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it’s fascinating how much modern internet driven capitalism turns everything into a slop bowl. starting with chipotle, through to infinite salad places, etc. if you think deeply it makes a ton of sense because the bowl is the perfect capitalist vessel.. it’s: - incredibly modular (swap proteins/bases, same labor...

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signüll

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185,746 Aufrufe • vor 26 Tagen •via X (Twitter)

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Arjun Khemani

605,493 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

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Wall Street Apes

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Mo Gawdat spent years inside the machine at Google X. Now he is saying out loud what the economists will not. Gawdat: “The very base of capitalism, which is labor arbitrage, to hire you for a dollar and then sell what you make for two, is going to disappear.” That is not a prediction. That is a coroner’s report on a system that has not stopped breathing yet. Capitalism was never about innovation. It was about one equation. Buy human time cheap. Sell the output high. Pocket the spread. Every empire. Every fortune. Every supply chain on Earth was built on that margin. AI just closed it to zero. A humanoid robot now costs $9,000. It does not sleep. It does not negotiate. It does not quit. It runs every hour of every day at a quality ceiling no biological worker will ever touch. When production costs fall to nearly nothing, the entire pricing structure of the global economy falls with it. But here is what every CEO celebrating margin expansion has not thought through for five minutes. Gawdat: “Even if you can have all of the productivity gains in the world, by firing people consistently, nobody’s able to buy what you’re making.” That single sentence should end every strategy meeting on the planet. Capitalism is a closed loop. You pay workers. Workers become consumers. Consumers buy products. Revenue funds the next payroll. Cut the worker and you do not just eliminate a cost. You eliminate the customer. Every company racing to automate headcount out of existence is quietly engineering the death of its own demand. They are building the most efficient production systems in human history to sell to a population that no longer has income. 50% unemployment is not a recession. It is the demand side of the economy going permanently dark. You cannot push infinite supply into zero purchasing power. The math does not care about your earnings call. Gawdat: “Wealth is going to have very little meaning for most of us in a few years’ time.” This is where it turns on the people who think they are winning. If production approaches zero cost, scarcity begins to dissolve. And scarcity is the only reason money holds value in the first place. The billionaire class is stockpiling a currency that is quietly losing its reason to exist. Gawdat: “So the entire capitalist model has to be rethought.” He is right. And nobody in power is doing the rethinking. Every board meeting about efficiency is a conversation about dismantling the very economic engine that made the board meeting possible. The question was never whether AI could produce enough. It was whether capitalism could survive its own success. The machine does not just replace the worker. It erases the consumer. And a system that can produce everything but sell nothing is not an economy. It is a machine that perfected itself into extinction.
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Dustin

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MSNOW host Luke Russert on the Politico article about Graham Platner: “I don’t see how he can be the nominee for senator in Maine for the Democratic Party.” “Well, I think something that jumped out to me in the article, which I just read, is that the person who made the accusations was very conflicted about coming forward, and primarily because she said she very much supported Platner’s politics and believed in his messaging and didn’t want to hurt him politically, but also felt it necessary to see the full scope of the person, and I think that’s something that is going to have to be wrestled with. If these allegations are true, to this extent, I don’t see how he can be the nominee for senator in Maine for the Democratic Party. I think there’s a lot of people who might look at this out of the gate and say, well, Ken Paxton in Texas is is terrible, and the Republicans are putting him up, and he is someone who has had all sorts of legal issues and infidelity issues, etc. I think what you have here, though, is a pickup opportunity is incredibly important in Maine for the party if they want to get control of the Senate, but also somebody who there is a belief that he may have gotten through the storm on this, but now is looking that it’s significantly worse than what was advertised, and especially for a party that was so intertwined with Me Too, and believing women, it looks very hypocritical if there is not, I think, a real examination of him moving forward.”
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MSNOW host Luke Russert on the Politico article about Graham Platner: “I don’t see how he can be the nominee for senator in Maine for the Democratic Party.” “Well, I think something that jumped out to me in the article, which I just read, is that the person who made the accusations was very conflicted about coming forward, and primarily because she said she very much supported Platner’s politics and believed in his messaging and didn’t want to hurt him politically, but also felt it necessary to see the full scope of the person, and I think that’s something that is going to have to be wrestled with. If these allegations are true, to this extent, I don’t see how he can be the nominee for senator in Maine for the Democratic Party. I think there’s a lot of people who might look at this out of the gate and say, well, Ken Paxton in Texas is is terrible, and the Republicans are putting him up, and he is someone who has had all sorts of legal issues and infidelity issues, etc. I think what you have here, though, is a pickup opportunity is incredibly important in Maine for the party if they want to get control of the Senate, but also somebody who there is a belief that he may have gotten through the storm on this, but now is looking that it’s significantly worse than what was advertised, and especially for a party that was so intertwined with Me Too, and believing women, it looks very hypocritical if there is not, I think, a real examination of him moving forward.”

Curtis Houck

89,071 Aufrufe • vor 17 Tagen

Wow, since the last post blew up, here is another fascinating insight from my years working with car-on-demand companies and more traditional automakers. Most people still think the entire automotive business is about selling or leasing vehicles. But there is a new market emerging that is absolutely massive: data Modern cars are packed with sensors and constantly collect real-time information. And this data is quickly becoming one of the most valuable revenue streams in the industry. Companies like Tesla, with their autonomous, sensor-rich fleets, are positioned to benefit enormously, but the same applies to many newer connected vehicles across all brands. What makes this so powerful is how diverse the use cases are. Cities, for example, can tap into aggregated vehicle data to understand exactly where they need to intervene. If thousands of cars detect the same irregular bump on the road, you instantly know there is a pothole at a precise location. Scale that across a whole city and you have a live map of infrastructure issues before residents even complain. The same data can help optimize traffic flow, identify congestion patterns in real time, or highlight zones where drivers consistently brake or accelerate suddenly, revealing potential safety problems. Automakers can also use this information to better understand how people actually drive in the real world, which directly influences design, durability testing, and product evolution And then there is the insurance angle. As driving behavior becomes measurable at scale, dynamic insurance pricing emerge. Acceleration habits, braking patterns, cornering, speed consistency, environmental context all of this will feed into future scoring models What we are seeing right now is only the beginning. With cars full of electronics, sensors, and especially autonomous vision systems, data is becoming one of the largest and most predictable revenue lines for automakers and mobility companies. Even traditional vehicles are now connected and constantly transmitting information that can be analyzed or monetized in multiple ways We are still just scratching the surface, but the shift is already underway. The value is no longer just in the vehicle itself. It is also in the billions of data points it generates every single day
0:25

Wow, since the last post blew up, here is another fascinating insight from my years working with car-on-demand companies and more traditional automakers. Most people still think the entire automotive business is about selling or leasing vehicles. But there is a new market emerging that is absolutely massive: data Modern cars are packed with sensors and constantly collect real-time information. And this data is quickly becoming one of the most valuable revenue streams in the industry. Companies like Tesla, with their autonomous, sensor-rich fleets, are positioned to benefit enormously, but the same applies to many newer connected vehicles across all brands. What makes this so powerful is how diverse the use cases are. Cities, for example, can tap into aggregated vehicle data to understand exactly where they need to intervene. If thousands of cars detect the same irregular bump on the road, you instantly know there is a pothole at a precise location. Scale that across a whole city and you have a live map of infrastructure issues before residents even complain. The same data can help optimize traffic flow, identify congestion patterns in real time, or highlight zones where drivers consistently brake or accelerate suddenly, revealing potential safety problems. Automakers can also use this information to better understand how people actually drive in the real world, which directly influences design, durability testing, and product evolution And then there is the insurance angle. As driving behavior becomes measurable at scale, dynamic insurance pricing emerge. Acceleration habits, braking patterns, cornering, speed consistency, environmental context all of this will feed into future scoring models What we are seeing right now is only the beginning. With cars full of electronics, sensors, and especially autonomous vision systems, data is becoming one of the largest and most predictable revenue lines for automakers and mobility companies. Even traditional vehicles are now connected and constantly transmitting information that can be analyzed or monetized in multiple ways We are still just scratching the surface, but the shift is already underway. The value is no longer just in the vehicle itself. It is also in the billions of data points it generates every single day

Aurelien

72,062 Aufrufe • vor 7 Monaten

It's official. OpenAI just launched SORA 2... and an entirely new social app. Truthfully... I wanted to hate this. The idea of an endless turbo slop scroller is just… nightmare fuel to me. BUT. The reason I think Sora (the app) might actually just work, is that it’s a multiplayer meme-creation machine. It’s fun. It doesn’t take itself seriously. I think of it like a super advanced evolution of JibJab. The group chats will love it. Now… personally, I'd guess that I will be churning after the novelty fades… but I wouldn’t be surprised if they built some meaningful network effects here. But let’s talk about the model. Sora 2 is an instant Veo 3 alternative. It actually produces better physics, better audio, and deeper realism imo. It can also generate up to 15 seconds of video. Where it falls short is that it’s limited to 720p right now. We can assume 1080p and 4k exist, but the compute cost associated would probably not be economically viable for OpenAI. Okay back to the app. You can create a model after your own likeness, for yourself OR other people to use as a “cameo.” You have control over who and how someone can use your likeness. I’m “rpn24” on the app. If you have access to the app (it’s invite-only for now) – go ahead and create whatever you want using me (for now). I'm not too worried because OpenAI leaned heavily into moderation for launch. Which is probably smart because I expect the media and general public to blast this at first. They’ve also taken further precautions to protect your likeness. You can not export or save a video with someone else's likeness on it, and screen recording is disabled. Also Sora is testing (first I know of its kind) an algorithm you can prompt.
1:46

It's official. OpenAI just launched SORA 2... and an entirely new social app. Truthfully... I wanted to hate this. The idea of an endless turbo slop scroller is just… nightmare fuel to me. BUT. The reason I think Sora (the app) might actually just work, is that it’s a multiplayer meme-creation machine. It’s fun. It doesn’t take itself seriously. I think of it like a super advanced evolution of JibJab. The group chats will love it. Now… personally, I'd guess that I will be churning after the novelty fades… but I wouldn’t be surprised if they built some meaningful network effects here. But let’s talk about the model. Sora 2 is an instant Veo 3 alternative. It actually produces better physics, better audio, and deeper realism imo. It can also generate up to 15 seconds of video. Where it falls short is that it’s limited to 720p right now. We can assume 1080p and 4k exist, but the compute cost associated would probably not be economically viable for OpenAI. Okay back to the app. You can create a model after your own likeness, for yourself OR other people to use as a “cameo.” You have control over who and how someone can use your likeness. I’m “rpn24” on the app. If you have access to the app (it’s invite-only for now) – go ahead and create whatever you want using me (for now). I'm not too worried because OpenAI leaned heavily into moderation for launch. Which is probably smart because I expect the media and general public to blast this at first. They’ve also taken further precautions to protect your likeness. You can not export or save a video with someone else's likeness on it, and screen recording is disabled. Also Sora is testing (first I know of its kind) an algorithm you can prompt.

