Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

CategoryEconomics

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Close up of top important cryptocurrencies which dollar bank note in background. which including of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dash, Zcash and Ripple coin. Business and financial as concept.

Why Cryptocurrencies Like Bitcoin Are Not Ready for Prime Time

Bernard Fickser at Expensivity — friendly to cryptos in principle — offers an unsparing look at the current problems

At Expensivity, Bernard Fickser, who has explained how to sell non-fungible tokens (NFTs) now offers “The Truth About Cryptocurrencies: A Clearheaded Guide to the Crypto World.” (January 15, 2022) For your convenience, we are serializing his work, which can be read in whole here. Here’s Part 6 (of 6): 6 Conclusion: Is Crypto a Mature Technology? So far, this article’s approach to crypto has been a balancing act, weighing pros against cons. Thus, we’ve seen much to commend crypto, but also much to raise doubts about it. In this closing section, I’m going negative. My concluding thesis is this: peer-to-peer distributed blockchain-based cryptocurrencies as they exist now represent an immature technology and miss much of what we would like to see Read More ›

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sack with the thirty silver coins biblical symbol of the betrayal of judas

Is Cryptocurrency Selling Out to Centralization?

Compared to more conventional forms of money, crypto wealth is radically centralized in the hands of a few

At Expensivity, Bernard Fickser, who has explained how to sell non-fungible tokens (NFTs) now offers “The Truth About Cryptocurrencies: A Clearheaded Guide to the Crypto World.” (January 15, 2022) For your convenience, we are serializing his work, which can be read in whole here. Here’s Part 5 (of 5): 5 The Centralization of Crypto Wealth Decentralization is a watchword of crypto. One of the things said to commend cryptocurrencies is that the blockchain-based peer-to-peer networks that run them are decentralized, residing outside the control of any single authority. This claim that cryptocurrencies are decentralized in their organizational structure is overstated because the peer-to-peer networks that run them can themselves act as central authorities. True, these peer-to-peer networks feel freer and Read More ›

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Bitcoin and cryptomoney

How and Why Cryptocurrencies Are Revolutionizing Money

The trouble is, cryptos are an immature technology at present and that fact may doom many of the current ones

At Expensivity, Bernard Fickser, who has explained how to sell non-fungible tokens (NFTs) now offers “The Truth About Cryptocurrencies: A Clearheaded Guide to the Crypto World.” (January 15, 2022) For your convenience, we are serializing his work, which can be read in whole here. Here’s Part 4: 4 Crypto’s Revolution in Money and Finance Cryptocurrencies seem different from mass delusions of the past. They do novel things in the world of finance that many people want, such as allow for anonymous exchanges of digital currency that feel a lot like exchanges of ordinary cash. They promise to bypass intrusive government control. And they’ve attracted a lot of very smart talent that is deploying some very cool mathematics and computer science. Read More ›

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Cryptography Concept, Cryptographic Hash Algorithm SHA-2

As Money Slowly Transitions From Matter to Information…

Let’s look at a brief history of cryptocurrencies — which is not quite what we might think

At Expensivity, Bernard Fickser, who has explained how to sell non-fungible tokens (NFTs) now offers “The Truth About Cryptocurrencies: A Clearheaded Guide to the Crypto World.” (January 15, 2022) For your convenience, we are serializing his work, which can be read in whole here. Here’s Part 3: 3 A Concise History of Cryptocurrencies The use of cryptography to make digital financial payments has been around for decades, but that by itself does not make a cryptocurrency. A cryptocurrency is not just an electronic or digital form of money, even if the two are often confused and even though they all use cryptography to secure transactions. For something to be a full-fledged cryptocurrency, it must satisfy the following four conditions. Spoiler alert: Read More ›

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Mature crypto trader investor analyst broker using pc computer analyzing digital cryptocurrency exchange stock market trading graphs report thinking of investing funds risks doing global analysis.

