They can totally make it work, it’s just currently cheaper to have humans do it.
Solving the technical challenges and using that solution profitably are two completely different things.
118 karma · joined August 29, 2021
Solving the technical challenges and using that solution profitably are two completely different things.
In a fiat currency system there is no meaningful constraint on the supply of money. We’re experiencing the effects of that feature of the fiat system currently. Tying the supply of money to a rare commodity like gold may create other problems, but it completely solves the issue of currency devaluation.
For the record, the world was on the gold standard when the agricultural and industrial revolutions occurred. It’s not at all obvious to me that the gold standard prevents productivity growth.
The folks I know who were previously sympathetic the constraints on government overreach watched state and federal governments impose policies that made no sense for their communities and were actively detrimental to their livelihoods and enforce those policies with fines and even jail time in some instances.
These people would have been against the tactics ICE is using in 2019. Today they’re ambivalent. The attitude is “what comes around goes around.”
Following an ethical code in international affairs constrains the nation following it. It provides an asymmetric advantage to others who choose not to follow that code.
This is partly why China has become so powerful over the past three decades. They chose to ignore western ethical codes around intellectual property rights, fair trade, environmental protections, and human rights. They are powerful today in no small part to their willingness to disregard these things.
This is difficult for people to understand because in interpersonal relationships following an ethical code is 100% the path to healthy and meaningful relationships, and most modern history education attempts to anthropomorphize past interactions between nations. But the cold fact is that international politics is nothing like interpersonal relationships.
A nation can encourage other nations to follow their ethical code by threatening to use force if they don't. They can create incentives to encourage nations to change their behavior through trade or treaty. But I can't think of a single time in history when a nation was such a shining star of morality that they inspired other nations to change their ways and adopt their ethics.
You can't expect other nations to respect your nation's moral and ethical values when they don't care about them in the first place and in fact hope that you choose to follow them to the fullest extent so that you're easier to compete against.
Go touch grass, brother. Life is more than models. Most things in life really aren’t that complicated. People do what they want and make up the reasons for why they did what they did as they go. It’s basic human behavior at the state level.
I get that military resources devoted to one theatre can’t be used in another and for that reason the US might be less able to defend Taiwan, but that may not make them less willing.
A more reasonable read is that the aircraft carriers and other naval assets in the Gulf of Mexico are more effective there than they could be in the Pacific. Venezuela doesn’t have hypersonic anti-ship missiles. China does.
Big assumption to be sure, and time will only tell if it’s a correct one.
In a place like Taiwan or the US that assumption is almost certainly false. Imagine Xi kidnaps the US president. Does anyone honestly believe the entire government and its people just roll over and say, “I guess China owns us now”?
When convenient they will use international law and norms as justification for actions they would take regardless. When inconvenient, they will just ignore them.
To the extent that superpowers do “follow” international law, it is only because those laws were written by the superpowers themselves or align with their interests at any given time.
Appeals to scholars or analysts is meaningless in this context. You should post why those people think they matter, or what their reasoning is, not, “hey, guys that I think are smart say this matters.”
My priors before this were that international law mattered a little, but this event has convinced me it’s all a farce. Exhibit A: the UN’s increasing irrelevance as we move toward a multipolar world.
Why do you think international law constrains nation states, despite much evidence to the contrary, including today’s events?
I’m sympathetic to your sentiment but that train left the station likely before you were born.
I mean, if you ever needed smoking gun proof this is a lie, you got some today.
Countries appeal to international law when they don’t have enough power to achieve their goals through brute force alone.
Countries that do appeal to international law but also have the wherewithal to do what they want only make those appeals to conceal their naked ambitions under the guise of the rules based order. It’s just good marketing. Nothing more.
The model you should construct should assume treaties and agreements are stable insofar as the incentives for players to maintain them remain in place.
It’s all about national interest, always has been, and at this point I’m surprised anybody can be so dense as to not be able to see this.
How does Maduro being ousted change the physical realities of an amphibious invasion of Taiwan? You think international law is what has been preventing Xi from invading?
Trump does only respect power, as do all other serious leaders. Power is all that matters in the end.
How do you think the system of international law came into existence? It was imposed by the US at the end of WWII because of their overwhelming military strength and the fact that no other nation had nuclear weapons at the time.
The armchair analysis from some folks on this topic is really lacking. You guys are just wrong, and the hubris you bring with your “analysis” is really off putting.
Russia is funding its war in Ukraine with profits on thier oil production. All else being equal, this makes it harder for them to keep doing that. They reportedly spent $6 billion on air defense systems in Venezuela, not for no reason.
Lower oil prices also reduce China’s dependence on Russia for energy. Reducing the incentive for those two countries two cooperate would be in US interests.
Energy is fungible and lower oil prices will help reduce the cost to operate AI data centers. On the margin it will improve their profitability and reduce public backlash about rising electricity prices in the US.
A large portion of the migrant crisis in the US has been driven by Venezuelan refugees fleeing Maduro’s gross mismanagement of the country. If the subsequent government can bring prosperity back to the country it also reduces illegal immigration in the US, something the current US administration clearly supports.
Lots of positive things could result here and you don’t have to be a “Kissinger psychopath” to imagine them and hope they materialize.
Gold at least places real constraints on the growth of the money supply. Imperfect as it is, it’s better than a financial cabal in one country creating money to suit their needs irrespective of any other objective.
That is a choice we have made. Historically it hasn’t been that way.
It’s similar to oil: demand is what it is, and even if it doesn’t fluctuate much, a refinery exploding or political instability in a producer nation can cause prices to rise by large amounts, even if supply only drops by a few hundred thousand barrels per year.
In the 1980’s when the Hunt brothers tried to corner the market, households responded by liquidating their Sterling silver and other silver items. That’s ultimately why their strategy failed. Today that domestic source of supply is much smaller, contributing even more to supply inelasticity.
This is more of a supply story than a demand story.
Most silver extraction is actually done in copper or gold mines. But you can’t ramp up silver production in those mines because the silver output is actually a waste product from the primary metal being extracted in those mines.
Demand is rising but silver supply is relatively inelastic, resulting in the price going up.
Ultimately it’s a culture problem. America’s attitude toward problems is nothing if not “throw more money at the problem and hope it gets better.” See also, healthcare, military spending, college sports, etc.