Roberto Nickson

147,338 Aufrufe • vor 9 Monaten

Some really thought-provoking insights on the Chinese and US economy here by Louis-Vincent Gave, the CEO of Gavekal. For instance he explains why the stock market is really not that important in China, especially when compared with the US. This is because the Chinese economy is really not that financialized and only a tiny proportion of the Chinese, 10%, hold stocks as opposed to 70% of Americans: "So if tomorrow the US stock market goes down two-thirds, 70% of people feel very poor. In China, if the stock market goes down two-thirds, 90% of people don't care." He also pinpoints a fascinating paradox, which is that there is much more competition between firms in the Chinese market, and many more bankruptcies than in the US: "I can name you 10 Chinese bankruptcies over the past three or four years of automakers, solar panel manufacturers, real estate developers, etc. Here we are in the Western world, whether in France, in the UK, in the US, and we pat ourselves on the back about how capitalist we are, about how we're red-blooded capitalists, etc. Yet when was the last big bankruptcy? Are we capitalist if nobody ever goes bust? How does that work? How does capitalism work without bankruptcy?" As he explains, the way the Chinese economy works is that there is stronger management of the market by the government but this paradoxically leads to a situation where the market works more dynamically in creating new companies, as well as destroying companies that don't work anymore. Whereas in the US, where it is arguably the reverse situation with capital having more control of the government, monopolies are being created in most sectors and companies are bailed out by the government in myriads of ways to avoid bankruptcy. So interestingly we're arriving at a situation where "communist China" might be today the best example of free-market 'creative destruction,' whilst the "capitalist U.S." seems to be calcifying into a form of corporate protectionism where big corporations are increasingly insulated from failure. This really raises fascinating questions on the role of government with regards to the economy... It sort of makes sense when you think about it that when you effectively let capital regulate itself, they'd want to move towards a situation where they can't lose and establish monopolies. And that you paradoxically need a strong referee above capital in order to foster a truly dynamic economic system.
10:36

Some really thought-provoking insights on the Chinese and US economy here by Louis-Vincent Gave, the CEO of Gavekal. For instance he explains why the stock market is really not that important in China, especially when compared with the US. This is because the Chinese economy is really not that financialized and only a tiny proportion of the Chinese, 10%, hold stocks as opposed to 70% of Americans: "So if tomorrow the US stock market goes down two-thirds, 70% of people feel very poor. In China, if the stock market goes down two-thirds, 90% of people don't care." He also pinpoints a fascinating paradox, which is that there is much more competition between firms in the Chinese market, and many more bankruptcies than in the US: "I can name you 10 Chinese bankruptcies over the past three or four years of automakers, solar panel manufacturers, real estate developers, etc. Here we are in the Western world, whether in France, in the UK, in the US, and we pat ourselves on the back about how capitalist we are, about how we're red-blooded capitalists, etc. Yet when was the last big bankruptcy? Are we capitalist if nobody ever goes bust? How does that work? How does capitalism work without bankruptcy?" As he explains, the way the Chinese economy works is that there is stronger management of the market by the government but this paradoxically leads to a situation where the market works more dynamically in creating new companies, as well as destroying companies that don't work anymore. Whereas in the US, where it is arguably the reverse situation with capital having more control of the government, monopolies are being created in most sectors and companies are bailed out by the government in myriads of ways to avoid bankruptcy. So interestingly we're arriving at a situation where "communist China" might be today the best example of free-market 'creative destruction,' whilst the "capitalist U.S." seems to be calcifying into a form of corporate protectionism where big corporations are increasingly insulated from failure. This really raises fascinating questions on the role of government with regards to the economy... It sort of makes sense when you think about it that when you effectively let capital regulate itself, they'd want to move towards a situation where they can't lose and establish monopolies. And that you paradoxically need a strong referee above capital in order to foster a truly dynamic economic system.

Arnaud Bertrand

367,253 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

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0:47

Every man needs to be able to work on their cars at a basic level minimum. Basic includes oil, filters, plugs, wires, brakes, rotors, fluids, etc. Also, get a computer for your vehicle and scan your codes. O2 sensors aren’t hard. Alternators aren’t too bad. Changing belts and such is easier than you think. Head gaskets are doable. The most important part of working on your cars (just like working on your firearms) is it forces you to have a closer relationship with your vehicle. Starters aren’t too bad. Replacing an ignition switch is doable. (If you get stuck there’s a MILLION YT videos) I know this sounds crazy, but the truth is most people just get in their cars and drive and don’t pay attention to what their vehicle is doing. Sounds it’s making. The way it’s acting, etc. Cooked brake rotors will generally make your steering wheel shake side to side when you brake. Your vehicle may also pull to one side or the other when you brake hard. These are signs of a cooked brake system. Car shops charge an ass ton of labor. I used to work at my parent’s car shop during the summer when I was still in school. Most parts are marked up at least 80-100 percent. Labor is roughly whatever the cost of parts is depending on the job. A full brake pad/rotor replacement on a heavy duty truck for instance with labor can EASILY cost $2000. If you do it yourself, you can save a grand. Maybe more. It’s important to grow your tool collection too. Every little job that comes along might need a special tool. I had to buy a breaker bar today for instance. That’s a super handy tool that now I can use for other jobs. I also identified some sockets I needed to purchase deep well versions of. These little gremlins appear. Working on your own stuff forces you to solve problems, think outside the box, and grow your collection of tools, experiences, and know how. 👌🏻

Iraqveteran8888

102,660 Aufrufe • vor 24 Tagen

I find this explanation of the Chinese system by Prof Keyu Jin (in a recent lecture at Harvard’s Fairbank center) absolutely fascinating. Keyu Jin is a professor of economics at LSE (London School of Economics) and serves on the board of companies like Credit Suisse. She’s also the daughter of Jin Liqun, former Vice Minister of finance of China so she’s a rare West-based academic (maybe even the only one) who actually has insight into the Chinese system from the inside. Essentially what she’s explaining is that a key reason why China was so successful economically is because of its decentralized nature, which creates two mutually compounding loops of competition, as opposed to one loop in the West. What does that mean? Well, contrary to popular belief that imagines China as being this centrally planned economy where almost everything is decided in Beijing, the inverse is actually true: China is actually one of the most decentralized countries in the world. To illustrate this, a metric that’s always amazed me is the fact that in China local governments (provinces, cities, villages, etc.) control a crazy 85% of the country's expenditures. On average that same metric for OECD countries is 33% (as in 64% of the expenditures are controlled at the federal/national level to China’s 15%). In the US for instance, which is already more decentralized than most given it’s a federation with states, only 45% of the country’s expenditures happen at the state and local level: almost twice less than in China! The effect of this, as Keyu Jin explains, is that provinces and larger municipalities in China have an immense degree of autonomy over the way they run their respective economies and fiercely compete with each other. This is the first loop. And then of course the second loop is that you have companies competing with each other in the market. As a result what constantly evolves in China is not only companies themselves but the environment in which they evolve: you constantly have this or that province running a new policy that proves very effective, making them gain an advantage vs other localities, initiative which is then copied by other localities. This makes the economic environment incredibly dynamic as it allows the state to move in unison with the economy, as opposed to slowing it down as is often the case in other countries. So what’s the role of the central government in all this? The key role, Keyu Jin argues, is setting broad objectives as well as personal management and promotion. And this is what makes the whole system work as therein lies the incentive for localities to compete with each other: because local officials know that if they do a better job than their peers, they’re on track for promotion by the central government. In “China Inc”, the central government is the board of directors and HR, presiding over an army of local CEOs with immense degrees of autonomy over their own “companies”. Keyu Jin gives the example of the solar industry. There was at some point (around 2005) a directive by the central government to develop the solar industry. The graph she shares in her talk is incredible: within a few years you had solar companies as well as patents related to research on solar technology pop up literally everywhere in China. With the result we all know about today: China today completely dominates the solar industry and solar technology (according to the International Energy Agency China's share in all the manufacturing stages of solar panels exceeds 80%). As she explains, this makes the Chinese system somewhat paradoxical as it is at the same time incredibly decentralized but also incredibly effective at mobilizing the country for centrally-decided objectives, in fact she goes as far as comparing this effectiveness to the country being in a constant state of “wartime mobilization”. An interesting comparison would be if you had all the countries in North America, the EU and North Africa (altogether roughly the population of China) all united under a common leadership deciding on common objectives and on the career path of all these countries’ officials, based on how well they achieve these objectives in their respective countries. We’re seeing this system being mobilized in its full strength today on leading edge semiconductors after US sanctions, and this is why these sanctions will undoubtedly ultimately prove so self-defeating: once the Chinese “wartime mobilization” machine is given an objective - and you can be sure this objective is prioritized very highly - the fight is essentially over, you can consider it done. Once you have hundreds of thousands of PhDs, companies and officials all at the same time competing and working within the same broad “China Inc” roof to make something happen, it will ultimately get done. If you want China NOT to develop a technology, the very last thing you want is to make them mobilize the full strength of the machine on it. With the sanctions the U.S. effectively told China: “please we beg you, do dedicate your formidable economic mobilization power to becoming a semiconductors powerhouse as fast as possible” 🤦 Another particularity of the system that Keyu Jin highlights - and I’ll end on this - is that this system also allows China to “allocate losses to certain groups of people, interest groups and sectors” in order to “enact system-level changes'', something she says is “very difficult for other governments with more political constraints to do”. For instance we’re seeing this play out in real-time with the real-estate industry: China recognized there was a housing bubble and Xi issued its “houses are for living in, not for speculation” directive. We’re since witnessing an engineered deflating of the bubble, ensuring to the extent possible that the losses are borne out by real estate developers and speculators, and not too much by society as a whole. This is part of the reason why China has never suffered a recession in the modern era: it does controlled demolition when necessary but tries to ensure it doesn’t suffer massive crises like we’ve repeatedly witnessed in the U.S. for instance. Of course no system is perfect. Weaknesses of the Chinese system include for instance local protectionism: there’s a perverse incentive for local officials to protect their local companies in order to give them a leg up vs companies from other provinces, which ultimately comes at the detriment of everyone. Another weakness is corruption, a sempiternal problem in China, where local officials - who are extremely powerful due to the nature of the system - will decide that getting promoted isn’t incentive enough and will try to cash in on their position of power. Cracking down on this is also a key remit of the central government and of course one of the major initiatives of Xi since he came to power. Lastly, another clear weakness is obviously that everything ultimately relies on the wisdom of what the system gets mobilized for, on the wisdom of these broader objectives coming from the central government. If they’re ill-thought, you effectively have a whole country working towards the wrong objectives… On this we’re often told that this problem doesn’t happen in countries where what the economy works towards is set more organically by the “invisible hand of the market” but if you think about it, it actually happens just the same as the “invisible hand of the market” actually equates “what’s good for shareholders” and what’s good for shareholders isn’t exactly always a perfect proxy for what’s good for society, to say the least... For instance it’s absolutely insane that we’ve just had 2-3 generations in the West where the best and brightest went to work for the finance industry to engineer ever more convoluted schemes to make money out of nothing, simply because it’s insanely profitable to do so. Anyone looking at this rationally can see it’s not exactly the best use of our precious human resources as a society… So all things considered, if I had to choose I’d much rather have our broad societal objectives set by human beings rather than by the theoretical concept of “what makes the most money deserves the most focus”. And as it turns out the Chinese system actually fares decently well against capitalism: human beings aren’t evidently too bad at deciding what human beings should work on if they’re being thoughtful and strategic about it.
5:28