If You Want To Stick a Toe in Bitcoin’s World … Read This First

This short guide offers a quick introduction to the two biggies, Bitcoin and Ethereum

At Expensivity, Bernard Fickser, who has explained how to sell non-fungible tokens (NFTs) now offers “The Truth About Cryptocurrencies: A Clearheaded Guide to the Crypto World.” (January 15, 2022) For your convenience, we are serializing his work, which can be read in whole here. Here’s Part 2: 1 Quick Entry into Crypto Investing This first section is for those who want to begin investing in crypto right away. But it is also for those who simply want to understand cryptocurrencies without investing in them. Later sections will present the underlying theory and history of crypto, as well as reasons to take crypto seriously but also to be cautious. Yet it helps to see how cryptocurrencies actually behave in practice, and Read More ›

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matching keys made of circuits & led lights, encryption & crypto

Some brute facts about Bitcoin and other cryptos

Crypto is transforming money and finance. Like the computer, you don’t need to use one but you’re wise to know the basics. Start here

At Expensivity, Bernard Fickser, who has explained how to sell non-fungible tokens (NFTs) now offers “The Truth About Cryptocurrencies: A Clearheaded Guide to the Crypto World.” (January 15, 2022) For your convenience, we are serializing his work, which can be read in whole here. Here’s Part 1: Even though most people own no cryptocurrency, cryptocurrency still matters to the average person. That’s because crypto (or cryptocurrency) is transforming the world of money and finance, and everyone has a stake in that world. The average person therefore needs a basic grasp of crypto and why it is important. It’s not enough, however, simply to know about crypto. To really understand crypto, you need sound actionable information about investing in crypto and Read More ›

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Bull figurine standing on bitcoins, concept of cryptocurrencies

What’s the future for cryptocurrencies?

Currencies that do not depend on government have survived and are forging ahead

One of the most interesting developments in economics in past decades has been the effort to develop currencies (money) that does not depend on government. From time immemorial, governments have issued currency. It was a key part of their power. Cryptocurrencies are based on the assumption that trust alone will work. Here are some of the things that are happening for cryptos in 2022: Sandra Ro, CEO of of Global Blockchain Business Council told Coin Telegraph: “ In 2022, it will be ‘corporate career risk’ to not have a baseline understanding of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. From bankers to corporate executives to politicians, it is imperative that they get on board and seriously consider the implications of blockchain. Further, 2022 Read More ›

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Businesswoman Signing Cheque

Mental Models for What Government Does With Our Money

Models used by pedantic experts, even if more accurate, confuse instead of clarify the key difference between taxation and government debt

We live by mental models. Although we rarely take the time to think about it, any time we reason about something we are using a mental model. Sometimes those models are close to reality, and sometimes they are not. When you turn your steering wheel, it does in fact turn your tires — but power steering adds quite a bit of assistance. So the mental model is close to correct but not exactly true. Similarly, in chemistry, multiple models of the atom are usually taught. In the widely used Rutherford model (also called the “planetary model”), electrons “orbit” the nucleus at different distances. However, this model was not found to be precisely true. A more precise view of the atom Read More ›

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Decreasing and increasing graph on chalkboard

The Cult of Statistical Significance — and the Neglect of Oomph

Statistical significance has little meaning when separated from practical importance

A central part of John Maynard Keynes’ explanation of the Great Depression was his assertion that household income affects household spending. When people lose their jobs and income, they cut back on their spending, which causes other people to lose their jobs and their income — propelling the economy downhill. Keynes’ theory was based on logic and common sense. It was later tested empirically with household survey data and with national income data compiled by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Figure 1 shows U.S. after-tax personal income and consumer spending for the years 1929 through 1940. Since income and spending both tend to grow over time along with the population, the data were converted to annual percentage changes. The observed statistical Read More ›

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NFT | Non-Fungible Token

NFTs: Can They Help You Sell Digital Memorabilia Online?

