Our actions are called forth spontaneously by the situation we find ourselves in—not rationally planned in advance.The impossibility of socialist planning is simply a specific case of the impossibility of the frame problem. Which means prices are the solution to AI too. Rather than attempt to find a closed form solution, build an ordinal mapping of preferences and rank (prices).
Action is driven by perception, not plans.This is literally the action axiom.
In other words, mega-ships like the Ever Given are a new phenomenon that are tied not to economic logic but to the consolidation of ocean carrier lines and their ability to offload risk onto counter parties. As Jensen observed, without the consolidation, “ships would likely not have grown above 12,000-14,000 TEUs [twenty-foot equivalent units].” So we’ve moved from a grid with lots of different size ships owned by different lines that could dock in lots of ports, to one dominated by hundreds of mega-ships that can only go to certain ports, all controlled by a de facto small cartel. The game in the business is to acquire market power and then use mega-ships to offload costs onto others and block new entrants.The shipping cartel has become as dangerous and stupid as OPEC. Which means eventually this problem should solve itself, as one carrier would inevitably defect. Save for one important fact. Interlocking directorates; they're all essentially owned by each other to a degree.
The reason there has been no European war outside the Balkans since 1945, after all, has nothing to do with the European Union. The reason is that the United States and the Soviet Union enforced peace on the quarrelsome subcontinent at gunpoint, and backed it up by occupying most European nations with their own troops, tanks, and planes. Neither imperial power, however, could maintain its presence indefinitely. The Soviet Union was forced to withdraw its troops from Europe by 1989, as it lurched toward its own collapse two years later. The United States—well, let’s just say that the recent events in Afghanistan demonstrate, for those who are paying attention, that a similar series of events is already well under way here. I don’t think that too many more years will pass before the United States no longer has troops in Europe, or anywhere else outside its own borders—if, that is, it still exists as a nation, which is anyone’s guess at this point.He gets that the EU is just a latter day HRE, and equally useless.
Unfortunately for the future of Europe, nobody there seems to have gotten the memo that the US is going to bits. That’s a problem because there are two very good ways to make war happen. The first is to be arrogant, blustering, and unwilling to compromise. The second is to be militarily weak. The European Union is both.Srpska stronk.
If Serbia, let’s say, decides to adjust its current borders in its own favor the way that Azerbaijan did a little while ago, by force of arms, is the EU prepared to try to counter that on the battlefield? If not, the EU may never recover from the loss of prestige; quite a few people remember what happened in the 1930s when the League of Nations failed to back up its demands with anything stronger than verbiage. (Spoiler: the League of Nations no longer exists.) If the EU does intervene—well, then it’s up to the fortunes of war, and those may not go the way the EU thinks they should. One of the least remembered stories of the First World War is that in 1914, in the opening phases of the war, the Austro-Hungarian Empire launched its armies into Serbia in an attempt to conquer that tough and mountainous little country, and got driven back across the border in utter humiliation after a series of stinging defeats. Just how well the EU would survive a comparable embarrassment is anyone’s guess.
ungary is roughly half its historic size, and there’s quite a bit of talk in that country about readjusting those borders, too. Poland has similar issues with its post-World War II borders, and is in the midst of a considerable military buildup. France has just signed a mutual-defense pact with Greece, committing each country to come to the other’s aid in war against any other country, whether or not that other country happens to be a member of NATO—and of course France and Britain are getting increasingly bellicose with each other over fishing rights and a flurry of other issues. All this is still being conducted in the language of diplomacy and public relations, but if you know the history of Europe between the two world wars, you know how this movie ends.My personal bet is on the Greeks and Irish starting shit.
During the 1960s, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) funded a project to reduce the RCS of U.S. reconnaissance planes, specifically the Lockheed A-12, which supposedly made use of a cesium-laced fuel additive to significantly reduce its engine’s radar signature, and an electron beam to generate a cloud of ionization in front of the air intakes to help conceal its entire rear aspect from radar waves. The system was tested but was never deployed operationally.I suspect this kind of ionization works quite well with supercavitation as well.
it was troubling that a federal appeals court would stop or delay safety rules in a health crisis, saying no one has a right to go into a workplace “unmasked, unvaxxed and untested.” “Unelected judges that have no scientific experience shouldn’t be second-guessing health and safety professionals at OSHA,” he said.As if pencil-neck bureaucrats are any better than the gowned clowns. The lot of 'em should be thrown in the woods, preferably in a shallow pit filled with drano.
The tragedy, to me, is that the socialist left has no history not because no one is willing to teach but because leftist social culture makes the young and inexperienced believe that it’s shameful to need to be taught.Welcome to the gynocentric social order where you have to "just get it". I suspect this is also a lot of what is behind people wanting to go "post-libertarian", as our side has not been immune to this tidal wave of doctrinaire morons.
one of the bright spots of COVID, at least for me, has been a reduction of in-person interactions with many of these management types. My company office hasn’t had a safety meeting in over a year, and I haven’t seen an area manager nor middle manager in the same time. And guess what? The work—the real work—still got done, and despite everything going on, our customers remained warm.Can't agree more
If we are going to have a collective discussion about “the working class,” it might be time to consider keeping these managers and enforcers away from us on a more permanent basis, given that they produce little of value and do not improve our lives in any way. In an economy made increasingly zero-sum by forces beyond our control, those in the “e-mail job” caste are literally taking money out of a pie which would be more deservedly enjoyed by the families who do the actual work.
Looking through the lawsuit, the scope and shamelessness of Google's greed would appear to be stark. Project Bernanke, for example, is claimed to take data from publishers' ad servers to boost Google's own services. Project NERA, to create a "not owned but operated" walled garden for users if they used any Google service. "Project Jedi" was allegedly meant to freeze out independent ad exchanges by using insider knowledge, and in "Jedi Blue", Google is alleged to have conspired with Facebook to parcel out the goodies between themselves.
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How much does this matter? "Online advertising promotes journalism," except journalism is dying. The money's gone. Where's it gone? Does Google have all the money? It takes up to 42 per cent of the cut from ad money that goes through it, alleges the filing, 42 per cent that can't be spent on content providers like journalists.