I find this explanation of the Chinese system by Prof Keyu Jin (in a recent lecture at Harvard’s Fairbank center) absolutely fascinating. Keyu Jin is a professor of economics at LSE (London School of Economics) and serves on the board of companies like Credit Suisse. She’s also the daughter of Jin Liqun, former Vice Minister of finance of China so she’s a rare West-based academic (maybe even the only one) who actually has insight into the Chinese system from the inside. Essentially what she’s explaining is that a key reason why China was so successful economically is because of its decentralized nature, which creates two mutually compounding loops of competition, as opposed to one loop in the West. What does that mean? Well, contrary to popular belief that imagines China as being this centrally planned economy where almost everything is decided in Beijing, the inverse is actually true: China is actually one of the most decentralized countries in the world. To illustrate this, a metric that’s always amazed me is the fact that in China local governments (provinces, cities, villages, etc.) control a crazy 85% of the country's expenditures. On average that same metric for OECD countries is 33% (as in 64% of the expenditures are controlled at the federal/national level to China’s 15%). In the US for instance, which is already more decentralized than most given it’s a federation with states, only 45% of the country’s expenditures happen at the state and local level: almost twice less than in China! The effect of this, as Keyu Jin explains, is that provinces and larger municipalities in China have an immense degree of autonomy over the way they run their respective economies and fiercely compete with each other. This is the first loop. And then of course the second loop is that you have companies competing with each other in the market. As a result what constantly evolves in China is not only companies themselves but the environment in which they evolve: you constantly have this or that province running a new policy that proves very effective, making them gain an advantage vs other localities, initiative which is then copied by other localities. This makes the economic environment incredibly dynamic as it allows the state to move in unison with the economy, as opposed to slowing it down as is often the case in other countries. So what’s the role of the central government in all this? The key role, Keyu Jin argues, is setting broad objectives as well as personal management and promotion. And this is what makes the whole system work as therein lies the incentive for localities to compete with each other: because local officials know that if they do a better job than their peers, they’re on track for promotion by the central government. In “China Inc”, the central government is the board of directors and HR, presiding over an army of local CEOs with immense degrees of autonomy over their own “companies”. Keyu Jin gives the example of the solar industry. There was at some point (around 2005) a directive by the central government to develop the solar industry. The graph she shares in her talk is incredible: within a few years you had solar companies as well as patents related to research on solar technology pop up literally everywhere in China. With the result we all know about today: China today completely dominates the solar industry and solar technology (according to the International Energy Agency China's share in all the manufacturing stages of solar panels exceeds 80%). As she explains, this makes the Chinese system somewhat paradoxical as it is at the same time incredibly decentralized but also incredibly effective at mobilizing the country for centrally-decided objectives, in fact she goes as far as comparing this effectiveness to the country being in a constant state of “wartime mobilization”. An interesting comparison would be if you had all the countries in North America, the EU and North Africa (altogether roughly the population of China) all united under a common leadership deciding on common objectives and on the career path of all these countries’ officials, based on how well they achieve these objectives in their respective countries. We’re seeing this system being mobilized in its full strength today on leading edge semiconductors after US sanctions, and this is why these sanctions will undoubtedly ultimately prove so self-defeating: once the Chinese “wartime mobilization” machine is given an objective - and you can be sure this objective is prioritized very highly - the fight is essentially over, you can consider it done. Once you have hundreds of thousands of PhDs, companies and officials all at the same time competing and working within the same broad “China Inc” roof to make something happen, it will ultimately get done. If you want China NOT to develop a technology, the very last thing you want is to make them mobilize the full strength of the machine on it. With the sanctions the U.S. effectively told China: “please we beg you, do dedicate your formidable economic mobilization power to becoming a semiconductors powerhouse as fast as possible” 🤦 Another particularity of the system that Keyu Jin highlights - and I’ll end on this - is that this system also allows China to “allocate losses to certain groups of people, interest groups and sectors” in order to “enact system-level changes'', something she says is “very difficult for other governments with more political constraints to do”. For instance we’re seeing this play out in real-time with the real-estate industry: China recognized there was a housing bubble and Xi issued its “houses are for living in, not for speculation” directive. We’re since witnessing an engineered deflating of the bubble, ensuring to the extent possible that the losses are borne out by real estate developers and speculators, and not too much by society as a whole. This is part of the reason why China has never suffered a recession in the modern era: it does controlled demolition when necessary but tries to ensure it doesn’t suffer massive crises like we’ve repeatedly witnessed in the U.S. for instance. Of course no system is perfect. Weaknesses of the Chinese system include for instance local protectionism: there’s a perverse incentive for local officials to protect their local companies in order to give them a leg up vs companies from other provinces, which ultimately comes at the detriment of everyone. Another weakness is corruption, a sempiternal problem in China, where local officials - who are extremely powerful due to the nature of the system - will decide that getting promoted isn’t incentive enough and will try to cash in on their position of power. Cracking down on this is also a key remit of the central government and of course one of the major initiatives of Xi since he came to power. Lastly, another clear weakness is obviously that everything ultimately relies on the wisdom of what the system gets mobilized for, on the wisdom of these broader objectives coming from the central government. If they’re ill-thought, you effectively have a whole country working towards the wrong objectives… On this we’re often told that this problem doesn’t happen in countries where what the economy works towards is set more organically by the “invisible hand of the market” but if you think about it, it actually happens just the same as the “invisible hand of the market” actually equates “what’s good for shareholders” and what’s good for shareholders isn’t exactly always a perfect proxy for what’s good for society, to say the least... For instance it’s absolutely insane that we’ve just had 2-3 generations in the West where the best and brightest went to work for the finance industry to engineer ever more convoluted schemes to make money out of nothing, simply because it’s insanely profitable to do so. Anyone looking at this rationally can see it’s not exactly the best use of our precious human resources as a society… So all things considered, if I had to choose I’d much rather have our broad societal objectives set by human beings rather than by the theoretical concept of “what makes the most money deserves the most focus”. And as it turns out the Chinese system actually fares decently well against capitalism: human beings aren’t evidently too bad at deciding what human beings should work on if they’re being thoughtful and strategic about it.