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) like Jack Dorsey’s first tweet or Michael Cohen’s prison badge are creating a new market with a need for new rules

At COSM 2021,William Dembski, a mathematician and philosopher who studies cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), offered some thoughts on whether NFTs (non-fungible tokens) can help artists and other creators make a living selling their work on the internet. Are NFTs just “rat poison squared,” as Warren Buffett calls cryptocurrencies? Well, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s first tweet sold for a reported $2.9 million. It’s complex but navigable. According to Dembski, it might be a way forward. But there are pitfalls. The non-tech part is easy to understand. Just as internet-based subscription services like Substack offer a way for talented writers to make a good living free from censorious mediocrities, so NFTs might help artists market their work in Read More ›

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Crowd of people walking street wearing masks

Critical Lessons From the COVID Crisis — From a Leading Historian

Niall Ferguson sees the economic impact of the COVID shutdown as comparable to fighting World War II — or World War III

Earlier this month, historian Niall Ferguson spoke to COSM 2021 about the real lessons from the strange year and a half of the COVID-19 pandemic. A reader might be forgiven for wondering whether, in the cacophony of conflicting claims, opinions, and prophecies of doom, there are any useful lessons to be learned (other than: Turn off the TV). Ferguson thinks there are indeed lessons — if we compare the recent pandemic and how it was handled with pandemics of the past. In his recent book, Doom: The politics of catastrophe (2021), he argues that “All disasters are in some sense man-made” and that — despite advances in science — we are getting worse, not better, at handling them: Yet in Read More ›

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Flag of China and clock

Gingrich at COSM: China Is the Greatest Threat to Global Freedom

Newt Gingrich fears America will lose to China. George Gilder argues that thinking that way is self-defeating and stupid

At COSM 2021, philosopher of technology George Gilder and political analyst Newt Gingrich sparred over U.S.–China relations. Gilder and Gingrich, a former U.S. Congressman, exemplify the two predominant views on China today. Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and author Gingrich says the U.S. should decouple from China, while economist and author Gilder sees collaboration with China as our best — and only — option. Gingrich: Optimism about a more open China is waning In his opening remarks, Gingrich recalled that he was once an optimist that Chinese reformist leader Deng Xiaoping’s opening up strategy would usher in a more democratic China because Communism was incompatible with a free market economy. But, Gingrich, who has been a history Read More ›

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Ghostwriter In Office. Creative Ghost Writer

Book Review: “Ghost Work” Flops in Economic Understanding

"Ghost workers" are those unseen workers behind artificial intelligence

Here at Mind Matters, we have often covered the way that humans are used to supplement Artificial Intelligence. Artificial intelligence has generally been misunderstood as replacing human effort in society, while, in reality, it is usually leveraging it, instead. Whether using humans to find good training data, mining content for intentionality, or even using humans directly within machine learning algorithms, today’s most prominent “AI” systems are actually strange hybrids of humans and computers. As a matter of fact, the market for human supplementation of AI is so large that Amazon has an entire service built around it. While much of this work is done either for free (oftentimes through games on the Internet) or through traditional paid office work, a growing amount is being done through “microtasks,” through systems Read More ›

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Golden coins and hourglass clock. Return on investment, deposit, growth of income and savings, time is money concept.

Economics As If Time, Not Money, Drives the Bus

Business prof Gale Pooley told COSM 2021 that the information society has vastly increased the goods that our time will buy by increasing and automating knowledge

Brigham Young University business prof Gale Pooley figures that not only does time drive the bus but economics is much easier to understand if we take that fact seriously. That was one key point in his wide-ranging talk at COSM 2021 yesterday, “Knowledge vs. Doom.” As we all struggle with inflation, it’s worth looking at the money we earn simply from the perspective of how much of our time was spent earning it: “Money is time” essentially means that we buy things with money but we really pay for them with our time. Instead of dollars and cents, we can use hours and minutes to price things. We can use “time prices.” As he told the audience, Yale University economist Read More ›

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Laptop with pendrive, sd card, CD and portable hard drive. Concept of data storage

The Physicality Of Data And The Road To Personal Data Ownership

“The Physicality Of Data And The Road To Personal Data Ownership” was originally published by Forbes, July 2, 2021. David Kruger is co-founder and VP of Strategy for Absio Corporation, and a co-inventor of Absio’s Software-defined Distributed Key Cryptography (SDKC). This article is the first in a series on the physicality of data. I’ll follow up with additional installments of this series over the next several weeks, so check back to see those as they become available. All of us tend to conflate the word “data” with the word “information.” Usually, that’s OK, but collapsing data on a computer and information into one thing rather than two separate things makes thinking accurately about data ownership difficult. Here’s why: Information is Read More ›

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Indian ethnicity woman wearing headphones listens educational course studying online

Is Online Learning Poised To Replace Universities?

