[ExI] AI as teacher

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat
Subject: Re: [ExI] AI as teacher

 

>…I don't want to repeat myself:  have I told you my theory of why children are afraid of men?

 

I don’t recall having heard it.  Do share.  I can think of an evolutionary psychology-based explanation.

 

>>…I bought the hell outta Lockheed stock back in the day when we thought we were going under.  We didn’t. spike

 

>…So why did you buck the odds?  bill w

Right decision for all the wrong reasons.  I went to Lockheed in 1989 to get out of the military equipment biz.  When Mr. Gorbachev tore down that wall, I thought war would go away.  Lockheed made that war stuff, but they made a lot of other high-techy stuff that isn’t military, back in those days they did.  We had a great Plowshares group, where we did systems engineering: trying to figure out ways to adapt military stuff for civilian use, then use existing expertise to make that, saving on development costs and so forth.

Turns out Lockheed was great at making stuff no one could afford, and we lost our asses in all of it.  I can’t even think of a good counter-example right off hand.  But I worked there and saw how many smart people we had, perhaps let it influence my judgment on our chances of success.  So I took full advantage of my stock options, bought like hell back in the early 90s at great prices because nooooobody wanted to invest in a stodgy old company back then.  Everybody wanted to play the high-fliers, the startups, the silliest dot coms, the internet fly-by-nights, companies with business models so absurd you couldn’t even figure out why anyone would invest.  Eh, the 90s were that way.  

So… by the time that all crashed in about 2001, I wasn’t holding any of it.  I was holding Lockheed stock and a few other dividend-paying value stocks, and over the long haul, it was good to me.  

Bill note you posted to ExI part of what was an offlist discussion.  No harm done, and I am OK with sharing my philosophy on investing: high profit equals high risk.  Play at your peril.  Invest for the long haul, and in the long haul you will likely do well.  

Of course I coulda done way better.  I was right there when BitCoin started (we all were) and coulda been the next Jeff Davis, never bought a single one of those, back when they were 5 bucks.  Never bought Tesla, even though my neighbor kept telling me it was a great investment.  They were right.  I couldn’t see why anyone couldn’t just start a new digital currency company on a whim and I definitely didn’t see anyone building cars for a profit in my neighborhood.  Well, bzzzt and bzzzt, so now call me Tevye the milkman, for I am not a rich man.

spike

 

 

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