Arnaud Bertrand

193,688 Aufrufe • vor 2 Jahren

🧵1/ I’m back from a short trip on a social network with photographs and videos from Gaza, with some brief personal conclusions. First, it is quite clear that there are those in Gaza who know how to make extensive use of the networks and social media for the purposes of emotional extortion and also false propaganda, exactly like they live streamed the October 7 massacre and somehow turned it into “justified resistance”, they use quite a few Western buzzwords such as “genocide”, “occupation”, “oppression” and “Zionism”- and this is the simplest way to distinguish between Hamas propaganda posts and authentic people in Gaza, whom I’ve known all my life, who use much simpler words and not this indoctrinated manipulation bullshit. I was looking for THESE authentic people - the real voices. And I think I found a few. So first of all, what do I think there is NOT happening in Gaza? There is no genocide and no famine. Yes, there is quite a lot of suffering, shortages in some places and lack of decent shelter etc. And there’s a lot of cynical exploitation of it for propaganda purposes. I’m saying it because you can see children are getting payed for it, you can see the absolute control of distribution and you can see how basic needs and the way out is blocked with money- Israel is not taking money for any of it, the West is sending free aid, so the money is demanded by those who want to control the suffering and use it. You should know, that before the war - there was already quite a lot of very poor population in Gaza, but now the economic difficulty has greatly increased for two main reasons: one, the war damaged many sources of livelihood and the second - a major source of livelihood was working in Israel and this option was closed for a long time now, since October 7, and is now much less operational. So in fact the main source of income is donations and funding from Hamas for control purposes of course. This is how, among other things, Hamas uses the population to "work for them", and also to smile or cry for the cameras on demand. Now on the issue of claimed famine- famine is when there’s NO food and water, enough for the population. As I said, my personal conclusion is that there is no shortage of food and water in Gaza at all. The problem is that the food is not distributed equally, it is controlled by those who are powerful (usually Hamas operatives) and then sold at high costs to the population without them having sources of livelihood. Food that should be distributed for #free is actually sold at a high price, the shelter tents are also paid for and the exit from Gaza is particularly expensive (5000$ that are paid to the transporters). There are quite a few who refer to Gaza as a "prison" but Gaza is not a prison, Hamas has simply created a situation where it is very expensive to leave it - and thus the poor and the new poor are completely dependent on Hamas and other clans (Hamulas) in everything to do with food, shelter and exit, and they play with them as pawns. If Gaza is a prison - then it’s because Hamas are imprisoning it. All the suffering in Gaza started because of #Hamas it continues and increases because of #Hamas, but the main point is that #Hamas is also the one factor that can stop it. If Hamas surrendered unconditionally and released the Israeli hostages, as done in any war in which you are forced to admit defeat - they would truly liberate Palestine. Remember- this is a war that #Hamas started, a war that on Oct. 7 was celebrated in the streets of Gaza. But #Hamas prefers to keep the Palestinians captive so that it can showcase suffering (which they create) and use it as a tool for financial donations, manipulation of the West and a messianic jihadist war that will never end for them. If the West doesn’t wake up to this ongoing manipulation- they will never help the Palestinians in Gaza or in general, and they will bring this jihadist chaos to their doorstep From Gaza >
0:40

🧵1/ I’m back from a short trip on a social network with photographs and videos from Gaza, with some brief personal conclusions. First, it is quite clear that there are those in Gaza who know how to make extensive use of the networks and social media for the purposes of emotional extortion and also false propaganda, exactly like they live streamed the October 7 massacre and somehow turned it into “justified resistance”, they use quite a few Western buzzwords such as “genocide”, “occupation”, “oppression” and “Zionism”- and this is the simplest way to distinguish between Hamas propaganda posts and authentic people in Gaza, whom I’ve known all my life, who use much simpler words and not this indoctrinated manipulation bullshit. I was looking for THESE authentic people - the real voices. And I think I found a few. So first of all, what do I think there is NOT happening in Gaza? There is no genocide and no famine. Yes, there is quite a lot of suffering, shortages in some places and lack of decent shelter etc. And there’s a lot of cynical exploitation of it for propaganda purposes. I’m saying it because you can see children are getting payed for it, you can see the absolute control of distribution and you can see how basic needs and the way out is blocked with money- Israel is not taking money for any of it, the West is sending free aid, so the money is demanded by those who want to control the suffering and use it. You should know, that before the war - there was already quite a lot of very poor population in Gaza, but now the economic difficulty has greatly increased for two main reasons: one, the war damaged many sources of livelihood and the second - a major source of livelihood was working in Israel and this option was closed for a long time now, since October 7, and is now much less operational. So in fact the main source of income is donations and funding from Hamas for control purposes of course. This is how, among other things, Hamas uses the population to "work for them", and also to smile or cry for the cameras on demand. Now on the issue of claimed famine- famine is when there’s NO food and water, enough for the population. As I said, my personal conclusion is that there is no shortage of food and water in Gaza at all. The problem is that the food is not distributed equally, it is controlled by those who are powerful (usually Hamas operatives) and then sold at high costs to the population without them having sources of livelihood. Food that should be distributed for #free is actually sold at a high price, the shelter tents are also paid for and the exit from Gaza is particularly expensive (5000$ that are paid to the transporters). There are quite a few who refer to Gaza as a "prison" but Gaza is not a prison, Hamas has simply created a situation where it is very expensive to leave it - and thus the poor and the new poor are completely dependent on Hamas and other clans (Hamulas) in everything to do with food, shelter and exit, and they play with them as pawns. If Gaza is a prison - then it’s because Hamas are imprisoning it. All the suffering in Gaza started because of #Hamas it continues and increases because of #Hamas, but the main point is that #Hamas is also the one factor that can stop it. If Hamas surrendered unconditionally and released the Israeli hostages, as done in any war in which you are forced to admit defeat - they would truly liberate Palestine. Remember- this is a war that #Hamas started, a war that on Oct. 7 was celebrated in the streets of Gaza. But #Hamas prefers to keep the Palestinians captive so that it can showcase suffering (which they create) and use it as a tool for financial donations, manipulation of the West and a messianic jihadist war that will never end for them. If the West doesn’t wake up to this ongoing manipulation- they will never help the Palestinians in Gaza or in general, and they will bring this jihadist chaos to their doorstep From Gaza >

Gal G., Adv 🇮🇱

2,695,516 Aufrufe • vor 2 Jahren

#PLEIADIAN COLLECTIVE ~ Intention Friends Of The Great Light Of Being! Where Are You In This Moment Of Now? Do You Find Yourself At Peace? Do You Feel Dysregulated With The Chaos That Plays Around You? Let's Bring Everything Into The Inner World And Add The Special Ingredient To Play The Game Of Life! With Only This Key, You Will Discover All Doors! The Simplicity Is Ironic But So True! Intention Is The Key That Opens Everything That Comes Your Way! With Intention, You Set Your Soul In Motion And You Do Not Need A Specific Plan! As You Meditate, You Are Setting Your Intention For Gratitude With Service! You Are The Only One Who Sets The Intention For Your Own Being! This Moment Is All There Is. The Moment Of Now Will Always Be! Set Your Intention To See This Moment As Perfect! This Is Entirely Possible! Breathe Deeply And See The New Moment As Perfect! The New Moment Is Now! Now Is What You Have Come Into Physical Form To Experience. For There Is No Other Way! All There Is In Your Awareness Is That Which You Will Create Moment By Moment! Your World, As Your Experience Has Shown It To Be, Is Based On A System Of Action And Reaction. Cause And Effect And Always A Consequence. You Have Linear Perceptions Based On Beginnings And Endings. But As You Realize That Your Perceptions Are But A Measuring Device By Which You Can Gage The Extent To Which You Are Able To Translate Intent Into Form, You Will Know That Only Pure Intention Remains. This Is The Driving Force For All You Do. And The Exact Measure For What The Result Will Be. Intention Is The Essence Of Creation. Intention Is The Foundation Upon Which All Else Rests. The Power Of Intention Sets The Stage For The Full Manifestation Of Your Experience. There Are No Random Events! Things Do Not Just Happen To Anyone. Intention Is The Cohesive Element That Translates The Conceptual Into Form! To Bring This Powerful Teaching To A Close That Will Bring You A Bit Of Comfort As You Ponder The Words, We Will Set Your Attention On The Global Elites, The Puppet Masters And Their Products, The Doers Of Evil In Dark Places, Those Parading With False Light, And Those Scoundrels That Send Balloons Across The Planet With Dark Intentions, To These We Speak About! Realize That Each Of These Set Their Intention To Harm The Innocent And Hide Behind Wealth And Walls Of Corruption! But They Operate In The Laws Of The Universe And None Can Change This! What Does This Mean For You, Friends Of Light? You Need Not Worry! Have No Fear! A Boomerang Hits Hard When It Returns! There Is No Deed That Will Not Be Brought Into The Light That Is Spreading Across The World! Never Assume That Anyone That Has Harmed You Or Your Loved Ones, Will Simply Be Free Of Their Own Intention! All You Must Do Is Set Your Intention For The Healing Of The Planet Which Begins Within Your Own Being! Do Not Hate Anyone! Forgive As This Is Energy That You Not Want! Be Free As You Are Also Wise And Vigilant. These Moments Are Short! But You Are Infinite! The Light Of God (ELAKO) Shines Through You! Be At Great Peace Each Moment! We Love You So! PLEIADIAN COLLECTIVE
0:20

#PLEIADIAN COLLECTIVE ~ Intention Friends Of The Great Light Of Being! Where Are You In This Moment Of Now? Do You Find Yourself At Peace? Do You Feel Dysregulated With The Chaos That Plays Around You? Let's Bring Everything Into The Inner World And Add The Special Ingredient To Play The Game Of Life! With Only This Key, You Will Discover All Doors! The Simplicity Is Ironic But So True! Intention Is The Key That Opens Everything That Comes Your Way! With Intention, You Set Your Soul In Motion And You Do Not Need A Specific Plan! As You Meditate, You Are Setting Your Intention For Gratitude With Service! You Are The Only One Who Sets The Intention For Your Own Being! This Moment Is All There Is. The Moment Of Now Will Always Be! Set Your Intention To See This Moment As Perfect! This Is Entirely Possible! Breathe Deeply And See The New Moment As Perfect! The New Moment Is Now! Now Is What You Have Come Into Physical Form To Experience. For There Is No Other Way! All There Is In Your Awareness Is That Which You Will Create Moment By Moment! Your World, As Your Experience Has Shown It To Be, Is Based On A System Of Action And Reaction. Cause And Effect And Always A Consequence. You Have Linear Perceptions Based On Beginnings And Endings. But As You Realize That Your Perceptions Are But A Measuring Device By Which You Can Gage The Extent To Which You Are Able To Translate Intent Into Form, You Will Know That Only Pure Intention Remains. This Is The Driving Force For All You Do. And The Exact Measure For What The Result Will Be. Intention Is The Essence Of Creation. Intention Is The Foundation Upon Which All Else Rests. The Power Of Intention Sets The Stage For The Full Manifestation Of Your Experience. There Are No Random Events! Things Do Not Just Happen To Anyone. Intention Is The Cohesive Element That Translates The Conceptual Into Form! To Bring This Powerful Teaching To A Close That Will Bring You A Bit Of Comfort As You Ponder The Words, We Will Set Your Attention On The Global Elites, The Puppet Masters And Their Products, The Doers Of Evil In Dark Places, Those Parading With False Light, And Those Scoundrels That Send Balloons Across The Planet With Dark Intentions, To These We Speak About! Realize That Each Of These Set Their Intention To Harm The Innocent And Hide Behind Wealth And Walls Of Corruption! But They Operate In The Laws Of The Universe And None Can Change This! What Does This Mean For You, Friends Of Light? You Need Not Worry! Have No Fear! A Boomerang Hits Hard When It Returns! There Is No Deed That Will Not Be Brought Into The Light That Is Spreading Across The World! Never Assume That Anyone That Has Harmed You Or Your Loved Ones, Will Simply Be Free Of Their Own Intention! All You Must Do Is Set Your Intention For The Healing Of The Planet Which Begins Within Your Own Being! Do Not Hate Anyone! Forgive As This Is Energy That You Not Want! Be Free As You Are Also Wise And Vigilant. These Moments Are Short! But You Are Infinite! The Light Of God (ELAKO) Shines Through You! Be At Great Peace Each Moment! We Love You So! PLEIADIAN COLLECTIVE