Perhaps sooner than we think, if present trends continue. A degree may confer only social status — which depends on others’ acceptance

In 2019, freelance writer Allen Farrington wrote an insightful piece, asking a question many have avoided. Does the acceptance of Cancel Culture signal the irretrievable decline of universities? He begins by discussing a short documentary on the Bret Weinstein affair at Evergreen State College in Washington State in 2017. Weinstein, along with his wife Heather Heying, was driven from the campus by angry students because he spoke out against racial exclusion policies. Both were biology teachers with fairly liberal views: No matter how closely you followed the debacle at the time, there is really no substitute for this fascinating glimpse behind the scenes. Evergreen academics can be seen meekly and repeatedly submitting to ideological manipulation, and on a number of Read More ›

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money, piggy bank, finance

Destructing the Creative Destruction Myth

Debunking the argument that the Fortune 100 list is evidence of the productive vitality of capitalism

Joseph Schumpeter argued that capitalist economies are not stagnant and calcified but, instead, by nature a form or method of economic change and not only never is but never can be stationary. Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, 1950 He believed that embedded in capitalism is an engine of change that revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one. This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism. It is what capitalism consists in and what every capitalist concern has got to live in. Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, 1950 Schumpeter was no doubt influenced by Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Darwin had written that the “extinction of old forms is the almost Read More ›

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unicorn

Tech Stocks: Are the Unicorns Losing Their Horns? Their Magic?

Jeffrey Lee Funk and Gary N. Smith reveal at MarketWatch that widely publicized, iconic unicorns have never made money or made only a little

Technology consultant Jeffrey Lee Funk and Pomona business prof Gary N. Smith are not exactly bullish on the new high tech-dependent startups (unicorns) that everybody talks about. Lots of media interest and commentating, sure, but where’s the money? In a recent op-ed at MarketWatch, Funk and Smith warn, “Unicorn losses are unprecedented in the history of U.S. startups and threaten stock markets and the economy.” Not what you heard? Think about this then: The authors, regular contributors at Mind Matters News, point out that many investors and analysts worry about China’s Evergrande Group’s current woes ($300 billion in liabilities). But Evergrand was once profitable. And the Ubers and Airbnbs? They’ve never been profitable and the liabilities are growing: Unicorn losses Read More ›

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Blockchain , cryptocurrencies , bitcoin and distributed ledger technology concept..Block chain , network connect icons and earth furnished by NASA.

Is Bitcoin Just a Flash in the Pan? Peter Thiel Responds

He reveals that PayPal started out as a libertarian project to free money from central control but that proved harder than anticipated

In this fourth and final episode based on his talk at COSM 2019, Peter Thiel — who founded PayPal in part to help break up currency monopolies — offers some thoughts on cryptocurrencies’ future. In the earlier episodes of his discussion at COSM 1919 with philosopher of technology George Gilder, top venture capitalist Peter Thiel offered Three Contrarian Ideas: 1.Big Tech, as it operates today, is communist. 2. Big Tech is also slowing down. And 3. Learning today has almost nothing to do with the so-called educational system. Now, about the future of cryptos: This portion begins at 27:21 min. A partial transcript and notes, Show Notes, and Additional Resources follow. George Gilder: Peter, you started PayPal, in part to Read More ›

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Datenverkehr im Internet im Schneckentempo

Peter Thiel Says, Forget the Hype: Big Tech Is Slowing Down

Second Contrarian Idea: We can see the slowdown clearly if we look past the hype

Philosopher of technology George Gilder revisits world class tech venture capitalist Peter Thiel’s live streamed talk at COSM 2019 in “ The failures and self-hatred of Big Tech.” Ih the first part, Thiel noted that the way Big Tech operates today has more in common with a communist state than with a democracy. His First Contrarian Idea, set out there, is that decentralization is coming. In this part, he talks about his Second Contrarian Idea: If you look at the big picture over the past few years, Big Tech’s progress is slowing. Thiel, the author of Zero to One (2014) will attend COSM 2021 (November 10–12) in person this time, along with Gilder. Note: You can get the best rate Read More ›