[ExI] My review of Eliezer Yudkowsky's new book (UBI)

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> 
Sent: Sunday, 5 October, 2025 12:05 PM
To: spike at rainier66.com
Cc: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] My review of Eliezer Yudkowsky's new book (UBI)

 

 

On Sun, Oct 5, 2025 at 2:17 PM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:

 

>… I couldn't comment on Nancy Reagan's proposed solution to the illegal drug problem, "just don't do drugs"….

 

That strategy works, with or without the just.  The proper quote however is “Just say no.”

 

 

…

 

>…Then we simply borrow some more…

 

OK but who gets the profit from accepting the risk of that?

 

>…That's the strategy we've used during the 21st-century and during most of the 20th, and it seems to have worked pretty well…

 

Oh on the contrary sir.  It has led us into catastrophe in the USA because it didn’t cover the risk that the world would not end.

 

>…The only time the US has had a balanced budget was four years during the Clinton administration…

 

Ja, it was a miracle!  Or not: it was an accounting trick, as was pointed out by a German investor friend.  The USA didn’t magically balance its budget.  It arranged to have the Social Security surplus counted as revenue, which it really isn’t.  That is a retirement fund.  Now we are borrowing money to pay that back, running up huge interest costs, which surpassed national defense, is now pulling up alongside Medicare, charging toward exceeding Social Security costs.

 

It is easy to see now that Elon was right: cut this budget severely, cut it now, cut it hard.  Otherwise, the federal government does nothing but collect money to service its own debt, at which time it cannot borrow money, because investors see the risk going exponential.  They will not loan.

 

>… but that's not a very good advertisement for having a balanced budget.   John K Clark

 

If we argue that it is not necessary to balance the budget, we are left with some explanation for why we need taxes.  Can’t the government just borrow the money it needs?  Why not?

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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