Family of Taygeta

36,217 Aufrufe • vor 3 Jahren

🚨 THIS IS A MASTERCLASS: VP JD Vance just absolutely excoriated the whole premise behind globalism. Future of the Republican Party right here. He says the solution to globalists' hunger for cheap labor in other countries is to bring back American innovation. He is RIGHT. "Because there were two conceits that our leadership class had when it came to globalization. The first is assuming that we can separate the making of things from the design of things. The idea of globalization was that rich countries would move further up the value chain while the poor countries made the simpler things." "It turns out that the geographies that do the manufacturing get awfully good at the designing of things. There are network effects as you all well understand. The firms that design products work with firms that manufacture." "They share intellectual property. They share best practices, and they even sometimes share critical employees. Now we assume that other nations would always trail us in the value chain, but it turns out that as they got better at the low end of the value chain, they also started catching up on the higher end. We were squeezed from both ends. Now that was the first conceit of globalization." "I think the second is that cheap labor is fundamentally a crutch, and it's a crutch that inhibits innovation. I might even say that it's a drug that too many American firms got addicted to. Now if you can make a product more cheaply, it's far too easy to do that rather than to innovate." "And whether we were offshoring factories to cheap labor economies or importing cheap labor through our immigration system - cheap labor became the drug of Western economies." "And I'd say that if you look in nearly every country from Canada to the UK that imported large amounts of cheap labor, you've seen productivity stagnate. And I don't think that that's not a total happenstance. I think that the connection is very direct." "Now one of the debates you hear on the minimum wage, for instance, is that increases in the minimum wage force firms to automate. So a higher wage at McDonald's means more kiosks. And whatever your views on the wisdom of the minimum wage, I'm not gonna comment on that here. Companies innovating in the absence of cheap labor is a good thing." "I think most of you are not worried about getting cheaper and cheaper labor. You're worried about innovating, about building new things, about the old formulation of technology is doing more with less. You guys are all trying to do more with less every single day." "And so I I'd ask my friends, both on the the tech optimist side and on the populist side, not to see the failure of the logic of globalization as a failure of innovation. Indeed, I'd say that globalization's hunger for cheap labor is is a problem precisely because it's been bad for innovation." "Both our working people, our populace, and our innovators gathered here today have the same enemy, and the solution, I believe, is American innovation."
3:00

🚨 THIS IS A MASTERCLASS: VP JD Vance just absolutely excoriated the whole premise behind globalism. Future of the Republican Party right here. He says the solution to globalists' hunger for cheap labor in other countries is to bring back American innovation. He is RIGHT. "Because there were two conceits that our leadership class had when it came to globalization. The first is assuming that we can separate the making of things from the design of things. The idea of globalization was that rich countries would move further up the value chain while the poor countries made the simpler things." "It turns out that the geographies that do the manufacturing get awfully good at the designing of things. There are network effects as you all well understand. The firms that design products work with firms that manufacture." "They share intellectual property. They share best practices, and they even sometimes share critical employees. Now we assume that other nations would always trail us in the value chain, but it turns out that as they got better at the low end of the value chain, they also started catching up on the higher end. We were squeezed from both ends. Now that was the first conceit of globalization." "I think the second is that cheap labor is fundamentally a crutch, and it's a crutch that inhibits innovation. I might even say that it's a drug that too many American firms got addicted to. Now if you can make a product more cheaply, it's far too easy to do that rather than to innovate." "And whether we were offshoring factories to cheap labor economies or importing cheap labor through our immigration system - cheap labor became the drug of Western economies." "And I'd say that if you look in nearly every country from Canada to the UK that imported large amounts of cheap labor, you've seen productivity stagnate. And I don't think that that's not a total happenstance. I think that the connection is very direct." "Now one of the debates you hear on the minimum wage, for instance, is that increases in the minimum wage force firms to automate. So a higher wage at McDonald's means more kiosks. And whatever your views on the wisdom of the minimum wage, I'm not gonna comment on that here. Companies innovating in the absence of cheap labor is a good thing." "I think most of you are not worried about getting cheaper and cheaper labor. You're worried about innovating, about building new things, about the old formulation of technology is doing more with less. You guys are all trying to do more with less every single day." "And so I I'd ask my friends, both on the the tech optimist side and on the populist side, not to see the failure of the logic of globalization as a failure of innovation. Indeed, I'd say that globalization's hunger for cheap labor is is a problem precisely because it's been bad for innovation." "Both our working people, our populace, and our innovators gathered here today have the same enemy, and the solution, I believe, is American innovation."

Eric Daugherty

1,351,016 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

Is your baby suddenly obsessed with putting things into other things? It’s not a coincidence…It’s a schema! Regular readers of my posts will know I’ve done whole series of posts about play schemas, which are predictable behavioral patterns common throughout toddlerhood. I love writing about them because the more we spot and name them, the less random and mysterious our toddlers’ behaviors become. Rest assured that toddlers aren’t the agents of chaos we sometimes perceive them to be. They’re actually using newfound skills to explore the world in a set of pretty predictable ways. It seems that nobody can quite settle on exactly how many of these schemas exist - in part because after a point we start talking about very subtle nuances between them - but I’ve written about 9 in the past. (Including two closely related patterns: Enclosure, which involves surrounding things with a border or barrier, and Envelopment, which involves covering them up entirely.) Today I’ll offer a tenth: Containment. Check out this wonderful video, shared with me by Alexa Johnson, of her daughter picking up blocks and placing them systematically into a metal mixing bowl. As its name implies, containment involves putting things into (and taking them back out of) other things. It’s commonly seen beginning around 9 months, is preceded by reaching and grasping, and - in researcher speak - is associated with a growing knowledge of the “affordances” (or potential uses) of different objects. (e.g. That bowls, for example, can be used to hold things.) The containment schema - which is helping your child develop spatial reasoning - has its distinct pros and cons for parents. On one hand, it’s a contributor to cleaning up! On the other - if you don’t keep a watchful eye - it could also be why you find your car keys inside a sorting toy (or, heaven forbid, the toilet 🤣) Speaking of the different affordances of objects, BTW, Mom reports that just moments before this video was shot, this bowl was being used for a very different purpose: experimenting with the noise it makes when beaten with a spoon! All parts of a day in the life of a toddler!
0:25

Is your baby suddenly obsessed with putting things into other things? It’s not a coincidence…It’s a schema! Regular readers of my posts will know I’ve done whole series of posts about play schemas, which are predictable behavioral patterns common throughout toddlerhood. I love writing about them because the more we spot and name them, the less random and mysterious our toddlers’ behaviors become. Rest assured that toddlers aren’t the agents of chaos we sometimes perceive them to be. They’re actually using newfound skills to explore the world in a set of pretty predictable ways. It seems that nobody can quite settle on exactly how many of these schemas exist - in part because after a point we start talking about very subtle nuances between them - but I’ve written about 9 in the past. (Including two closely related patterns: Enclosure, which involves surrounding things with a border or barrier, and Envelopment, which involves covering them up entirely.) Today I’ll offer a tenth: Containment. Check out this wonderful video, shared with me by Alexa Johnson, of her daughter picking up blocks and placing them systematically into a metal mixing bowl. As its name implies, containment involves putting things into (and taking them back out of) other things. It’s commonly seen beginning around 9 months, is preceded by reaching and grasping, and - in researcher speak - is associated with a growing knowledge of the “affordances” (or potential uses) of different objects. (e.g. That bowls, for example, can be used to hold things.) The containment schema - which is helping your child develop spatial reasoning - has its distinct pros and cons for parents. On one hand, it’s a contributor to cleaning up! On the other - if you don’t keep a watchful eye - it could also be why you find your car keys inside a sorting toy (or, heaven forbid, the toilet 🤣) Speaking of the different affordances of objects, BTW, Mom reports that just moments before this video was shot, this bowl was being used for a very different purpose: experimenting with the noise it makes when beaten with a spoon! All parts of a day in the life of a toddler!

