only works out for you if you happen to be a relatively wealthy white person. You see, the poor tend not to go to college so they pay into SS for longer. They also tend to die earlier so they don't collect for as many years. So the poor black person who dies in their early 60s gets a -100% return on their investment. But an upper middle class white person who lives to be 90 will do alright. Oh, and of course the poor black person was robbed of their potential to create generational wealth, further exacerbating that issue.
This could just as well argue against the government doing anything at all — policing, running a military, prosecuting fraudsters, running the post office — and yet most people view those institutions as at least a conditional good and would not be happier if the government never did these things.
Similarly, if my wife were a murderer, she could easily kill me in my sleep, but this doesn't mean I'm against the general idea of sharing a bedroom with my wife — it just means that marrying a crazy person is bad.
Similarly, if my wife were a murderer, she could easily kill me in my sleep, but this doesn't mean I'm against the general idea of sharing a bedroom with my wife — it just means that marrying a crazy person is bad.
It's certainly an argument to minimize the scope of government to as small as possible.
>Similarly, if my wife were a murderer, she could easily kill me in my sleep, but this doesn't mean I'm against the general idea of sharing a bedroom with my wife — it just means that marrying a crazy person is bad.
This is a perfect analogy because you are 100% in control of who you choose as your wife. You may make a bad choice, but you choosing a bad wife doesn't kill everyone. It just kills you. Meanwhile, less than 1/5 of us chose Trump and now he is managing your healthcare, your retirement, and your military.
>Similarly, if my wife were a murderer, she could easily kill me in my sleep, but this doesn't mean I'm against the general idea of sharing a bedroom with my wife — it just means that marrying a crazy person is bad.
This is a perfect analogy because you are 100% in control of who you choose as your wife. You may make a bad choice, but you choosing a bad wife doesn't kill everyone. It just kills you. Meanwhile, less than 1/5 of us chose Trump and now he is managing your healthcare, your retirement, and your military.
> you are 100% in control of who you choose as your wife
Don't I wish. You're 100% in control of who you don't choose as your wife; you have substantially less control over who you do choose.
Don't I wish. You're 100% in control of who you don't choose as your wife; you have substantially less control over who you do choose.
This is a great way to communicate these ideas to people who would otherwise be hostile to them. I think you're right about this being the best thing about his presidency.
Let's make this a thing.
Let's make this a thing.
It won't become A Thing since Trump's administration is an objectively abrupt departure from the mean. It's irrational to argue that democratically elected government (in the general sense, not the US instance in particular) is fundamentally less reliable than the private sector where accountability and influence are more narrowly distributed.
Don't worry, maybe not the next term, but a Republican will win the Presidency again, and then we can switch to that name. Replace Donald Trump with Paul Ryan, or Mike Pence, or Newt Gingrich, or Sara Palin. The repulsion will be the same.
A dishonest libertarian, what a surprise. Everyone, even Republicans, agrees that Trump is an anomaly. Liberals didn't like Romney, for example, but they didn't believe he was simply incompetent and incapable of basic governance in the way they do Trump.
It's an almost childish view of the world to think that the fact that sometimes your side doesn't win means people should or will abandon faith in the ability of government to provide services. The very point of democracy is that you accept that sometimes you're not going to win.
It's an almost childish view of the world to think that the fact that sometimes your side doesn't win means people should or will abandon faith in the ability of government to provide services. The very point of democracy is that you accept that sometimes you're not going to win.
I absolutely LOVE that you've defined "win" here as associating with the person you as an individual desire to associate with. I wonder if we could devise some sort of mechanism by which each individual person could be free to choose this on their own, then everyone could win.
> If you wouldn't let Donald Trump manage your 401k, maybe we shouldn't give our retirement funds (SS) to the government. How about your health insurance? Want him running that? etc.
Your analogy is poor: I wouldn't want Trump running the fire department, but I want that as a government function. We know what privatizing a fire department does.
Trump is a symptom, not the cause. The cause is a set of people willing to swallow propaganda and fear, uncritically.
Your analogy is poor: I wouldn't want Trump running the fire department, but I want that as a government function. We know what privatizing a fire department does.
