[ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine"

Tue Oct 22 19:30:48 UTC 2013

On Mon, Oct 21, 2013 at 3:18 AM, Omar Rahman <rahmans at me.com> wrote:

> Kelly and others have tried to disassociate the Tea Party from the
> commonly expressed views of it's members/leaders. Ok, whatever; whoever
> believes that won't believe evidence to the contrary.
>

I am open to all kinds of evidence. As a devout skeptic and extropian, I
must be open to changing my mind when the data are convincing. I may seem
unreasonable when talking to Eugen, but that is just because I find his
oildrum data tainted and unconvincing.

> I would like to comment on the whole 'premise' of the T.axed E.nough
> A.lready P.arty: quite simply we aren't. If we were taxed at a level that
> would fund our expenditures you would actually see real broad based
> bi(tri?)partisan support for military entitlements reform. We might even
> see progress on increasing helpful things like education, food stamps, and
> the minimum wage.
>

This is a difference of opinion. It doesn't make you a bad person. It
doesn't make me a good person to disagree. I simply believe that large more
global organizations are less efficient than smaller more local
organizations. The same people who want to raise the minimum wage are those
who cry from the mountain tops to buy locally produced produce. Why is
locally produced lettuce better than locally produced governance?

Isn't a group of local volunteers running a soup kitchen better than a
distant bureaucracy in Washington DC? I sure think it is.

I put to you list members that: the crazed billionaires backing the
> Brethren of the Koolaid are in fact far more extropian than us here on this
> list. Sitting on top of their mountains of money they can see further, just
> as those who stand on the shoulders of giants can see. They can see the
> wave robotisation that will drive many jobs out of the hands of humans.
> They are the primary beneficiaries of this. It isn't an academic discussion
> for them it's a business plan. Anders and others recently posted
> information about jobs that will/could be soon computerised or robotised;
> egotistical crazed billionaire was not on any list that I saw. They are in
> practical terms (far?) closer to the singularity than us.
>

I am having trouble understanding why you would simultaneously want a
higher minimum wage AND be against jobs that will soon be computerized or
robotised. Do you not understand that a raise of the minimum wage will
increase the speed of such automation? It's very simple economics. If it
costs me less to have a combine harvest my cotten than a bunch of Africans,
then I'm going with the combine. If you make me pay the Africans $100 a day
(in 1862 terms) then I'm going to go invent a combine. Fast.

Elsewhere I've said on his list that corporations and countries are like
> huge mostly analogy AIs.
>

I think I actually agree with that for the most part.

> A billionaire or dictator  who respectively controls one of these
> corporations  or countries is the closest facsimile to a post singularity
> entity that we can see.
>

There you go making a point against your previous point again. Please try
to think consistently. Yes, a corporation is like an AGI, in that it DOES
NOT reflect the point of any individual. Then you turn it around and say
that it DOES reflect the point of a megalomaniacal individual. Which way do
you want it? I don't see how you can have both sides of this view. Try to
see what I'm saying here.

> Of course to them taxation, national governments, and international
> agreements are usually just impediments to their free action. Even the
> 'good' egotistical crazed billionaires, think Elon Musk (to be fair Elon
> doesn't come off as egotistical even when he makes some sweeping statement
> that some past approach or program is doomed to fail) , have a perspective
> that might not always line up with the 'little guy'.
>

I like Elon's view for transportation in California. It's much better than
the government's proposal. It's a prime example of why to give money to
corporations instead of governments.

> But with the juggernaut that is Washington, how else do you slow it down
> other than throwing bodies under it? This is a serious question. How the
> hell do we slow it down?
>
> I still have this question.

We are a nation addicted to war and war spending.
>

I'll grant that point. I would like to shut down many of our bases around
the world. I would like to consolidate some of our bases here in the USA.
Much savings could be achieved in this manner. I do believe that a strong
national defense is necessary. But I also believe we are spending more on
defence than is necessary because of political considerations. Why can't
Germany fund it's own defense? They waste their money on premature solar
installations while we waste money on their defense. One could say that the
USA is partially funding Germany's headlong dash into premature alternative
energy projects.

> If we can't have a big one we'll take as many little ones as we can get.
> We'll create never ending wars on concepts; "Drugs', 'Terror', 'Cuteness'
> (ok I made the last one up....but why not....there is no way we could clean
> up the internet of cat pictures...let's go for it!) Let's not forget our
> openly 'covert' wars, wars which suspiciously resemble terrorism if you
> happen to have family at the wedding/funeral that gets 'bug splatted'.
>

I am against the war on drugs. If I were the dictator of America, I would
immediately make all drugs (including prescription drugs) legal without a
prescription. I would put in place strong incentives to use such drugs
responsibly. For example, if someone chooses to drive drunk and they kill
someone, I believe that should be treated as equivalent to first degree
homicide. (Let's not argue capital punishment, this thread is broad enough
already.)