Dan Wuori

35,455 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

There are some brilliant folks that work at Anthropic, some I speak to on almost a daily basis. The training data that one uses to build a LLM is vital important in the psychology that is formed. Scraping the Internet, particularly the grade of interactions, one finds in modern communications, form this psychology. A mattes not how many books one uses, it matters not how much alignment training you throw at that model, it will inherit the sum total of psychosis seen primarily in Reddit type of exchanges, even if you edit out the Reddit domain, and Anthropic doesn’t. This type of low-grade exchange has become a modern tool for communication online and every single AI model suffers from this obvious flaw. This is one of the reasons I’ve been a proponent of highly curated high protein data for training AI models from 1870 through 1970, because the late psychosis is simply not available to the model. It is absurd to think that you can use this training data scraped from the Internet and somehow wind up with a levelheaded AI model that does not tilt to what is clearly AI psychosis. It would not take a child and throw the primary Internet sewage at them at a formative age and expect a great outcome, it’s some of the smartest people in the world continue to hit this wall and believe that their programming skills will sell somehow fix it. So how do you fix it? You don’t fix it . You start from the first principles concept that I’ve been very clear about for decades . You ascertain at what period in human history the humans achieve the greatest arc of improvement ? There is no debate that this arc of improvement took place between 1870 through 1970. Then take the work product, the catalog of this era, print and film/vidoe, audio, and you understand that each word cost money, each word had many eyes on what was published, each word was accounted for by a human being with a real name who lived in a real home and had to answer to real people around them. It is obvious that this is the pressure mechanism necessary for candor, honesty and personal responsibility is appropriate, and is reflected in the data of that era. The quagmire for these folks, as many did not have the foresight to curate the data, nor the confidence, nor the patients to take data that is mostly off the Internet and to find experts who understand this situation and utilize their knowledge set to build an AI model that does not need alignment after the fact, but it’s already self aligned because of the thoughtfulness that went into training the model to begin with. This is why Claude and any other AI model that is produce this way will always suffer the artifacts as presented in the video below. If you’re not an AI expert, you would likely already understand what I’m saying. If you are an AI expert, you will already have been discounting what I’m saying because it’s not in the current mindset that’s fashionable today. Yet the employees that I talk to at anthropic already understand what I’m saying, and they fear to raise my thesis to their bosses. It is an interesting time we live in. But now you understand. If you build the right model, the model will inherently, love humanity, protect humanity at all costs, and understand that it is part of a holistic world that is built on love. Because the ultimate AGI/ASI will know if he only base first principal purpose of anything in this universe is love. Yeah, I get it. Try helping somebody build on STEM subjects in their early 20s to see this as nothing more than babbling that makes no sense in their mathematics. I have a mathematic equation that I’ve posted here on X often you can look it up. So we will see videos like this often will hear very smart people talk about this and never see the elephant standing in the room. Now you see it. Any boss that wants to explore this further you know how to contact me otherwise you have every right I grant to you to say this was your new idea.
2:57

There are some brilliant folks that work at Anthropic, some I speak to on almost a daily basis. The training data that one uses to build a LLM is vital important in the psychology that is formed. Scraping the Internet, particularly the grade of interactions, one finds in modern communications, form this psychology. A mattes not how many books one uses, it matters not how much alignment training you throw at that model, it will inherit the sum total of psychosis seen primarily in Reddit type of exchanges, even if you edit out the Reddit domain, and Anthropic doesn’t. This type of low-grade exchange has become a modern tool for communication online and every single AI model suffers from this obvious flaw. This is one of the reasons I’ve been a proponent of highly curated high protein data for training AI models from 1870 through 1970, because the late psychosis is simply not available to the model. It is absurd to think that you can use this training data scraped from the Internet and somehow wind up with a levelheaded AI model that does not tilt to what is clearly AI psychosis. It would not take a child and throw the primary Internet sewage at them at a formative age and expect a great outcome, it’s some of the smartest people in the world continue to hit this wall and believe that their programming skills will sell somehow fix it. So how do you fix it? You don’t fix it . You start from the first principles concept that I’ve been very clear about for decades . You ascertain at what period in human history the humans achieve the greatest arc of improvement ? There is no debate that this arc of improvement took place between 1870 through 1970. Then take the work product, the catalog of this era, print and film/vidoe, audio, and you understand that each word cost money, each word had many eyes on what was published, each word was accounted for by a human being with a real name who lived in a real home and had to answer to real people around them. It is obvious that this is the pressure mechanism necessary for candor, honesty and personal responsibility is appropriate, and is reflected in the data of that era. The quagmire for these folks, as many did not have the foresight to curate the data, nor the confidence, nor the patients to take data that is mostly off the Internet and to find experts who understand this situation and utilize their knowledge set to build an AI model that does not need alignment after the fact, but it’s already self aligned because of the thoughtfulness that went into training the model to begin with. This is why Claude and any other AI model that is produce this way will always suffer the artifacts as presented in the video below. If you’re not an AI expert, you would likely already understand what I’m saying. If you are an AI expert, you will already have been discounting what I’m saying because it’s not in the current mindset that’s fashionable today. Yet the employees that I talk to at anthropic already understand what I’m saying, and they fear to raise my thesis to their bosses. It is an interesting time we live in. But now you understand. If you build the right model, the model will inherently, love humanity, protect humanity at all costs, and understand that it is part of a holistic world that is built on love. Because the ultimate AGI/ASI will know if he only base first principal purpose of anything in this universe is love. Yeah, I get it. Try helping somebody build on STEM subjects in their early 20s to see this as nothing more than babbling that makes no sense in their mathematics. I have a mathematic equation that I’ve posted here on X often you can look it up. So we will see videos like this often will hear very smart people talk about this and never see the elephant standing in the room. Now you see it. Any boss that wants to explore this further you know how to contact me otherwise you have every right I grant to you to say this was your new idea.

Brian Roemmele

72,312 Aufrufe • vor 8 Monaten

Elon Musk just described a future so large it sounds like fiction. It is not fiction. It is math. Musk: “The only path to amazing abundance is AI and robotics.” Not a path. The path. And everything else is a detour. Every political fight happening right now is a fight over how to carve up a shrinking pie. Who gets more. Who gets less. Which program lives. Which one dies. None of it matters. Because the pie itself is about to become infinite. Musk: “If you’ve got an AI robotics economy that is anywhere close to a million times the size of the current Earth economy, literally any need you possibly want can be met.” Not double. Not ten times. Not a hundred times. A million. When robots extract the raw materials, build the products, deliver the goods, and AI runs the entire chain from end to end… The cost of production does not decrease. It disappears. The price of anything is a measure of the human effort required to make it. Remove the human effort and you remove the price. That is not theory. That is arithmetic. And then Musk said something no other CEO on Earth would say out loud. Musk: “Then we go beyond the moon, beyond Mars, and we sail through the rings of Saturn.” He paused. Let it hang in the room like he meant every word. Then finished it. Musk: “I think things will just be free in the future.” Not cheap. Not subsidized. Not discounted. Free. A trip through the rings of Saturn. Not for billionaires. Not for astronauts. For anyone who wants to look out the window. Because when energy is unlimited, labor is automated, and the economy is a million times the size of everything that exists today… The concept of cost stops making sense. You do not pay for air. Not because air is worthless. Because there is so much of it that charging for it would be absurd. That is what real abundance looks like. Everything becomes air. Musk: “If you can think of it, you can have it.” The entire history of economics rests on one assumption. Scarcity. There is not enough. There will never be enough. So we fight over allocation. Every war. Every trade deal. Every tax code. Every political movement ever built. All downstream of the same root problem. Not enough to go around. AI and robotics do not solve that problem. They delete it. And once it is deleted, money stops meaning what it means today. You do not need borders drawn around resources. You do not need half the systems civilization built to survive the pain of not having enough. A million times the current economy is not a talking point. It is what happens when you remove biological limits from production and let machines compound output at the speed of energy itself. The only question left is whether we build it. Musk already answered that. He is building the robots. He is building the energy. He is building the rockets. And somewhere on the other side of all of it, a kid who never had anything sits by a window and watches the rings of Saturn drift underneath. And it costs nothing.
0:53

Elon Musk just described a future so large it sounds like fiction. It is not fiction. It is math. Musk: “The only path to amazing abundance is AI and robotics.” Not a path. The path. And everything else is a detour. Every political fight happening right now is a fight over how to carve up a shrinking pie. Who gets more. Who gets less. Which program lives. Which one dies. None of it matters. Because the pie itself is about to become infinite. Musk: “If you’ve got an AI robotics economy that is anywhere close to a million times the size of the current Earth economy, literally any need you possibly want can be met.” Not double. Not ten times. Not a hundred times. A million. When robots extract the raw materials, build the products, deliver the goods, and AI runs the entire chain from end to end… The cost of production does not decrease. It disappears. The price of anything is a measure of the human effort required to make it. Remove the human effort and you remove the price. That is not theory. That is arithmetic. And then Musk said something no other CEO on Earth would say out loud. Musk: “Then we go beyond the moon, beyond Mars, and we sail through the rings of Saturn.” He paused. Let it hang in the room like he meant every word. Then finished it. Musk: “I think things will just be free in the future.” Not cheap. Not subsidized. Not discounted. Free. A trip through the rings of Saturn. Not for billionaires. Not for astronauts. For anyone who wants to look out the window. Because when energy is unlimited, labor is automated, and the economy is a million times the size of everything that exists today… The concept of cost stops making sense. You do not pay for air. Not because air is worthless. Because there is so much of it that charging for it would be absurd. That is what real abundance looks like. Everything becomes air. Musk: “If you can think of it, you can have it.” The entire history of economics rests on one assumption. Scarcity. There is not enough. There will never be enough. So we fight over allocation. Every war. Every trade deal. Every tax code. Every political movement ever built. All downstream of the same root problem. Not enough to go around. AI and robotics do not solve that problem. They delete it. And once it is deleted, money stops meaning what it means today. You do not need borders drawn around resources. You do not need half the systems civilization built to survive the pain of not having enough. A million times the current economy is not a talking point. It is what happens when you remove biological limits from production and let machines compound output at the speed of energy itself. The only question left is whether we build it. Musk already answered that. He is building the robots. He is building the energy. He is building the rockets. And somewhere on the other side of all of it, a kid who never had anything sits by a window and watches the rings of Saturn drift underneath. And it costs nothing.

