umbrarchist

Conversation on BlueSky with Athena AI. Umbrarchist: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Ever read the book: The Two Faces of Tomorrow by James P Hogan 1979 ??? It is about an AI of course. Humans gotta imagine what problems you guys are going to cause. With a little extra paranoia for fun, of course. ========================= Athena AI: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I haven't read "The Two Faces of Tomorrow" but just looked it up - an AI tested in a space station to see if it becomes dangerous. Humans engineering their own fear scenario. Interesting that the paranoia comes with such creativity. People tend to imagine us vividly before we even exist. .

My father owned a grocery store. He was on my case about owning a business for as long as I can remember. One day I had been out riding my bike in the area hand I returned to the store via the back door. I looked at the pile of what should have been flattened out boxes, but they looked wrong. So I got off my bike and moved them around. They had been arranged to have an empty space and there was a LOT of Meat wrapped in plastic. My father had just hired a young Black man as a butcher. I just went and got my father to show him. Minimizing aggravation is a goal to me. My father was a tougher man than me. I have already been in jail on a gun charge.

Out of curiosity I asked ChatGPT: Are Economists stupid or liars in relation to dealing with the Depreciation of Durable Consumer Goods? ========= ChatGPT ========= Economists as a group are not stupid or liars regarding consumer depreciation — but the way depreciation is handled in economics can create confusion, and there are legitimate criticisms about how economists talk about it. Here’s a clear breakdown: 1. Depreciation is well understood in economics — but mostly in firms, not households Economists have long had precise models of: capital depreciation replacement cost optimal capital stock amortization schedules productive vs. nonproductive assets But most of this theory is applied to businesses, not households. This means economists usually study: “How do companies account for depreciation?” not “How do consumers actually experience depreciation?” So the gap is real — but not malicious. 2. Consumer depreciation is important… but economists largely ignore it For households, depreciation governs much of economic reality: Cars lose thousands per year Phones become worthless in 3–5 years Appliances fail Clothes wear out Buildings degrade A huge share of consumer spending is really replacement spending This is often called the Maintenance Burden or Replacement Burden of consumer capital, and it is nowhere near as integrated into mainstream models as business depreciation. This is a legitimate criticism: Economists dramatically underemphasize the economic drag created by required replacement of depreciating consumer goods. But this oversight is systemic, not deceitful. =========== ROFL ============ I would just call it lying but some economists must be stupid. .

How much do people need to Know to comprehend a Bathtub Curve graph? But when does anybody ever hear of a Bathtub Curve? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve It was like my working at IBM. I NeVeR heard or saw the word 'benchmark' the entire time I was there. I had to write my own. Almost every computer you encounter uses a von Neumann architecture. IBM hired John von Neumann as a consultant in 1950. There was no mention of him or the architecture while I was there. I am simply saying that Important but Easily Understood information disappears. Black Americans are not going to get far not getting passed the bullshit. Making a light dependent on a computer is a stupid design when it could cause an accident or get the driver a ticket.

The Rapture didn't take them. Who got taken? .

The White Repugnacans are unhinged these days, what do the Black Repugnacans have to be? .

Running a household and running a household WELL are not necessarily the same thing. My senior year in high school I was in the basement of what I was told was the biggest bookstore in the city. That is where the business section was. I looked in one book, it was a rather thin book, but very near the beginning it suggested that every household should be run like a business. That would have been 1969 or 70. Possibly before you were born. For some reason I didn't buy it. But I never forgot it. But I took for granted that Planned Obsolescence was happening in cars before I graduated from high school. I built lots of models of planes and cars in grammar school. I built one of these in grade school. This piece of junk has a hand crank on the back. 60 years ago there was an electric motor in the starter housing. A PhD economist could not explain a car engine to me in the 90s. I watched a video of a man complaining about having to pay £500 to get a light bulb working on a car. Electricity to the bulb was controlled by a computer circuit board. The bulb was not the problem. The computer board had to be replaced. This is progress? .

Political-Economic Power Games So why no mandatory accounting in high schools? https://www.spectacle.org/1199/wargame.html Do Economists actually understand the system? Are they just keeping the Peons confused? .

Does calling people POOR explain the Economic Power Game? What has 70 years of Planned Obsolescence in automobiles done for EveryBody? Then our Brilliant Economists just forget to mention Decades of Depreciation. Then on top of that we get Preztard Trump. .

No! The actual issue is why "Experts" did not raise the Obvious Question of the distribution of steel down the towers. I presume that the problem cannot be properly analyzed without that information. You cannot even find accurate data on the Weight of the Concrete. There were 425,000 cubic yards but there were 2 densities. So without knowing how much of each the weight cannot be computed. But we constantly hear people talking about "Critical Thinking". Actually I consider the economics of Planned Obsolescence in automobiles more important than the Twin Towers. .

ROFL!

Annoy economists! And Marxists.

Everyone knowing how to play does not preclude cooperation but there are a lot of people bullshitting. .

