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

[John Clark]

*Spike I honestly don't get it. You are giving me almost exactly the same
arguments you gave me five years ago before the jaw-dropping developments
in AI had occurred. The asteroid is already visible even in the daytime sky
and is about to slam into Chicxulub, and you're still worried about
trivialities like who will pay for what. This isn't 2020, we are living in
a different world now, a different galaxy! *

*John K Clark*





On Sun, Oct 5, 2025 at 3:19 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

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> *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)
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> On Sun, Oct 5, 2025 at 2:17 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
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> *>…** I couldn't comment on Nancy Reagan's proposed solution to the
> illegal drug** problem, "just don't do drugs"….*
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> *That strategy works, with or without the just.  The proper quote however
> is “Just say no.”*
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> …
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> *>…Then we simply borrow some more…*
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> *OK but who gets the profit from accepting the risk of that?*
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> *>…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…*
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> *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.*
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> *>…The only time the US has had a balanced budget was four years during
> the Clinton administration…*
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> *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.*
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> *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.*
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> *>… but that's not a very good advertisement for having a balanced
> budget. *  *John K Clark*
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> *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?*
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> *spike*
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