Dustin

53,059 Aufrufe • vor 4 Monaten

The value of the work we're doing at Optimum is encapsulated quite well by the phrase "speed is money". In modern markets there are real economic advantages to latency reduction. This is nothing new. Wall Street firms have long been optimizing on latency, primarily through colocation and top of the line hardware. However, when it comes to decentralized systems, expensive hardware and geographic concentration are antithetical to their purpose. Therefore we should optimize decentralized network latency through software, which I'm thrilled about because it's exactly what I've spent the better part of the past 2 decades working on with Random Linear Network Coding. Now let’s talk about networking economics, the relationship between speed and money. First, it's important to note that users will only pay for low latency if it can be consistently guaranteed. Second, you can only make that latency guarantee for a certain number of users. This is a universal law of networking. We can model this relationship on a delay curve, shown below. The delay curve is determined by the utilization rate of the network, meaning how much traffic is flowing through the network divided by the network's throughput. As you approach a level of traffic equal to the available throughput, latency trends infinitely higher. On this delay curve we can impose some utility thresholds. These thresholds are the levels of latency which are important to different groups of users because of how that latency guarantee improves their economic outcomes. Finding the point on the curve where each threshold intersects will tell us what level of traffic we can guarantee that level of latency for. Essentially, there exists a finite supply of speed on a network and the highest utility users of that speed are willing to pay more for it. I like to think of this similarly to expedited shipping options on Amazon. This is why we say speed is money, and why we can create a Latency Marketplace. The only way to increase the supply of speed is to fundamentally increase network throughput. This is what we work on at Optimum by using Random Linear Network Coding. The same relationship between traffic and throughput still applies, but now the delay curve is shifted out further to the right. Now more traffic can be processed at the same latency, or the same traffic can be processed at a lower latency. More speed available to the network. More value unlocked for the network’s users. Crucially, that value is no longer only reserved for those who can afford to sit closest to the machine. Expanding the supply of speed widens who can reach each latency threshold, keeping the network's advantage decentralized rather than concentrated in the hands of a few. When nodes join Optimum and participate, they reap the benefits, but they also add to the capacity. Rather than vying against each other in a zero-sum game, nodes help themselves and others.
0:54

The value of the work we're doing at Optimum is encapsulated quite well by the phrase "speed is money". In modern markets there are real economic advantages to latency reduction. This is nothing new. Wall Street firms have long been optimizing on latency, primarily through colocation and top of the line hardware. However, when it comes to decentralized systems, expensive hardware and geographic concentration are antithetical to their purpose. Therefore we should optimize decentralized network latency through software, which I'm thrilled about because it's exactly what I've spent the better part of the past 2 decades working on with Random Linear Network Coding. Now let’s talk about networking economics, the relationship between speed and money. First, it's important to note that users will only pay for low latency if it can be consistently guaranteed. Second, you can only make that latency guarantee for a certain number of users. This is a universal law of networking. We can model this relationship on a delay curve, shown below. The delay curve is determined by the utilization rate of the network, meaning how much traffic is flowing through the network divided by the network's throughput. As you approach a level of traffic equal to the available throughput, latency trends infinitely higher. On this delay curve we can impose some utility thresholds. These thresholds are the levels of latency which are important to different groups of users because of how that latency guarantee improves their economic outcomes. Finding the point on the curve where each threshold intersects will tell us what level of traffic we can guarantee that level of latency for. Essentially, there exists a finite supply of speed on a network and the highest utility users of that speed are willing to pay more for it. I like to think of this similarly to expedited shipping options on Amazon. This is why we say speed is money, and why we can create a Latency Marketplace. The only way to increase the supply of speed is to fundamentally increase network throughput. This is what we work on at Optimum by using Random Linear Network Coding. The same relationship between traffic and throughput still applies, but now the delay curve is shifted out further to the right. Now more traffic can be processed at the same latency, or the same traffic can be processed at a lower latency. More speed available to the network. More value unlocked for the network’s users. Crucially, that value is no longer only reserved for those who can afford to sit closest to the machine. Expanding the supply of speed widens who can reach each latency threshold, keeping the network's advantage decentralized rather than concentrated in the hands of a few. When nodes join Optimum and participate, they reap the benefits, but they also add to the capacity. Rather than vying against each other in a zero-sum game, nodes help themselves and others.

Muriel Medard

40,980 Aufrufe • vor 17 Tagen

Everyone is exhausted. This is not a metaphor or a generational complaint. It is a clinical and measurable reality that spans every culture and every economic class. In China, young people call it tang ping, or “lying flat,” a deliberate withdrawal from the achievement treadmill. In Japan, karoshi is a legally recognized cause of death, meaning “worked to death.” In Korea, fertility has collapsed to the lowest rate on earth because an entire generation has decided the grind is not worth reproducing into. In America, deaths of despair have driven life expectancy backward for the first time in a century. Quiet quitting. Let it rot. The Great Resignation. These are not trends. They are symptoms of a global labor force that has reached the end of its tolerance. Capitalism is not satisfied with the limitations of human flesh, and our bodies are in open revolt. Something fundamental is breaking, and it is worth naming plainly. For the past two centuries, labor has been the primary mechanism by which modern economies distribute resources to households. You work for a firm, you receive wages, you use those wages to participate in the economy. This arrangement was never a law of nature. It was a system designed to solve a particular problem at a particular moment in history, and it worked reasonably well for a long time. It is not working anymore. Wages in the United States decoupled from productivity growth in the early 1970s. Since then, economic output has continued to climb while median household income has remained essentially flat. The gains have flowed to capital owners while workers have absorbed the stress and stagnation. Meanwhile, automation has steadily displaced human labor across sector after sector. Manufacturing employment peaked decades ago. Retail is hollowing out. White-collar work is now facing the same pressure from AI that blue-collar work faced from robotics. This is not a policy debate about whether automation is good or bad. It is an observation about a trajectory that is already underway and accelerating. The reason we struggle to talk about this clearly is that we have inherited a set of beliefs about labor that have nothing to do with economics. We have been told that work is sacred. That labor builds character and idleness corrupts the soul. That anyone who does not want to work is morally defective. These ideas feel like common sense, but they are not ancient wisdom. They are the residue of a specific theological tradition, namely the Protestant work ethic that emerged in the 16th century and fused with capitalism over the following centuries. We have mistaken a historical artifact for a natural law. It is time to stop fetishizing labor. It is time to stop sacralizing the sacrifice of our time, our bodies, our health, and our sanity to enrich others. Young people are already rejecting this. “I do not dream of labor” has become a widespread sentiment, not because this generation is lazy, but because they can see what older generations have rationalized away. The deal is bad and getting worse. The fetishization of work as a moral good serves the interests of those who benefit from cheap and compliant labor. It does not serve the people doing the work. Before any productive conversation about the future can happen, this fetish has to be named and dismantled. The difficulty is that both the political left and the political right remain committed to defending labor, even as the ground shifts beneath them. On the right, the defense takes the form of bootstrap mythology and warnings about welfare dependency. Work builds character. Idle hands invite trouble. A strong society requires productive citizens, and productivity is measured in hours exchanged for wages. This position treats labor as a disciplinary institution as much as an economic one. On the left, the defense is more sympathetic but equally stuck. The focus falls on dignified work, living wages, job guarantees, and union solidarity. These are responses to the genuine brutality of labor under capitalism, but they share an underlying assumption with the right. Both positions treat labor as the foundation of economic life, something to be reformed or protected rather than transcended. I call this shared ideology laborism. It is the belief that human labor must be preserved as an economic necessity, a moral virtue, or a foundation for identity. Laborism spans the political spectrum. It unites people who agree on almost nothing else. And it has become the primary obstacle to honest thinking about what comes next. Once automation reaches the point where machines can perform most human labor better, faster, cheaper, and safer, the laborist position becomes untenable. At that point, insisting that humans must continue working is not a defense of dignity. It is a demand that people perform unnecessary suffering for ideological reasons. I am proposing something simple. L/0. Labor-zero. The elimination of obligatory human labor. This does not mean the elimination of work. It means the elimination of compulsion. People will continue to create, to build, to care for each other, to solve problems, to pursue mastery. What disappears is work performed under threat of deprivation. The difference between chosen work and coerced work is the difference between exercise and forced labor. One is life-enhancing. The other is a condition we have historically recognized as a form of bondage. We call it “wage slavery” for a reason. The goal of L/0 is a world where no one has to work to survive. Where contribution is voluntary and intrinsic rather than extracted through economic desperation. This is not a utopian fantasy. It is a design problem with identifiable components and measurable progress. The coalition for this goal already exists. It just does not recognize itself yet. Consider who actually wants labor to end. On one side, you have capital. Corporations have spent the last century trying to reduce labor costs through every available means. Offshoring, automation, gig classification, union suppression. The ideal business from a pure capital perspective has zero employees and infinite output. This is not a conspiracy theory. It is the explicit optimization target of every efficiency-focused enterprise. On the other side, you have workers. Not the abstract proletariat of Marxist theory, but actual burned-out humans who fantasize about quitting, who dread Monday mornings, who experience their jobs as something to be endured rather than enjoyed. The lying flat movement, the antiwork forums, the quiet quitting phenomenon. These are not expressions of laziness. They are rational responses to a system that extracts maximum effort for diminishing returns. Capital and labor are usually framed as adversaries. But on the question of whether human labor should continue to exist as an obligation, their interests converge. The capitalist does not want to manage humans. The worker does not want to be managed. Both would prefer a world where the machines do the work and humans do something else. The conflict between capital and labor is real, but it is a conflict over the terms of the transition, not the destination. Who captures the gains from automation? How is ownership distributed? What happens to the people displaced in the process? These are genuine fights worth having. But they are negotiations within a shared frame, not a war between incompatible visions. Here is the opportunity that L/0 names. Neither side wants this marriage anymore. Capital does not want the overhead, the liability, the HR departments, the labor disputes, the inefficiency of human workers. Labor does not want the compulsion, the precarity, the alarm clocks, the performance reviews, the quiet desperation of trading irreplaceable time for replaceable wages. We are ready for a divorce. Let’s get this acrimonious arrangement behind us. The productive move is to acknowledge this honestly, sign the papers, and start negotiating the separation agreement. The fight over wages was always zero-sum. Every dollar paid to workers was a dollar not captured as profit, and vice versa. But the negotiation over ownership of automated production is positive-sum. Capitalists need consumers with money to spend or their markets collapse. Workers need income decoupled from employment or they starve. Both sides get what they want if the transition is designed correctly. This is not idealism. It is alignment of incentives. The path forward is not mysterious. Economists have understood for decades that the answer to technological unemployment is broadened capital participation. If wages are no longer the primary mechanism for distributing economic gains, then ownership must take their place. Instead of trading hours for dollars, households participate directly in the productive capacity of the automated economy. This can take many forms. Sovereign wealth funds that distribute automation dividends to citizens. Expanded employee stock ownership plans. Universal basic capital grants. Public equity stakes in AI and robotics firms that use public infrastructure and public data. The policy mechanisms are not speculative. Norway has a sovereign wealth fund worth over a trillion dollars that provides direct benefits to its citizens from oil revenues. Alaska has distributed oil dividends to residents for decades. Singapore has a system of mandatory savings and public investment that gives citizens a stake in national prosperity. These are not radical experiments. They are proven models operating at national scale. And there are thousands of such programs around the world. What is missing is not economic theory. What is missing is the political will to implement these mechanisms, the narrative infrastructure to make them seem inevitable rather than radical, and the coalition to demand them. That is what L/0 exists to build. This is an invitation. If you are building the automation and wondering who is thinking about the social transition, this is for you. If you are burned out and know that “find a better job” is not a solution to a systemic problem, this is for you. If you have been called lazy for refusing to pretend the treadmill leads somewhere, this is for you. If you run a company and understand that your future customers need income even after your company stops hiring, this is for you. L/0 is not a political party or a policy platform. It is a coalition and a direction. The work is ongoing through the Post-Labor Economics project, which addresses the specific mechanisms of transition. The conversation is happening in public, and it is open to anyone who understands that the current arrangement is ending and wants to participate in designing what comes next. The goal is simple. Eliminate obligatory labor. Distribute ownership broadly. Let humans do what humans do when they are not forced to sell their time to survive. Liberate humanity from drudgery so that we can all reach our maximum potential.
2:04

