WE NEED TO SPEAK ABOUT AI
Causal inference — what the machine cannot learn
The central problem with the present “machine learning” and ‘big data’ hype is that so many — falsely — think that they can get away with analyzing real-world phenomena without any (commitment to) theory. But — data never speaks for itself. Without a prior statistical set-up, there actually are no data at all to process.
Clever data-mining tricks are not enough to answer important scientific questions. Theory matters.
As is often the case, the real, physical world is not obligated to comply with data modeling that allows one to tweak input for the desired result; the same is true for cheerleading practices. So it is with 15,000-foot laterals. West Texas contains leased minerals in thousands of tracts, sections, and blocks of land; an operator can’t simply go drill a 15,000-foot lateral where it wants to, into or across minerals, it does not own or have leased, no more than one can turn cattle loose to graze across the fence where the grass is greener. Its not “open range,” so to speak. If an operator needs another section of land stacked on top of the two sections it already has to drill a longer lateral, it can’t just go to eBay and lease it from Rancher Roy, trust me. Pretty much every square foot of minerals in the Permian Basin core areas is leased and/or held by production.
Mike Shillman. ( Texas Oil Man)
https://www.oilystuffblog.com/about-the-hand
Oscar Wilde defined a cynic in Lady Windemere’s fan as; ” a person who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing”.
Big Data is the new oil, the Black and White gold or, the pixelated fools gold perhaps? Huge valuations are placed upon companies who can however incongruously or implausibly graft on the pre-fix or Suffix “- Tech, Tech – TECH”.
An old computing maxim is Garbage in Garbage out, that’s self-evident of course, “pigs ears and Silk purses” and all of that. But let’s remain in the porcine metaphor is Big Data really just “pearls before Swine”.
Praxeology
Austrians argue that empirical data itself is insufficient to describe economics; that consequently, empirical data cannot falsify economic theory; that logical positivism cannot predict or explain human action; and that the methodological requirements of logical positivism are impossible to obtain for economic questions.[18][12] Ludwig von Mises in particular argued against empiricist approaches to the social sciences in general, because human events are unique and non-repeatable, whereas experiments in the physical sciences are necessarily reproducible.[18]
Two dogmas of empiricism.
´´As an empiricist, I continue to think of the conceptual scheme of science as a tool, ultimately, for predicting future experience in the light of past experience. Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries — not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits18b comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer. Let me interject that for my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer’s gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise.´´ http://www.ditext.com/quine/quine.html
Brexit and Covid are both Managed narratives, with narratives and Kremlin watching alike the imprecise science of reading between the lines and an interpretation of a sum of the Unsaid makes for long discussions should one wish to glean some sort of coherent “real” Politik.
Wittgenstein put it rather well and he was not intentionally mendacious.
“Remember that we sometimes demand explanations for the sake not of their content, but of their form. Our requirement is an architectural one; the explanation is a kind of sham corbel that supports nothing.”
― Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations
Neoclassical Political Economy: Skating on Thin Ice
‘When the lamp of money is lit a circle of shadows form filled with usurers, counterfeiters, thieves, swindlers and sociopaths. The light must be protected at all costs or the destiny of humanity is stolen.’
https://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2013/05/chinese-wage-rises/#comment-101602
every living thing can become healthy, strong and fruitful only within a horizon; if it is incapable of
drawing a horizon around itself or, on the other hand, too selfish to
restrict its vision to the limits of a horizon drawn by another, it will wither
away feebly or overhastily to its early demise. Cheerfulness, clear conscience,
the carefree deed, faith in the future, all this depends in the case of an individual as well as of a people, on there being a line which distinguishes what is clear and in full view from the dark and unilluminable; it depends on one’s being able to forget at the right time as
well as to remember at the right time; on discerning with strong instinctual
feelings when there is need to experience historically and when unhistorically.
Precisely this is the proposition the reader is invited to consider:
the unhistorical and the historical are equally necessary for the health of
an individual, a people and a culture. ”
Friedrich Nietzsche: 1844-1900
ON THE ADVANTAGE AND DISADVANTAGE OF HISTORY FOR LIFE
James Mirrlees – Mathematics and Real Economics
“All theory is gray, my friend. But forever green is the tree of life.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, First Part
https://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2013/05/chinese-wage-rises/#comment-101602
The Bastiat-Proudhon Debate on Interest (1849-1850) Letter 13
Going Direct Paradigm Control of Oil.
‘Hello Robin,
Of course you are right that debt abd credit will always exist.
When I read GB’s comment I read it as referring to fractional reserve banking as we currently have it – controlled by the private banks. It is that kind of sovereign debt I was thinking of in my reply.
I don’t think many people object to one person lending to another or a chit of credit acting as a temporary store and means of transferring wealth. Perhaps some do. I am not one.
Credit is a useful social mechanism. But it has got out of hand and into the hands of a few who use it to cause destitution and as the means to create huge and increasingly non-democratic power.
I think we can and must move away from such a distorted and morally corrupt social construction.
