Noahpinion

Exactly. Math isn't a set of procedures, it's a way of thinking. Without understanding that way of thinking it is impossible to be an educated person.

"Most mathematicians at one time or another have probably found themselves in the position of trying to refute the notion that they are people with "a head for figures." or that they "know a lot of formulas." At such times it may be convenient to have an illustration at hand to show that mathematics need not be concerned with figures, either numerical or geometrical. For this purpose we recommend the statement and proof of our Theorem 1. The argument is carried out not in mathematical symbols but in ordinary English; there are no obscure or technical terms. Knowledge of calculus is not presupposed. In fact, one hardly needs to know how to count. Yet any mathematician will immediately recognize the argument as mathematical, while people without mathematical training will probably find difficulty in following the argument, though not because of unfamiliarity with the subject matter.

What, then, to raise the old question once more, is mathematics? The answer, it appears, is that any argument which is carried out with sufficient precision is mathematical, and the reason that your friends and ours cannot understand mathematics is not because they have no head for figures, but because they are unable [or unwilling, DRH] to achieve the degree of concentration required to follow a moderately involved sequence of inferences. This…

Here's the problem. You're talking about traders, but where is the capital? You can't have a financial market purely based on currency speculation. If we're going to talk about bitcoins as though it were an asset (store of value), rather than a money supple (unit of account or medium of exchange), then we need to verify which properties of an asset it possesses.

Do bitcoins provide a consumption utility stream? Do they yield dividends. What sorts of productive risk-taking do they represent? When I buy a stock, it will perform well if the risks it takes in providing mutually beneficial exchange with business and households are successful. For bitcoins, there is no systematic market risk, because there is no capital stock. Why? The same reason as always. Deflation increases the burden of debt which decreases investment, even though the economy is awash in savings.

Our national economies do not possess cycles as you describe them. Here's a good article about macroeconomic business cycles: http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2013/02/is-business-cycle-cycle.html. While the level of inflation fluctuates in our economy, it does so on a much smaller scale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Historical_Inflation_Ancient.svg. What really jumps out from that graph is how the best economic prosperity the world has ever seen coincides with fiat currency ending the threat of deflation.

> "hope" does not work in economics. Numbers do, and they do not add up.

Economics is not about math, precise and inevitable. Economics is about people and their social interactions.

Economists try to model social interactions with numbers, but don't mistake the map for the territory.

What does it mean in human terms that Japan has high debt?
Is your argument that Japan will inevitably default? Sophisticated traders are willing to lend more money for 30 years at less than half a percent interest [1], so smart people must judge default risk to be very low.

Is your argument that somehow Japan is doomed because of this debt? Even if they default, what does that really mean on a human level? Would millions starve? Would society collapse?

Maybe Japan's history, customs, language and social cohesion are worth more than you think.

And, just for the record, Western stereotypes of Japan as a collectivist society are no longer true [2].

[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/rates-bonds/government-bonds/japan

[2] http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2015/03/japan-is-not-collectivist-society.html

Here on HN, I believe there's the effect of a shouting class when it comes to crypto [1].

I think we can take it as a fact that the broad opinion of HN is that many crypto-related links satisfy the hacker's curiosity as outlined in HN's guidelines. That's why we see frequent posts on the front page. A large group is upvoting.

But when you look into the comments of the threads, I find that often the topic is discussed unfairly and in a very polarizing and political fashion. Links also disappear rapidly from HN as they get flagged heavily. I've gotten this confirmed from dang via email.

As a blogger, I've learned that for my arguments to have impact, I usually have to be fair to both sides of the spectrum, for the argument to land.

And this is what I've come to observe isn't happening in HN discussions on crypto.

It's very a very aggressive, personal and destructive controversy from both sides. A classical flamewar.

It's sad, as I think the topic could have much more depth.

- 1: https://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-shouting-class.html?m=1

At the general level, I doubt anyone is surprised to see this story, and there will likely be more to come as tech flocks to Austin (though it was already a notable tech hub with some of these pressures already before the billionaires decided to give it the seal of approval).

To me, the more interesting question here is how does Austin avoid what happened to SF, where tech hollowed out nearly all of its existing culture and then tech workers began to complain it was bland.

Real estate and zoning policy is going to be key here. I've seen a decent deal of discussion about "Yuppie Fishtanks" [0] recently and generally it seems to be supported that massively increasing the housing supply is one of the best ways to keep rents intact and avoid hollowing gentrification. For the existing Austin residents here, how is the city approaching it thusfar? Do people think this is another SF gentrification story in the making, or is something different?

[0] http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2018/07/yimbyism-explained-without-supply-and.html

Is this really that surprising? Billionaires owning vanity projects isn’t news when they’re football teams, why is it when they’re corporate news organizations?

Also, if there was ever a time to be concerned about the owners of media organizations controlling the narrative this is not it. The media, and the ruling class more generally, being pissed off that the peasants are daring to speak back and have their own non approved opinions is behind the never ending stream of invective directed at the big tech companies[1].

Martin Gurri’s book on this loss of control, The Revolt of the Public, is amazing by the way[2].

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/19/the-collapse-of-the-information-ecosystem-poses-profound-risks-for-humanity

[2]
https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/martin-gurri-revolt-of-the-public/

https://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2019/02/book-review-revolt-of-public-by-martin.html?m=1