Trump is a symptom, not the cause. The cause is a set of people willing to swallow propaganda and fear, uncritically.
>I wouldn't want Trump running the fire department, but I want that as a government function.
This is not an either or proposition.
>We know what privatizing a fire department does.
Half of Denmark's population is served by private fire departments. What has it done, exactly?
For the record, I'm not opposed to public fire departments, but this illustrates the benefit of pushing the power of government as locally as possible.
Let's consider the 'face punch' theory of political discourse. If your county commissioner is really fucking things up, there's a fair chance you'll eventually run across them at the local coffee shop and you can punch them in the face. Maybe you wind up in jail for a few days, but enough face punches and things will start to change. If you try that on the President, you'll probably be killed before you ever lay a finger on him. Now, I'm not actually advocating violence here, just illustrating the differential of influence in a hopefully comical way.
This is not an either or proposition.
>We know what privatizing a fire department does.
Half of Denmark's population is served by private fire departments. What has it done, exactly?
For the record, I'm not opposed to public fire departments, but this illustrates the benefit of pushing the power of government as locally as possible.
Let's consider the 'face punch' theory of political discourse. If your county commissioner is really fucking things up, there's a fair chance you'll eventually run across them at the local coffee shop and you can punch them in the face. Maybe you wind up in jail for a few days, but enough face punches and things will start to change. If you try that on the President, you'll probably be killed before you ever lay a finger on him. Now, I'm not actually advocating violence here, just illustrating the differential of influence in a hopefully comical way.
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Yep, and that's also something a lot of people tend not to consider when talking about free speech and censorship. What happens when the 'other side' takes power? Or if an actual tyrant takes control of the government?
Suddenly the idea of punishing people for wrongspeak/think becomes a hell of a lot less attractive.
Suddenly the idea of punishing people for wrongspeak/think becomes a hell of a lot less attractive.
The civil service is resilient and effective.
"Hacker News is fake. It's all fake. I asked to shut it down. Wonderful!" /s
>Alex Jones is a snake oil salesman. Aggressively pursue his financial dealings and poof, he goes away.
I think that would be counterproductive. It would have the affect of "proving" he's right because people are coming after him. Also, consider that Infowars has the same number of subscribers on Youtube as CNN. Now, Youtube subscribers is a crude tool for measuring social value, but apparently world that consists of Youtube watchers has determined that Infowars is on par with CNN with regards to social value.
I think that would be counterproductive. It would have the affect of "proving" he's right because people are coming after him. Also, consider that Infowars has the same number of subscribers on Youtube as CNN. Now, Youtube subscribers is a crude tool for measuring social value, but apparently world that consists of Youtube watchers has determined that Infowars is on par with CNN with regards to social value.
This is another good point. A lot of people with... somewhat strange views (especially conspiracy theorists) are already super paranoid that the government is trying to shut them up.
Try and punish them for 'lying', and well you just strengthern their cause for the people who follow them. Turn them into a sort of martyr for their followers.
Probably not a good idea in a world where "the elite want to shut down criticism to bring back a one world order" is something people actually believe in some circles.
Try and punish them for 'lying', and well you just strengthern their cause for the people who follow them. Turn them into a sort of martyr for their followers.
Probably not a good idea in a world where "the elite want to shut down criticism to bring back a one world order" is something people actually believe in some circles.
I don't think I want the government to have the authority to decide what is and isn't true and to police the internet accordingly. I like free speech, even when much of it is crap.
There are lots of cases where lying is a crime, and I think most people agree that this is as it should be. So I feel like "I don't want the government to have the authority to decide what is and isn't true" can't possibly be the right reason, because the government already does that and it's not even controversial.
For example: Do you feel the same way about, say, drug advertising? Can I tell people my mercury tablets are actually basil and that they cure cancer? What about pretending to be a police officer? What about soliciting investments with false guarantees?
I don't think most people feel that these things need to be legal. So it seems more like a nuanced question of where to draw lines than a clear-cut "the government must not be able to punish lying."