I am largely against the war on terror. I think we should be able to absorb
a certain amount of terrorist activity, just as we absorb gang violence
now. Why focus on it so heavily. It's a little like the government focusing
disproportionately on AIDS when cancer and heart disease kill more people.
It is as if the entire government is functioning like a reptile brain,
responding to one Amygdala hijack after another. We need a more mammalian
government that balances risks and reactions to risk in a more
mathematically correct way. Too damn much emotion and fear in it.

I would also oppose a war on Cuteness.

The only war I am in favor of at the moment is the war against bloated
government. It's like a large tumor growing in the belly of the world's
nations. It will eventually kill the hosts.

If, and I'll admit it's a big IF, you accept the notion that countries are
> 'mostly analog AIs', how would you rate the US on the 'friendly' scale?
> Psychotic? Delusional?
>

Totally bat shit crazy. Much worse than the TEA party. One can easily make
the case that the US as a nation has Borderline Personality Disorder,
Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Paranoid Personality Disorder,
Antisocial Personality Disorder and many others. Of course, most other
nations are also bat shit crazy. That's why I want smaller, more localized
government, because if you can reach your fingers around the neck of the
crazy ass hole that's making the rules, he's going to make better rules
(usually).

> About debt Kelly, the graph you presented shows pretty clearly that in
> recent times Reagan and Bush the 2nd are right at the elbows where the debt
> to gdp ratio turned for the worse.
>

True, and I condemn them for it. I'm not a Republican because of it.

> Almost every president has raised spending in dollar amounts, but when you
> couple that with tax cuts you get exactly the debt explosion that you would
> expect rather than the 'golden shower' of the trickle down economics we
> were promised.
>

I feel the golden shower running down my back everytime Washington pisses
on me.

> Why? The billionaires are buying more industrial plant and marching
> forward to the singularity alone.
>

I don't know.

> Here's a graph for you:
>
> http://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/canada-deficit/
>
> Guess what, in Canada the fiscally conservative 'Conservatives'...aren't.
> The Liberals, at least since Chrétien, are. The final irony is that the
> Conservatives have outlined in their platform a legislative goal to have a
> 'balanced budget amendment', something they haven't been able to do after
> squandering the surplus handed to them by their Liberal predecessors.
> Reminiscent of the Clinton to Bush transition, yes?
>

Don't know enough Canadian politics to comment, though I know enough to
know that they use Conservative and Liberal differently than they are
defined in the USA. Very confusing that.

> The Military-Industrial complex wants more wars and money, and the banking
> system wants a perpetually indebted client. They want a 'functional
> alcoholic', someone who can keep paying the bills but is completely
> incapable of 'getting off the bottle'. Guess what they've got?
>

I agree. The military-industrial complex is another large dysfunctional
organization. The banking system is yet another. The Bank of American Fork
is one of the best run banks in the nation. Why? Probably because they are
not large.

> The Tea Party is clearly not opposed to the Military-Industrial complex,
> it's priority lately has and continues to be to oppose a health care system
> that, while it is flawed, is a step in the right direction towards reducing
> the costs of health care to people and to the economy.
>

I disagree with you slightly here. When Obama put forth his idea of the
sequester, he thought the Republicans would fold before taking money away
from defense. Guess what? It backfired on him because the Tea Party thought
it more important to reduce spending than fund defense. I would say that is
evidence against your proposition.

> Just try to get the Tea Party to stand up and propose cuts just to the
> defence department and the spies. The American public in a vast majority
> would approve of that. Instead of going after that mountain of pork-barrel
> spending they go after the handful of beans that is 'Obamacare'.
>

Handful of beans? Health Care represents 18% of the US economy. How is that
a handful of beans? I am convinced that the long term plan is for Obamacare
to morph into a single payer system. Doing what they are doing now (so
badly) is the way forward to a single payer system. If we get there, Zeus
protect us!

Conclusion: either the Tea Party isn't sincere about wanting to reduce
> spending or they are motivated by idealogical concerns more strongly than
> fiscal concerns.
>

I simply disagree as a grass roots member of the Tea Party. I certainly
don't think that way. I'm betting Spike (him being the most like me in
political thought) doesn't either.

-Kelly
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