silverneedle

joined 2 weeks ago
[–] silverneedle@lemmy.ca 2 points 11 hours ago

Our market has coexisted with an extremely fast global communication network for decades now. Given that the market feels like a quite organic thing, on what authority is the market not meant to coexists with the internet?

I'll try to explain my thought.

The condition for markets to exist as self reproducing and self-stabilizing objects is government, usu. in the form of a state-entity, which itself is an economic actor that exists in competition with other states and in cooperation within free trade zones. Important note: government forms from market activity, specifically from the control of estates. Taxation is a form of rent, for example. I am not putting the state-before the market.

There is an interest for governments to:

  1. Maximize economic output

  2. To do so through cleverly tricking other economic actors outside of the own taxation system. I.e. trade agreements with built-in asymettries.

  3. And to minimize damage to domestic production. Outsourcing can lead to cornerstones of the economy eroding.

Throw in the internet. We can now communicate and exchange with actors that are not in the same tax system. First and foremost this leads to issues with intellectual property. I'd cite geolocked internet radio stations and piracy. Japan doesn't care about its citizens pirating manhwas, and vice-versa, Korea doesn't care about anime piracy, and so on and so on. Then there is trade of physical objects. Say you need a laptop battery for your Linuxed MacBook M1 and a Chinese seller has batteries in stock that are cheaper and better than Apple's own (happens rather frequently), with taxation at the border factored in you are still getting the most optimal deal. Some might find ways of circumventing customs which sweetens the pot further. Obviously there are issues to the domestic economy that can arise from this.

Trade speeds up and global supply chains gain importance as cross border communication speeds up. At the level of national governments there is a distinct threat presenting itself. There is less control over market activity leading to a speedup of the self-polluting nature of trade, in other words the boom and butts cycle shortens. As a national government you'd want to lengthen the boom and bust cycle as crises are the natural killer of states, along with expansionist nations.

Everything you are seeing, from Chat Control to China's firewall are attempts to stabilize economies. The internet enables one to build structures that are wholly outside of state control. The state fails to direct the economy as planning starts happening between turfs. The internet due to its nation-decentralized function can aid in forming structures that oppose the state, should it falter.

Let's not forget one of the biggest threats to the economy that is open source. Patents and DRM are threatened by the unstoppable pace of Blender, Open Office and co.. It's as if people said YOLO, let's stop exchanging goods and services and at the same time solve very real and pressing issues, some of the biggest problems in fact. It works with much less friction than anything before, it exists as this hobbyist thing that we cannot call economical in any sense of the current understanding of the word and it would not exist if it wasn't for the internet.

I think that internet access is restricted because of technological constraints, a technological lag in rolling out higher speed infrastructure, and a the lack of demand for that access which is driven by technological and practical constraint. Some complex function of those factors haha. Still, I don’t really know what you are trying to get across.

India and China have smartphone ownership rates of over 85%. There are no significant technological constraints if you are not someone who needs exorbitant download upload speed and low latency. The Chinese have pretty decent internet speeds, faster than most European countries. I also do not at all believe that there is a lack of demand for practical access. The internet is most generally a sensible thing to have access to no matter who you are.

[–] silverneedle@lemmy.ca 1 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

That'll never work. The internet is messy like a jungle, I might find bird crap somewhere but it will not get me the bird. I might find a turned leaf, but what turned the leaf will never be known to me. All despite me being able to reason and investigate phenomena that occur.

I view all things like particle systems: There are general trends, sometimes we can observe how single particles travel and we can derive rules from their behavior. Yet we are never able to see everything at full resolution, let alone know everyone in the way the "evil" "AI" thought experiments portray all knowing bots. What people say about Palantir is very similar falls into the category of we-don't-know-the-rest-of-it.

No use going paranoid over preliminary results from a tool we readily use but don't fully comprehend the limitations of (in the meaning of: we don't know how shitty and unreliable they are in actuality).

[–] silverneedle@lemmy.ca 10 points 22 hours ago

I call BS. We'll see false positives go through the roof. Just another tool to arbitrarily harass opponents.

[–] silverneedle@lemmy.ca 2 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

Don't hate the technology. It's great. Just how people organize themselves around technology is not up to date. Markets are not meant to coexist with an extremely fast global communication network that everyone can access, why do you think economies restrict internet access?

Let the internet as a social activity die. It's got to in order to be reborn haha

[–] silverneedle@lemmy.ca 52 points 22 hours ago (4 children)

Stop using streaming services and set sail

[–] silverneedle@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago

you should drive because eating pollutes more

Effective altruist style of reasoning 😹

[–] silverneedle@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago

Eh, not that I’m worried or not worried, kinda indifferent by now. A lot of stuff happened in the last couple of years, I think won’t be surprised by any kind of outcome.

I get it man. Everything past COVID has felt like a fever dream.

the guy is some sort of theoretical researcher?

Let's say he is someone who has musings on the world. I would be careful with the term "researcher" haha. Reflects well on you however that you don't know him.

[–] silverneedle@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

First off, thank you for taking your time. Secondly, I don't hate you.

To my initial question: the AI bubble bursting will most certainly plunge the US into major turmoil as inflated AI stocks have been the only thing that kept domestic growth above going negative. Are you worried that American expansionism will, as a method of securing resources to stabilize the economy and therefore also the state, become drastically more aggressive?

Second question: What is your take on Joscha Bach who's recently been discovered to have had ties to J. Epstein? I've known people who have worked with him and revered him like a god, though personally I have always been critical about what he says as I think that he makes a lot of statements (about things) that can't be falsified, for example the nature of consciousness and specifically people simulating being conscious (which explains nothing as the experience of consciousness still exists as a concrete experience, etc.).

Forgive this question being too big potentially.

[–] silverneedle@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 days ago

When done replacing your smoke detector, be sure to give me the spent one.

Mmm, yummy americium.

[–] silverneedle@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 days ago

Could be. I'm too autistic to parse hahah

[–] silverneedle@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

My tip: don't argue with people who know not even the terms they are attempting to criticize the use of. +also they seem to be using a sockpuppet account to upvote themselves and write comments

[–] silverneedle@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

There are also civil and secular religions, so it still applies. Think about the way we fetishize democracy, long covid or mold exposure. Really interesting topic.

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