For example: Do you feel the same way about, say, drug advertising? Can I tell people my mercury tablets are actually basil and that they cure cancer? What about pretending to be a police officer? What about soliciting investments with false guarantees?
I don't think most people feel that these things need to be legal. So it seems more like a nuanced question of where to draw lines than a clear-cut "the government must not be able to punish lying."
Sure. There's a gradient of risk and we make exceptions for things which are very likely to cause significant harm. Should we do away with the rule because it needs exceptions? No.
Unfortunately this sounds similar to how Putin dealt with free media in Russia. In the end what was not killed was mostly taken over by government. There is a reason first amendment protects all speech.
>Punish
Punishments enacted by whom? You want the government to punish free speech?
Punishments enacted by whom? You want the government to punish free speech?
> Facebook makes a lot of money on the parade of bullshit that they enable and propagate.
How about punishing people publishing fake bullshit?
Facebook is about as responsible here as e.g. Hacker News, except here the audience is a bit more able to detect lies in articles. But all the bullshit you see on Facebook is created neither by FB, nor by its users. The bullshit is created by news websites and magazines. How about punishing journalists and editors for a change?
How about punishing people publishing fake bullshit?
Facebook is about as responsible here as e.g. Hacker News, except here the audience is a bit more able to detect lies in articles. But all the bullshit you see on Facebook is created neither by FB, nor by its users. The bullshit is created by news websites and magazines. How about punishing journalists and editors for a change?
Who is spreading "fake bullshit" though? Both sides say the other is fake. The idea is no one now knows what is real or fake, or indeed no one even cares about what's real or fake. The idea is to make what is fake or real irrelevant so that those who control the levers of power can continue doing so. Information is no longer power, information is a threat.
> Information is no longer power, information is a threat.
Information is still power, you have just pointed out that information dissemination is much more democratized than it has been in the past.
Those who choose to peddle snake oil or completely fabricated news have always had a platform ("yellow news" of the Hearst publication hayday), it used to be guarded by very few gatekeepers. Now, the internet is rife with blogs posing as news corps, "satire" sites that don't bother to try to be funny, social media full of what used to be chain letters, and {AM radio, podcasts, YouTube videos} of fringe conspiracy theorists. These people always had a channel for their information, only those fringe channels weren't widely subscribed. Now, InfoWars / Alex Jones and ABC News have the same footprint on social media, making lesser informed information consumers think they are equally acceptable options.
Information is still power, you have just pointed out that information dissemination is much more democratized than it has been in the past.
Those who choose to peddle snake oil or completely fabricated news have always had a platform ("yellow news" of the Hearst publication hayday), it used to be guarded by very few gatekeepers. Now, the internet is rife with blogs posing as news corps, "satire" sites that don't bother to try to be funny, social media full of what used to be chain letters, and {AM radio, podcasts, YouTube videos} of fringe conspiracy theorists. These people always had a channel for their information, only those fringe channels weren't widely subscribed. Now, InfoWars / Alex Jones and ABC News have the same footprint on social media, making lesser informed information consumers think they are equally acceptable options.
> Sanction them, tie them up in investigations and fines [...] Aggressively pursue his financial dealings
What's the mechanism you propose to ensure these tools are only used against snake oil salesmen? Would you hand that metaphorically loaded gun to our current president?
What's the mechanism you propose to ensure these tools are only used against snake oil salesmen? Would you hand that metaphorically loaded gun to our current president?
sell information to people!
good information can go for a lot of money!
good information can go for a lot of money!
This is why http://TrumpTweets.io exists. Truth Weaponized.
3/4 of the page above the fold is dedicated to creating fake tweets and attributing them to Trump. I wouldn't call that truth.
Here's the Wikipedia history. Fake article: [2] 1 hour 10 minutes later, tagged as "hoax - proposed deletion", which put a warning notice on the article.[3] An hour and a half later, tagged as "hoax - speedy deletion", which put a bigger warning banner at the top of the article.[3]. Within an hour after that, the article had been turned into an article about the hoax, which it remains today.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20150309221009/https://medium.co... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Columbian_Chemica... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Columbian_Chemica...