I am not looking for moral or political purity in some utopian fashion. I am simply looking for a better social compact and one that fits to an environmentally constrained world not the old idea of ever expanding growth.’
In response, here is a proposal for an Aristotelian Asset Money System.
‘When the lamp of money is lit a circle of shadows form filled with usurers, counterfeiters, thieves, swindlers and sociopaths. The light must be protected at all costs or the destiny of humanity is stolen.’
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
― Richard Buckminster Fuller
’So Aristotle calls money a creature of the law. Not a commodity from nature but an abstract social institution. Its essence is not tangible wealth in itself, but a power to obtain wealth. THIS IS REGARDED AS A SUPREMELY IMPORTANT DISTINCTION – BETWEEN MONEY and wealth. If you are always trading in “things” it’s just an advanced form of barter.’
Zarlenga, ‘The Lost Science of Money.
1 – The Aristotelian system
I suggest we create a pure Aristotelian money system as an education device, as a system which is both transparent and yet resistant to fraud, a system designed to maximise freedom and value for its participants, with money acting simply as a medium for trade and not as a tool for usury.
This maximises the human potential for relationship, art, self discovery, growth and the pursuit of higher states of consciousness.
2 – What software to use?
The software platform would probably be the Cyclos software which runs many community currencies. There is a Cyclos 4 version now available in Beta form which will be free to non-profit organisations. ( http://www.cyclos.org/ )
This Cyclos software includes online banking, mobile banking, credit and debit card creation, and marketplace e-commerce.
https://www.cyclos.org/features
3 – Two forms of money
There are two fundamental ways of creating abstract money once we move beyond gifts, barter and commodity exchanges. They are primarily debt money in private hands and asset money in the hands of the nation.
Debt money usually comes into existence at the moment of the loan creation and is burdened with the three demons of inflation, interest and taxation.
Asset money exists like the waters behind a dam wall, self-existing, relatively eternal, and when controlled correctly it supplies water and power in amounts to cause neither drought nor flood. It is the money system proposed by Aristotle.
4 – The Money Unit
I propose that the money unit for the system would be similar to the scientific measurement for the metre which is the meeting point for time, space and the speed of light. (” a metre is the length of the path travelled by light in a vacuum during a time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second.)
The money unit then, the Aristotelian unit of A, is the distance the human body-mind of a normal 80kg human covers at walking speed (5km/hr) in a period of one hour (5000m.) This A unit deems walking, the state of ‘relaxed falling’, to be similar in value to one hour of focused mind in study and intent.
These units can then be converted into joules, calories, light quanta, etc, as desired.
This measurement is the historical meeting point for human physiology, mind, time, space and the speed of light – a measurement which has been inflation proof for the last four million years of human hunter-gatherer existence and which is inherently logical to the human psyche.
(To say that we have no money while we have the life force of the community is to be simply hung upon the ‘cross of gold’ of William Bryan.)
Further, just as all previous measurement systems used by western science became redundant when the speed of light was measured in metres, so too does this system reflect a crossing of the ‘historical Rubicon’ into the realm of quantum finance.
(FAQ1 – Why talk of walking speed when we now travel at the speed of a Ferrari? Answer – when we add the hours spent in learning the craft to make the money to own the Ferrari we may be travelling slower than the hunter-gatherers from four million years ago at 5km/hr!)
FAQ2 – What differentiates between the work hour of a doctor and a street sweeper? Answer – the sweeper can charge 10 units an hour, the doctor 100. These measures simply reflect the completed hours of learning and experience which the professional brings to the task.)
Note: At this point the A unit would not be transferable into global financial currency systems because of the inherent problems with the legal and taxation systems. The A system would simply be a self functioning marketplace to demonstrate Aristotelian principles.
5 – Central Monetary Authority
The A system will have a central Monetary Authority for the creation and removal of A money, it will not be a peer to peer system, nor a debt or gift system.
The Authority will have the power to issue A money to itself instead of external taxation for its cost structure and projects. All efforts to avoid charging interest will be made.
(Interest on loaning a commodity such as gold is logical, interest on debt money created from nothing at the point of the loan however is simply criminal.
The problem Arab banking has with the interest problem with commodity backed money should be avoided with money based simply upon human life force. Losses can simply be voided within the system and penalties imposed.
There will however be strict guidelines with the initial loans and without the charges of taxation and interest echoing through the system I suspect the losses would be minimal as interest alone can be 40% of the final cost of goods and services.
This of course is all part of the educational experiment and the belief in the essence of human integrity!)
Note: If the A system was to be used for a nation, perhaps after a debt Jubilee and a debt Commission, then the Monetary Authority would have members elected by the general population, with four year tenures, who must approve the budgets of the Monetary Authority. This removes the potential power abuses of the professional bureaucracy and the inherent human tendency to create secret cabals.
6 – Starting the system running
Upon signing up to the A system each person would receive 100 A units plus a further 20 A’s per month for five months to make a seed fund of 200 A’s.
The Monetary Authority can also create A’s to expand the system according to need and numbers. A’s can also be withdrawn if the system starts to overheat.