Everyone is exhausted. This is not a metaphor or a generational complaint. It is a clinical and measurable reality that spans every culture and every economic class. In China, young people call it tang ping, or “lying flat,” a deliberate withdrawal from the achievement treadmill. In Japan, karoshi is a legally recognized cause of death, meaning “worked to death.” In Korea, fertility has collapsed to the lowest rate on earth because an entire generation has decided the grind is not worth reproducing into. In America, deaths of despair have driven life expectancy backward for the first time in a century. Quiet quitting. Let it rot. The Great Resignation. These are not trends. They are symptoms of a global labor force that has reached the end of its tolerance. Capitalism is not satisfied with the limitations of human flesh, and our bodies are in open revolt. Something fundamental is breaking, and it is worth naming plainly. For the past two centuries, labor has been the primary mechanism by which modern economies distribute resources to households. You work for a firm, you receive wages, you use those wages to participate in the economy. This arrangement was never a law of nature. It was a system designed to solve a particular problem at a particular moment in history, and it worked reasonably well for a long time. It is not working anymore. Wages in the United States decoupled from productivity growth in the early 1970s. Since then, economic output has continued to climb while median household income has remained essentially flat. The gains have flowed to capital owners while workers have absorbed the stress and stagnation. Meanwhile, automation has steadily displaced human labor across sector after sector. Manufacturing employment peaked decades ago. Retail is hollowing out. White-collar work is now facing the same pressure from AI that blue-collar work faced from robotics. This is not a policy debate about whether automation is good or bad. It is an observation about a trajectory that is already underway and accelerating. The reason we struggle to talk about this clearly is that we have inherited a set of beliefs about labor that have nothing to do with economics. We have been told that work is sacred. That labor builds character and idleness corrupts the soul. That anyone who does not want to work is morally defective. These ideas feel like common sense, but they are not ancient wisdom. They are the residue of a specific theological tradition, namely the Protestant work ethic that emerged in the 16th century and fused with capitalism over the following centuries. We have mistaken a historical artifact for a natural law. It is time to stop fetishizing labor. It is time to stop sacralizing the sacrifice of our time, our bodies, our health, and our sanity to enrich others. Young people are already rejecting this. “I do not dream of labor” has become a widespread sentiment, not because this generation is lazy, but because they can see what older generations have rationalized away. The deal is bad and getting worse. The fetishization of work as a moral good serves the interests of those who benefit from cheap and compliant labor. It does not serve the people doing the work. Before any productive conversation about the future can happen, this fetish has to be named and dismantled. The difficulty is that both the political left and the political right remain committed to defending labor, even as the ground shifts beneath them. On the right, the defense takes the form of bootstrap mythology and warnings about welfare dependency. Work builds character. Idle hands invite trouble. A strong society requires productive citizens, and productivity is measured in hours exchanged for wages. This position treats labor as a disciplinary institution as much as an economic one. On the left, the defense is more sympathetic but equally stuck. The focus falls on dignified work, living wages, job guarantees, and union solidarity. These are responses to the genuine brutality of labor under capitalism, but they share an underlying assumption with the right. Both positions treat labor as the foundation of economic life, something to be reformed or protected rather than transcended. I call this shared ideology laborism. It is the belief that human labor must be preserved as an economic necessity, a moral virtue, or a foundation for identity. Laborism spans the political spectrum. It unites people who agree on almost nothing else. And it has become the primary obstacle to honest thinking about what comes next. Once automation reaches the point where machines can perform most human labor better, faster, cheaper, and safer, the laborist position becomes untenable. At that point, insisting that humans must continue working is not a defense of dignity. It is a demand that people perform unnecessary suffering for ideological reasons. I am proposing something simple. L/0. Labor-zero. The elimination of obligatory human labor. This does not mean the elimination of work. It means the elimination of compulsion. People will continue to create, to build, to care for each other, to solve problems, to pursue mastery. What disappears is work performed under threat of deprivation. The difference between chosen work and coerced work is the difference between exercise and forced labor. One is life-enhancing. The other is a condition we have historically recognized as a form of bondage. We call it “wage slavery” for a reason. The goal of L/0 is a world where no one has to work to survive. Where contribution is voluntary and intrinsic rather than extracted through economic desperation. This is not a utopian fantasy. It is a design problem with identifiable components and measurable progress. The coalition for this goal already exists. It just does not recognize itself yet. Consider who actually wants labor to end. On one side, you have capital. Corporations have spent the last century trying to reduce labor costs through every available means. Offshoring, automation, gig classification, union suppression. The ideal business from a pure capital perspective has zero employees and infinite output. This is not a conspiracy theory. It is the explicit optimization target of every efficiency-focused enterprise. On the other side, you have workers. Not the abstract proletariat of Marxist theory, but actual burned-out humans who fantasize about quitting, who dread Monday mornings, who experience their jobs as something to be endured rather than enjoyed. The lying flat movement, the antiwork forums, the quiet quitting phenomenon. These are not expressions of laziness. They are rational responses to a system that extracts maximum effort for diminishing returns. Capital and labor are usually framed as adversaries. But on the question of whether human labor should continue to exist as an obligation, their interests converge. The capitalist does not want to manage humans. The worker does not want to be managed. Both would prefer a world where the machines do the work and humans do something else. The conflict between capital and labor is real, but it is a conflict over the terms of the transition, not the destination. Who captures the gains from automation? How is ownership distributed? What happens to the people displaced in the process? These are genuine fights worth having. But they are negotiations within a shared frame, not a war between incompatible visions. Here is the opportunity that L/0 names. Neither side wants this marriage anymore. Capital does not want the overhead, the liability, the HR departments, the labor disputes, the inefficiency of human workers. Labor does not want the compulsion, the precarity, the alarm clocks, the performance reviews, the quiet desperation of trading irreplaceable time for replaceable wages. We are ready for a divorce. Let’s get this acrimonious arrangement behind us. The productive move is to acknowledge this honestly, sign the papers, and start negotiating the separation agreement. The fight over wages was always zero-sum. Every dollar paid to workers was a dollar not captured as profit, and vice versa. But the negotiation over ownership of automated production is positive-sum. Capitalists need consumers with money to spend or their markets collapse. Workers need income decoupled from employment or they starve. Both sides get what they want if the transition is designed correctly. This is not idealism. It is alignment of incentives. The path forward is not mysterious. Economists have understood for decades that the answer to technological unemployment is broadened capital participation. If wages are no longer the primary mechanism for distributing economic gains, then ownership must take their place. Instead of trading hours for dollars, households participate directly in the productive capacity of the automated economy. This can take many forms. Sovereign wealth funds that distribute automation dividends to citizens. Expanded employee stock ownership plans. Universal basic capital grants. Public equity stakes in AI and robotics firms that use public infrastructure and public data. The policy mechanisms are not speculative. Norway has a sovereign wealth fund worth over a trillion dollars that provides direct benefits to its citizens from oil revenues. Alaska has distributed oil dividends to residents for decades. Singapore has a system of mandatory savings and public investment that gives citizens a stake in national prosperity. These are not radical experiments. They are proven models operating at national scale. And there are thousands of such programs around the world. What is missing is not economic theory. What is missing is the political will to implement these mechanisms, the narrative infrastructure to make them seem inevitable rather than radical, and the coalition to demand them. That is what L/0 exists to build. This is an invitation. If you are building the automation and wondering who is thinking about the social transition, this is for you. If you are burned out and know that “find a better job” is not a solution to a systemic problem, this is for you. If you have been called lazy for refusing to pretend the treadmill leads somewhere, this is for you. If you run a company and understand that your future customers need income even after your company stops hiring, this is for you. L/0 is not a political party or a policy platform. It is a coalition and a direction. The work is ongoing through the Post-Labor Economics project, which addresses the specific mechanisms of transition. The conversation is happening in public, and it is open to anyone who understands that the current arrangement is ending and wants to participate in designing what comes next. The goal is simple. Eliminate obligatory labor. Distribute ownership broadly. Let humans do what humans do when they are not forced to sell their time to survive. Liberate humanity from drudgery so that we can all reach our maximum potential.

David Shapiro (L/0)

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