[ExI] Free Trade

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> 
>…> And yet… after using that argument, you are the one who is certain the Singularity is imminent, even though that has never happened either.

 

>…Conditions are no more likely today for deficit spending to cause an apocalypse than they were 200 years ago, but conditions are far more likely to cause an AI singularity than they were 200 years ago, or even just two years ago.   John K Clark

 

 

 

John you may have seen the modern real-money ideas futures sites, where one can bet on an event you know will eventually happen, but no one knows exactly when.  At the first of October, when the current US government “shutdown” began, there were about 8 or 10 spans where one could buy shares.  I bought into the long-march span, which was shutdown ends after 31 October, that went up, I chickened, sold for a small profit, now those shares are worth 79 cents and went up four just since I went to Costco.  Daaaaaaaaaaammmmmmmm!  }8-[     {8^(

 

We could do the same trick for the Big S Singularity.  If we did, I would put most of my money on the Big S being about 15 to 20 years out from now.  But we can all extrapolate, and see that Musk was right: by the time the Social Security fund is all paid back, in about last quarter 2033 or first quarter 2034, the federal government will be a debt slave.  It can do little other than collect the funds for Social Security and Medicare, which become separately funded once more, as it was before 1994, then most of the rest of the funds the federal government can collect will go to interest on the money we are borrowing now to pay back what was borrowed in the 1990s.

 

The shocking conclusion to all this: there is no free lunch.  There isn’t even a reduced-price lunch.  Eventually we pay for all the government we bought, even if we bought it a long time ago.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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