Each A unit would be numbered with no rehypothecation, securitisation or fractional reserve creation. Each A’s position within the system would be instantly traceable. Accounts would also be transparent so that people can view the transaction history of the people they are dealing with.
People can apply to the Authority for business loans according to basic lending principles. They can also apply to other system members with excess capital.
There could perhaps be a monthly social dividend – say 20A depending upon the flow within each personal account. Zero transactions would be a zero dividend, a normal flow of transactions creates a dividend of 20A, etc. Hoarding would not be promoted.
7 – System aspects
There would be an international section for such things as language tuition and a local section for such things as massage.
There would be a for sale section, possibly with an auction section.
There could even be a share market where we can invest in each others business’s, with each share numbered and transparent and only legitimately sold.
Member’s can also offer services to the A platform to help it expand, such as hosting, programming, administration, etc.
Members will be able to rate each other with an integrity quotient.
There would be a Forum for discussion and suggestions.
Conclusion
These then are some thoughts for discussion, the seeds for a monetary model which will only grow through time and experience. Further, with the Cyclos 4 platform now available and free to non profit organisations, the A system has become simply a ‘click and go’ operation. Let the educational curve begin!
P.S. Here now is a brief summary of Cyclos and STRO, the Social Trade Organisation, from their website. ( http://www.cyclos.org/ )
STRO’s objective is to move money as a major steering mechanism in society from causing environmental abuse and preventing many poor to optimise their capacities, to become an instrument that serves a qualitative human development. The first STRO was founded in 1970 in Holland. Social Trade promotes the opportunity for communities to optimise the circulation of purchasing power in their community. Using the Social Trade methods the potential of the community can be optimised based on the community’s culture with respect for the environment. People involved in realising the Social Trade targets are working from local offices in Porto Alegre (Brazil), Montevideo (Uruguay), Tegucigalpa (Honduras), Utrecht (Holland), Lisbon (Portugal) and Murcia (Spain).
STRO picks up the challenge described by Bank of England’s governor Mervyn King:
“Is it possible that advances in technology will mean that (…) the world may come to resemble a pure exchange economy? Electronic transactions in real time hold out that possibility. There is no reason, in principle, why final settlements could not be carried out by the private sector without the need for clearing through the central bank. (…) There is no conceptual obstacle to the idea that two individuals engaged in a transaction could settle by a transfer of wealth from one electronic account to another in real time. (…) The same system could match demands and supplies of financial assets, determine prices and make settlements. Financial assets and real goods and services would be priced in terms of a unit of account. Final settlement could be made without any recourse to the central bank.(…) Without such a role in settlements, central banks, in their present form, would no longer exist; nor would money.”
Cyclos solutions for social impact.
The objective of the Social Trade Organisation is to provide a professional platform that can be used by different organisations and institutions that are aiming on social economic impact. Cyclos supports a wide variety of implementations.
Banks in developing countries
Cyclos allows local and regional banks to compete with big international banks, because Cyclos allows them to provide cost effective state of the art on-line banking, sms banking, POS and mobile banking services. This contributes to a more diverse banking sector which makes it stronger and more competitive. Regional banks are also known to invest more money in the region contributing directly to the country’s economic growth instead of international speculation.
Barters
Because of Cyclos barters can easily be set up at low cost, the barter doesn’t have to invest heavily in expensive software. Research shows that Barters can be very beneficial to a countries economy in times when capital is scarce, making countries more resilient in times of economic crises. The reason behind this is simple. When the economy suddenly contracts enterprises which still have products or services to offer, but not enough customers. Even if company A wants to buy a product from company B and company B wants to buy a product from company A, often the money (or credit) is missing to enable trade. A barter helps these companies to trade with each other through the barter network.
Campus card systems
An University campus, where a lot of local economic activity is happening is an ideal environment to implement an Campus card (payment) system with Cyclos. Some of the features are
• Student-to-Business payments (Parking, Copy/printing, Laundry, Bookstore, Restaurant, Housing, Events & Activities, Tuition)
• Student-to-Student micro payments (any goods or services exchanged among students)
• External-to-Student payment (donations from parents, who can specify payment destination)
• Student loans (emission/management)
• Market place (students can post offers and interests in goods and services)
• Market place notifications. SMS or e-mails can be sent automatically when personal criteria are matched in the marketplace
• University notifications & mailings can be send to groups of student’s by e-mail and/or SMS (events, emergencies)
• Student business profile (profiles can be included in a website that can be viewed by local businesses)
• Job board (local business can publish Jobs & internships)
• Available channels: Web, card/POS, mobile
• Independent: Not bound to contracts with specific software providers and Banks
OK, finish!!!
See here for how the legalised ponzi scheme we are all playing a part in and vote for called the economy manifests in yet another magical way… and what to do about it:
http://gco2e.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/mortgage-arbitrage-hedge-funds-can-see.html
Call if you are interested in a client or partner stake.
Yours,
Robin Smith
CFO – MELTFUND
http://meltfund.com