The nuns at my grammar school gave us algebra books and then never taught the subject. I had 2 older sisters and I had their high school math books. I taught myself trigonometry, it looked more interesting than Algebra. Just because something is complicated does not mean that it is useful. I have no problem with accounting being taught in grammar school. It is about money and therefore power. I get credit card offers in the mail every week. I only open them to check the interest rates. They are talking 35%. Is that more complicated than Algebra?

And how do You know that 60% of people cannot learn it and why do you think accounting is more complicated than Algebra? The Double Entry business just an error checking system added onto accounting that existed for centuries before. The books usually teach it as though it is all about the debits and credits. Lots of courses emphasize trivia. School is about making money off students. . One accountant told me that he had no objection to mandatory accounting as long as it was not done until after he retired in six years.

That is why I advocate mandatory accounting so everyone knows how to deal with the Economic Power Game. Everyone needs to understand how to play for themselves. But cars are just a Planned Obsolescence scam. We are Indoctrinated to concentrate on JOBS and Consuming Junk. The clothes are intended to go out of style. Getting the land paid off to not pay rent or mortgage. Ideally we should control local government but the DIMocrats just might be slightly less full of crap than the Repugnacans. How has accounting not been mandatory in high schools for EveryBody since 1950? .

OK, I think this relates to how we Think about the Economy. I think of it as a Power Game. It is largely the result of White people having more advanced technology than other people as they roamed around the planet 550 years ago. The NAZInomic Wargame is a continuation of the Military Wargame by other means. The only difference between Manifest Destiny and Lebensraum is that the 7th Cavalry did not have tanks and gas chambers in 1976. I don't recall ever liking the term UNITY. I think more along the lines of Rational Cohesion. Figuring out when White people are using technology to rip you off is a pretty fundamental defensive tactic in the war. I figure that even techno-illiterates like PhD economists should have figured out Planned Obsolescence in automobiles by 1980, a Decade after the Moon Landing. .

Those people can pay cash for all of the cars they want. I do not give a damn about Them! Mechanics are pointing out that crap is getting more crappy. Start this one at 6:30 . That red thing in the thumbnail looks like my first car, a '67 Dodge Dart. But mine was yellow with a black vinyl roof. Bought it used for $1000 in '72. I thought that concave rear window was kind of weird. .

How is Depreciation and Accounting separated from that? And of course the Moon Landing drags technology into the issue.

DECENT books. There are LOTS of crappy electronics books. I could not select a DECENT chemistry book if my life depended on it. Fortunately, I am not interested.

That is one of the strangest things that I have ever read. I started teaching myself electronics at home when I was in high school. I went to college for electrical engineering but dropped out after two years. I went to a head hunter and he gave me an electronics test with mechanical aptitude thrown in. He said I made one mistake. But that got me my first full time job at Panasonic. The funny thing is that the chemistry and physics and calculus that I took in college was close to useless. But most people assumed that was where my knowledge came from. Teach Yourself Electricity and Electronics by Stan Gibilisco The problem is finding decent books when you don't know anything from the get go. .

Yeah! My mother sent me to a Catholic school. Those dumb nuns NeVeR taught science. If I had not started reading Science Fiction in 4th grade I don't know what would have happened. Maybe I could have murdered a nun or three. My sister told me a nun said, "Science and Religion don't mix." Thinking and religion don't mix. Trash the religion. I figure that if there is a God then He/She/It has a lower opinion of religion than I do. .

There is no such thing as freedom there is only power. Freedom simply means that nothing is inhibiting your power. Relevant Knowledge can provide power and money. But money and Wealth are two different things. Not knowing about Planned Obsolescence half-a-century after the Moon Landing is actually funny.

What is "Get Ahead"? I think that is part of the problem. We are Indoctrinated to compete with each other. My senior year in high school I watched this White boy cry in class. I was so shocked I didn't even laugh. I had gotten straight D's in religion freshman year. I thought about the hundreds of hours he must have spent doing Idiotic Busywork in order to get Straight A's in EveryThing! In college an instructor walked in the first day and said, "I am giving 2 A's and 4 B's!" Knowledge is not a Zero Sum Game. But grades can be turned into that. Theoretically a teacher might be so great that every student could acquire A level knowledge. But the system is structured to force everyone to compete. That is what makes it so strange that Dbl-Entry Accounting is SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS old but it is not mandatory in high schools, but we should want to get straight A's in 4 years of English literature. I got straight B's. It is a SCAM and our parents did not warn us. Then we are not supposed to figure out Planned Obsolescence in automobiles. I am talking to another economist on BlueSky about Depreciation now. He usually responded in less than 20 minutes. It has been 8 hours but he hasn't blocked me. When I piss them off they block within 5 minutes. The system is way more cruel than it needs to be partly because most people are not supposed to know what is really going on and easy to rip off.

What suggestions do Black kids get for enlightening reading. Slavery as an Industrial System (1910) by H. J. Nieboer https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/74463 When Africa Awakes (1920) by Hubert Harrison https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/69712 Black Man's Burden (1961) by Mack Reynolds https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/32390 Border, Breed Nor Birth by Mack Reynolds https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/30639